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My albino striped Cal king is roughly 2-3 years old. She is not huge but large enough to reproduce. But, I think she is having problems. Since last night she has only laid 2 eggs. One last night and one late this afternoon. I can tell there is one more inside her. It has been over 24 hours since she started. What should I do to get that last egg out of her?
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1.0 snow corn snake '02
0.1 butter corn snake '02
0.1 hi-red corn snake '02
0.1 CB KY locality corn snake '02
1.1 Texas Baird's rat snake '00
0.1 black rat snake '03
0.1 albino radiated rat snake '03
1.1 tri-color hognose snake '03
1.0 gray banded king snake '03
1.1 albino striped Cal king snake '01
1.0 black king snake '01
1.1 black milk snake '01&'02
1.0 pueblan milk snake '03
1.0 African house snake '03

Trace,

I'm going to give you all the help i can, but first THIS NOTE FOR EVERYONE:

1) READ SOME OF THE FORUM BEFORE POPPING YOUR QUESTIONS UP HERE! your question may have been asked here (or on the closely related milksnake forum--both are Lampropeltis) just in the past week or so, as this one was.

2) PROVIDE MORE DETAILS WHEN YOU ASK A QUESTION. this was also pointed out in the past week, in fact regarding an almost identical question.

Now, if I haven't turned you off, let's move on to the info you want, Trace:

Your question can't be answered without more information: The critical information is when your female shed. Here's why: Females often lay a few eggs (usually, but not always, they're not good ones) very shortly after their shed. I've had a female lay a few the day she shed, this year, and another female lay a few 3 days after her shed. GOOD eggs, good clutches, usually are laid 8-10 days after the shed.

So if your female shed five days ago and laid a couple eggs yesterday, you have no emergency to contend with--you just continue waiting and hoping SHE waits and deposits most of her eggs 8-10 days after she shed. IF she shed ten days ago, then you want to follow some of the tips that follow (but please take this opportunity to realize that this takes time to present for you, and it is a little frustrating that the same info was presented here just a week or two ago. It always is a good idea to read back into the forums a bit, even just scanning the subject lines, before posting a question)

First, trace, when she crawls thru your hands can you feel and count how many eggs she still has? Or can you see the lumps and count them? Are any of them down very near the cloaca? Just trying to get you to review the circumstances.

Next, if it's only been 8-10 days, and she's not showing any symptoms of distress--writhing around, contorting her body in unusual ways, crawling rapidly around the cage but not going into the laybox, etc., or if she's bleeding, or if there's a huge lump just above her cloaca, as if things are jammed there--ok, if she's NOT showing any of those signs of distress, then just relax a little: Although eggs are usually laid together, these are animals we are dealing with and they exhibit all the individuality humans exhibit! So your best strategy is just to wait some more--maybe 3, 4 days. She may trickle the eggs out one or two at a time. She may wait and lay them all at once. But--i had this conversation with my vet yesterday, in fact--there's probably little that can go wrong while you wait to see if she's gonna lay on her own.

Next step: If she hasn't laid after 14-15 days post-shed, and you conclude you want to intervene (some people wait til 20; that makes me too nervous) you can try "expressing" the egg--you gently but firmly push against the egg nearest the cloaca, applying pressure from directly under the belly (you're between the ribs there, so won't hurt them) TOWARD the cloaca. Most females tighten up at that point, and the egg doesn't move. Sustain the pressure. Most females relax and the egg will slowly slide toward the cloaca, the end of it will appear at the opening, and after continued pressure it'll slide out. Usually these eggs are no good; you can rinse them off in lukewarm water and incubate them though, just in case.

NOTE: Be SURE (i know, capitalization annoying, but emphasis required!) be SURE what you see at the cloaca is egg surface and not tissue wrapped over the surface of an egg. Sometimes the cloaca gets wrapped around the egg, preventing it from depositi9on, and if you push it out or--as is a reasonable tactic also--grab the end with, say, tweezers or needle nose pliers to pull the egg out, if you're grabbing that delicate oviduct tissue instead, you'll do considerable harm. So as you're expressing the egg, make sure it's egg that's exposed at the cloaca, not egg-in-tissue.

Alternative next step: Some people "aspirate" the egg that seems to be blocking successful deposition of the clutch: You stick a large-gauge needle thru the side of the snake and into the egg, and by pulling back on the syringe you suck out the contents of the egg. The snake may be able to pass the smaller, compressed egg.

Alternative next step: A vet (or individual herper with adequate experience) can inject calcium, which i believe strengthens a snake which may have muscular exhaustion from unsuccessful efforts to lay, followed after several hours by an injection of oxytocin, which is believed to be able to stimulate egg deposition. Each vet is going to have somewhat different instructions for the dosages and timing of administration of these treatments.

Next step: You can try to express the eggs one-by-one in this method until all are moved.

NOTE: Sometimes eggs "adhere" to the oviduct. When you apply pressure, they move toward the cloaca, and when you release pressure, they "spring back" to their original position. This can mean the egg is adhered to the oviduct, which is stretching along with the egg, down the snake's body, as you push, but returning to its regular shape and position when you let go. In this case, it's probably not prudent to persist and your snake may need surgery.

Next step: Find a vet who can do surgery to remove the eggs.

The bad news: You're not likely to get babies from the eggs that are removed: I've never been able to make that happen. And the surgery can be costly, up to many times the cost of a single snake.

The good news: It can save the snake 's life. And almost all the snakes i've had over the years that required surgery have gone on to lay successfully in subsequent years. (snakes have two oviducts; perhaps the next year their bodies know to use the one that wasn't affected the year before, but that's conjecture.)

Trace, I hope that helps you. Good luck with your snake. When you've put that crisis behind you--or maybe now, while you're waiting those 3-4 days to see what happens with her--take a couple hours and read back in this forum, pick out hte topics that interest you, explore through some of the threads. There's a lot here that others have contributed that is interesting and more important, very useful.

peace
terry
albino tricolors

>>My albino striped Cal king is roughly 2-3 years old. She is not huge but large enough to reproduce. But, I think she is having problems. Since last night she has only laid 2 eggs. One last night and one late this afternoon. I can tell there is one more inside her. It has been over 24 hours since she started. What should I do to get that last egg out of her?

Great post Terry! I wish this could be a sticky so that we could just refer others to this. To bad this forum format does not provide this function.

I guarantee you that once your new air conditioner is put in the house your snake will lay. It is entirely way too hot for them in there right now. I know from my experience while working at FWZ that while the AC was broken in the building we had problems with some of the snakes as far as them laying their eggs.

If your AC does not get fixed within a few days I'd move those eggs to an area that is a bit cooler. I did tell you I noticed banding in one egg which is good, but just as a precaution get them thing to a cooler area. Colubrid eggs do not take high temps to incubate them.

Like the gentleman said read up on your posts. A lot of these questions have been brought up many times before.
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14 Leopard Geckos 5.9.0
Leo egg no good...da## it!
2 Tokay Geckos 2.0.0
1 Graybanded Kingsnake 1.0.0 (on vacation in my house)
1 Baird's Rat Snake (Thanks Vadoni!) 1.0.0
1 Gray Ratsnake 0.0.1
2 Dekay's Snake 0.0.2
1.0 Ambystoma tigrinum nebulosum
1.1 Green Tree Frogs (H. cinerea)
0.0.2 Gray Tree Frog (H versicolor)

Read through Trace's post twice, didn't see mention of an AC failure, however my post just beneath this one has to do with an AC failure, distressed eggs, and a female who is today on DAY 14 since shedding. I have always tried to give as much info as possible when asking questions of course... probably TOO MUCH info.

We've had the AC back since Wednesday, but she STILL hasn't laid her eggs. (Well she could be AT IT right now) hopefully. She's so huge though, it's impossible to fathom the size and quantity of eggs she must be carrying! She's an older snake though, quite large in fact, so I'm sure she can carry a good sized clutch.

The twelve eggs originally laid by my other cal king now has two definately dead eggs, and three more questionables. I can only hope that the ones that were always destined to hatch do so and that the ones that don't hatch were never destined to do so. The hardest part is thinking that the dying eggs might be my own fault.

Hopefully I'll be back here soon with pics of the newest clutch, if she will EVER lay the darn things!
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~Sasheena

Justin,
According to my Ranco thermometer it's only 85 in my rack. I think snakes from the CA deserts could handle that. It has been 17 days since her last shed. She began laying on day 14. Yesterday, I pushed the egg from about midbody firmly down to her vent. It would not go any farther, her vent didn't gap or anything. I went ahead and left her alone thinking she would be able to push it out the rest of the way. When I checked on her later that day the egg had moved right back up to midbody. What should I do? Also, I have skimmed through other topics on this and the milksnake forum with no avail.
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1.0 snow corn snake '02
0.1 butter corn snake '02
0.1 hi-red corn snake '02
0.1 CB KY locality corn snake '02
1.1 Texas Baird's rat snake '00
0.1 black rat snake '03
1.1 Het for albino and albino radiated rat snake '02&'03
1.1 tri-color hognose snake '03
1.1 albino striped Cal king snake '01
1.0 black king snake '01
1.1 black milk snake '01&'02
1.1 pueblan milk snake '03
1.1 African house snake '03

>>Justin,
>>According to my Ranco thermometer it's only 85 in my rack. I think snakes from the CA deserts could handle that. It has been 17 days since her last shed. She began laying on day 14. Yesterday, I pushed the egg from about midbody firmly down to her vent. It would not go any farther, her vent didn't gap or anything. I went ahead and left her alone thinking she would be able to push it out the rest of the way. When I checked on her later that day the egg had moved right back up to midbody. What should I do? Also, I have skimmed through other topics on this and the milksnake forum with no avail.

i know my other post was unbearably long, sorry! but as noted there, when you "move" the egg and it later retreats to where it was, you may have an egg adhered to the oviduct...you push, the oviduct stretches, the egg seems to move, but when you let go the oviduct contracts to its original dimensions and takes the egg with it, back to the original position. Someone else may have another home tdreatment for that, but i don't, sorry, that would be the point i'd either administer calcium, followed by oxytocin (and i'd have very small expectation of success with that, under the circumkstances) or i'd take her in for exam (expecting surgery). good luck.

terry