Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wondering as to what is the longest time (number of days) that has lapsed between a female's pre-egg lay shed and the acutal day of her laying eggs has been?? It seems the average is somewhere around 30-45 days, but what is the longest anyone has had a female go before she laid a clutch??

Just curious, I have a female at day 30, whom I thought was gravid, but now I'm not so sure. Every now and then she acts gavid by turning inverted and laying on her side and then other times she just cruises the cage and doesn't look "huge and bulging" at all. And she even ate for me last month. She has actually lost about 20g in weight in the last few weeks. Oh well, sometimes it's hard to tell.

One more question, how often has anyone had a female that ate during her gestation period??

Thank you to all that respond! I appreciate the advice and info.

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Michael
KoenigsPythons

Hello Michael,

In our experience, we have had females lay eggs as early as 25 days and as late as 43 days after the POS/Pre-Egg shed.

On an interesting side note... the female that waited the 43 days actually laid one egg on day 29 that she "kicked" out which led me to believe that she was egg bound. After talking with several people I decided to aspirate the egg closest to the cloaca thinking that maybe that egg was the one stuck (based on many experiences with colubrid egg binding.) On day 40 I withdrew about 30 cc's of fluid from that egg and she still didn't lay them. I decided to just wait it out and see. On day 43 she laid 10 eggs... 9 huge ones and 1 smaller one (the one that was aspirated) The aspirated egg is doing just fine, apparently when I inserted the needle I missed the embryo. BUT... the egg that was perfectly good that the female laid on day 29 died about a week after she laid it and "kicked" it out. We will find out this week if the aspirated egg yields a nice size baby. All in all and interesting series of events.

Ok... have you palpated her? I have never had a female feed much past her follicles being about nickel sized. If your female is still feeding, laying "funny" and cool seeking she may be developing follicles still. You may want to try your hand at palpation as that should give you a beter idea of what is going on in there.

Hope this helps...

GOOD LUCK!

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Sean Bradley
Owner : EbN
www.ExoticsByNature.com
www.BallPythonMorphs.com
www.CornSnakeMorphs.com

Thanks for the info and advice Sean.

I palpated her and really didn't feel anything significant, though there's a small chance I did feel a little something, although I'm not really experienced at palpating.

Not sure what to think...guess I'll just have to wait it out and see what, if anything happens. I know I just have to be patient. Guess I'll see within the next month or so.

Thanks again!
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Michael
KoenigsPythons

Dear Michael:

Interesting questions. I make it a rule to offer food to ALL of my gestating and breeding females. I offer smaller meals than normal and fewer animals than normal. The "pre lay shed" can be confusing unless you know the actual ovualation time of your female. Snakes shed for many reasons and sometime s they'll shed near the time we expect a "pre layshed" to occur and it is unrelated to the sbake laying. Track the sheds in conjunction with the actual snake's actual ovualtion and I believe you'll see that the average is around 28-32 days. Hope this helped.

Alan Bosch
Alan Bosch Reptiles