Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If any of you are in the Chicago area when Reptilefest is going on stop by and say hi. I will bring a couple of Borneo's including my huge Sarawak female. Just thought I would get a chance to share info on some other fellow STP keepers....

the was meant to share WITH not ON STP keepers I reserve my opinions on others for myself, LOL!

Hey Rich,
Very nice! Are you incubating maternally or going artificial with this clutch? Also, are you using the no substrate method. I am using the no substrate method right now with a clutch of chondro egg's and a clutch of Sumatran short-tails. Just curious what others are doing. All the best to you Rich!

Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Sorry for the error! that was meant to be "Sumatran Red Bloods" not "Sumatran short-tails.
- Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

I haven't quite tried the "no substrate" method, yet. Right now I use the good old vermiculite mix. Most of the clutch went bad right away. I have one left and we will see what happens. This clutch was laid 25 days after POS so I wonder if she dropped too early. First clutch for her. I have another due in about two weeks that laid for me for the first time last year (somewhat unsuccessfully). I am hoping she does better.

Hey Rich,
Were you able to figure out if the clutch was fertile to begin with? I just looked in on the Red blood egg's and they are starting to go moldy on me too. But, that clutch I had doubts about once I candled them all. I didn't find any embryonic signs nor veining while candling; that is the first tale tell sign of an infertile clutch. So I guess it is back to the drawing board. I am using the no substrate method, and it would work great provided that I start out with a fertile clutch first. LOL! Alright, all the best to you. And thanks for the update.
-- Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

What causes them to be infertile, is it not cooling them down long enough so everything developes correctly in the female, or is it the males little guys just don't make it where they need to go?Not much thought into this question or terms just not enough time to research anything right now. Thanks, ethan

There were some that were definitely infertile, but some were fertile. One left and it appeared to have veining. The eggs were difficult to candle and hard to see through their shells.
I don't know what that was about.

I have had that happen before also. My remedy was to use an old slide projector as an illumination source. Care must be taken however, with a light source this intense. The eggs should only be candled for 2 or 3 seconds at most. It works better than anything else I have used.

Kelly

Hey Rich,
I find that the best time to candle any clutch is during the first 24-48 hours after deposition. It is at this time that any veining and any signs of embryonic life is most visible. If there is no sign of either of these things during candling at this time, then there is no life in the egg or eggs. It is quite clear during the first day or two, and apparent that where there is no sign of life there is no way of injecting life into the egg. Unfortunately, this has been the case for me this year with a couple of clutches.

I have one small clutch of eggs this year of Chondros that are due to hatch out this weekend sometime. They are easy to candle, and veining and embryonic evidence can be seen with the naked eye, using a small Mag-lite.

As for the larger Borneo and Red Blood eggs, they are not any different in terms of candling them, despite their larger size. One can easily see whether there is any life in the egg using a small Mag-lite, with the room lights turned off. An infertile egg, usually show signs of large amounts of yellowish clear fluid through the shell of the egg with no signs of veining or embryo being evident. Within a few days -- usually 5-10 days, the eggs will start to show signs of furry mold growth development around the outer shell, this despite the white shells and an otherwise normal looking shell too.

- Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

I did candle the eggs as I placed in the incubator using a maglite. It is funny you should mention that...I love my Maglite! I observed some veining in some eggs. The ones I observed molded and died relatively fast (within 7-10days). A couple others died later with the usual technocolor mold. The last one has not molded, but I suspect may be dead when you look at the underside. Last year I had similar looking eggs and all were fully developed, but dead embryos. I pipped one egg that was alive, but died two weeks later. All the babies had varying degress of pattern loss. One egg had fully developed twins. It was a strange clutch. That dame is due to lay in about two weeks. So hopefully she produces viable eggs and hopefully the offspring hatch looking like those from last year. Time will tell... The pic below is one I have shown before from the lone survivor of last year's doomed clutch.

Hey Rich,
Yeah! I love my Mag-Lite too, it does the job well. As for the clutches dying off early, the specific factors surrouding the early demise of some clutches, is not quite clear. But Greg Maxwell, of "FineGTP's", made a very good point of pointing out that some clutches start out weak (suggesting compromised immune function) from the beginning and never quite recover during the incubation period. What ever the cause, there is still no solid evidence or proof, but lots of speculation. Albeit, his theory does make lots of sense though.

Premature laying could be a factor (as you suggested which could lead to weaker shelling), or even infectious agents passed on during laying of eggs, to the embryo, despite it being encased in a protective shell and sterile (germ-fighting) amniotic fluid.
-Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Hey Ethan,
At this time I am baffled by the truth to the problem or its cause. I am only speculating or hypothesizing, that the cause is more likely one of insufficient cooling. As with people, male sperm cannot be or is not strong if the male genitalia, is kept too warm. I suspect that this too might be the cause for males producing either insufficient numbers of sperm or weak ones at that. Albeit, this is purely hypothetical, but at the same time a plausible one.

However, I've had two males reproduce for me this year, with the exact same outcome in both circumstances. One female Sumatran Red Blood, deposited 12 infertile eggs and the other a Borneo Short-tail, also, produced 12 infertile eggs. Temperatures were maintained in the high eighties with a gradient of 90 under the heat source and a graduated cooler side in the upper 70's in both cages. I suspect too, that males might require longer cooling periods than do females prior to introduction to breeding.

- Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Sounds like a good answer or reason why to me.Its just weird hearing all these infertile eggs.I'm going to be all over these different problems this year and learn as much info, for this winter coming I should have some snakes ready to breed for me.Thanks talk to you later, Ethan

Angel,
From what I have seen in the past I would totally agree with you. I believe that a large percent of the infertile clutches laid each year are the result of temperatures within the enclosures being excessively high for viable sperm formation. Low temps can also cause non-viability, but this is probably not near as common. Additionally, fertilized females can also lay an entire clutch of infertile eggs if they are kept at temperatures that are too high. Although this is probably relatively uncommon also. When it comes to losses of fertile eggs with advanced embryonic development, incubators are probably the cause in many cases when using digital thermometers to monitor temperature. Many thermocouples are known to have accuracy problems, and they should be checked first with an NIST traceable, laboratory mercury thermometer. These are extremely accurate, and can be obtained with an accuracy of within a quarter of a degree centigrade of the true temperature. The sell for around $50 to $75, but are well worth it.

Kelly

Hey Kelly,
I don't disagree, that great equipment should be part of anyones arsenal of tools, for monitoring and maintaining a viable clutch and for potentiating life within a clutch. This year has been a highly unusual one without a doubt, and one that can be taken with a grain of salt, however bad it's been. But, all that aside, I think that there are always mitigating circumstances that are beyond what we can do to prevent what is inevitable. My incubator runs right on the money, with very little variables in temparatures and or humidity, and is monitored using a Lab grade thermometer, and temperature contoller made by Helix. I use a Helix basic for maintaining temperatures in the egg box, and the incubator proper. The lab grade thermometer is an indespensible tool, grant you, and one that I will not be without for monitoring temperatures and calibrating other devises used to gauge temps.

As for the Thermocouple devise, I feel that they too, have their place, but are not always necessary for monitoring temps or regulating temperatures within the incubator (the Helix and other devises are used to measure incubator temps). I will however, at some later time, purchase one as they are NIST calibrated or certified, and work wonderful in such environments. They are without a doubt a great tool for monitoring core temperatures within the coils of maternally brooding females, such as chondros and other pythons, like Short-tails and Bloods.

The Atkin thermocouple, is one company that I've been contemplating purchasing one for sometime. Maybe sometime next year, when other females start to drop egg's. Hopefully, viable ones.

- Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Angel,
Outstanding incubator design, one of the best I've ever seen. Did you construct it yourself? I agree, the incubator or temperature had nothing to do with your situation. In the case of your eggs, they were found to be infertile when deposited. In this case, the incubation temperature obviously had nothing to do with the infertility you experienced. The incubation temperature is only a possible issue in egg loss when developing embryos die during the incubation period, specifically in the later stages.
My point on thermocouples was that some of them, but not all, have inherent precision issues and can cause problems when used with a thermostat to control the incubator temperature. If anyone were to setup a highly monitored system like you have, however, they would know very quickly if that were the case. Thanks for posting the photo of your setup.

Kelly

Hey Kelly,
Thanks for the kind words. I did develop, design, and construct the incubator about 2 years ago, when one of my Chondros became gravid. The design was one that I dreamt up, and put down on paper and went to work on right away. Building it was the easy part so to speak, although, there was quite a lot of research that went into the parts and then procuring the parts. At any rate, it works great, and gets the job done. I can fully understand what you are saying in regards to the thermocouple devices. I personally have not had any experience using one, but will pick one up in the near future, as I think that they are a fine addition to ones arsenal of tools for measuring temps.

On the flip side, the egg's did unfortunately, start out dry, as in infertile, so that of course put a real damper on the project for this year. I am hoping to get another male Black Blood soon, from one of my contacts. They are quite hard to find these days with all the respectful qualities that we all look for in a Sumatran short-tail; very black with black heads. That is if you're into that kind of thing. LOL! Anyhow, thanks for the compliment and I'll definately keep you posted of any progress with any other females dropping eggs for me this year. You sound quite knowledgeable your self! and I appreciate your input.

P.S. What are you keeping in terms of bloods and short-tails etc?

- Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Angel,
I definitely agree with you that nice looking Sumatran short-tails are difficult to find. I have never kept any but I do think the really dark black individuals have an interesting look to them. A friend had a small collection of blood pythons back in the late 70's and early 80's. They were all imports, as captive breeding of them in the U.S. at that time was almost unheard of. I was hooked on them immediately. I have never kept breitensteini or curtus, but have maintained numbers of brongersmai since 1984. I have also experienced infertility on a few of occasions, and from what I can determine, there is a highly probable link to incorrect temperatures during breeding. Additionally, I believe that low fat reserves with the female, can also cause problems. Good luck with your other females, I would be interested to hear how they do.

Kelly

Hey Kelly,
Thanks for the update. I agree with your statement, regarding fat reserves and high temperatures during breeding. Those are all factors that I'll be paying closer attention to, come next seasons breeding season.

-Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Hey Kelly,
Here is my incbuator set up. You can see the Mercury lab grade thermometer in the foreground of the incubator, on the top shelf. Helix thermo-controller on the left side of incubator with the digital probe resting on the surface of the eggs, to maintain accurate egg surface temperatures. Humidity is maintained and regulated using 2 white trays, filled half way with water. Humidity is maintained at a RH=80-88 %. Digital thermometers are used to gauge various egg containers as well as the incubator proper. All temperature measuring devices, are calibrated against the Mercury grade lab thermometer, and any deviations are factored and recorded.

- Angel

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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

Nice incubator. Did you fabricate that or purchase it? Details would be nice on either source.

Thanks!

Thanks Rich!

That is a personal design! I designed and made the prototype, which is the one pictured about 2 years ago. I haven't decided yet, what if anything I'll do with the plans for it, as I am contemplating the market for it. We'll see what gives. It was spun out of necessity and the need for an affordable and visible incubator that can hold temperatures and humidity, well within the needs of Chondro-eggs and others and can meet my standards etc.

The Igloo designs are great for what they can do, and they do a wonderful job of incubating egg's, but, I just wanted something else for an incubator, but I didn't want to pay the hefty price tag for one of the more reliable incubators on the market.

- Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

I have had some of the same problems. This year I bred 4 Borneos, and out of that 2 clutches were good and two bad. All the females were kept at same temps, same room, same level in room, and the same male. The first clutch was good, 2ed & 3ed were bad, and 4th was good. I wondered if I should have used another one of my males, but I was going for a certain look. I bred 4 Bloods and only two of them took. The two that took were at least the ones I really wanted the most, now I am just waiting to see how those eggs turn out. This is the first year that I have ever had a whole clutch go bad. I have had a few bad eggs in a clutch but never the whole clutch. On a good note, this was my first year to really try breeding boas and I at least have some great gravid boas. I will not count on anything until I see babies in hand. Next year I will rest the Borneos and Bloods that I bred or tried to breed this year. I have some great new Borneos and Bloods that I will breed next year, and each female will have her own male for a change. Being a real blood person, I blamed myself for the bad clutches. I figured I spent to much time with the boas, and not enough with my bloods, lol. I learned a lot of new things this year and am very thankful for the good things that did come my way. Babies are a great treat for me, but owning and enjoying what I already have is also a great treat for me as well. Sorry for the long post Best of luck to you all... Jody