Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last sat my 5 year lod 4.5' cali dropped 12 huge eggs but had one retained for the whole day. That night I looked in on her and she was out of the egg box with her tail in the air and the tip of the egg was visable at the vent. I left her alone to do her thing and came back 1/2 hour later expecting to pick up the egg but it was nowhere to be found. The snake no longer had a lump at her vent area but had a lump clear up at mid-body where she usually has lump after a meal. The next day the lump was still in the same place and she did not appear to be trying to to pass anything. I got some good advice from Sasheena but my question is, do cals scarf a sacrificial egg from time to time or do I have psycho snake? From what I did see of the egg at the time, it was nice and white and solid looking, it did not appear to be a slug or anything.

np

I have had this same thing happen to me recently. I have a 5 year old caliking that was bred for the first time this year. She laid 5 eggs in a two day period 15 days after her pre egg laying shed. 3 of the eggs look viable (candled w/ veins). The other two were definitely infertile.
She did retain three of the eggs, but they all moved down to the vent. She laid one and the other two moved down to the vent.
I know she ate it because I witnessed her eating it minutes ago.
If I am lucky she will lay the other two eggs which are probably(almost definitely) infertile too.
If she doesn't lay them I am thinking of aspirating them to get them removed. I tried yesterday to manually extract them, but I think they are too huge for that. I am afraid of turning her inside out, literally.
I do have a question: If I do aspirate the eggs should I do the one closest to the vent first and see if she passes the shell and the remaining egg or should I aspirate both?
Thanks,
-John Lassiter-

I've theorized that sometimes Lampropeltis females eat the whole clutch. This would account for the phenomenon sometimes referred to as "resorbing eggs", where one day a snake seems gravid and then gradually it just seems to get smaller and smaller and "never" lays. I haven't heard of anyone sitting and watching that happen to a whole clutch, but there's anecdotal evidence to support the theory--your experience, for example, and others who have reported seeing the first few eggs of a clutch and the next day discovering not the full clutch but rather no eggs and a female swollen more midbody than in the last third of her length.
terry

It is quite frequent that female kings near ovulation do not successfully ovulate, and ultimately resorb the "eggs". Many people falsly believe their snakes to be gravid when they are near ovulation... they are just as swollen as a gravid females... it's understandable.

This is by far (in my opinion), the most likely explanation vs. the egg clutch consumption idea.... although, I do not imagine that it has never happened before.