Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm at a loss. I need some help, if anyone can voice an opinion, that'd be great. Here's the story. I had three females lay this year. I had over 50 eggs that I checked on daily. Fungus hit hard, and I tried to prevent with foot powder. I guess hydration and temperature was messed up or something, but I only got 8 babies hatch. What else sucks, I crossed a creamcicle and an anery, crossed an amel striped with a zig zag anery, and crossed two double hets, and all that came out were normal looking babies! Not only do I suck at incubation, but I suck at genetics too.

I have a herbovator incubator, I believe it's called. I used vermiculite as a substrate. I maintained about 80 degree temperature, and about 80-90% humidity. I opened once a week to put in new water, and half way through I changed out the vermiculite because of the fungus problem. Should I just give up breeding corn snakes and just enjoy them as pets? I need more room too!

Any help anyone can give me would rock. Thanks!

AJ
King Donut Eater
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1.0 Hypo Okeetee - Wesley (Princess Bride)
0.1 Ghost - Sydney (Scream)
2.0 Striped Amel - Jay and Aiden (Kevin Smith movies)
1.0 Snow - Silent Bob (Kevin Smith movies)
0.1 Anery - Columbia (Rocky Horror)
1.0 Creamcicle - Brandon (Mallrats)
0.1 Zig Zag Anery - Pepper (didn't name her)
0.1 Normal - Bindy (Croc. Hunter)
0.1 Motley - Craven (Underworld)

Well I am certainly not the one to inform you because my success rate is zero...but I have gained knowledge from this.
1.The temp sounds good I set the Hovabator at 82
2.The humidity sounds high and that will cause problems.
My sister used Perlite as a medium and had great success. I used moss and switched to vermiculite and it was hard to control the humidity..I am using perlite next year.
3.Crossing colors does not mean that is what you will get..I think the genetics would drive a monk to drink.LOL
There is a progam on line that you can download which will help you determine what you will get. Put Cornsnake Genetics in your search engine and you should find it. I cannot remember what the name is. Hope this helps.
Nancy
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Some of my best friends are snakes
Snakes Rule

Keep trying! Mother Nature has things sussed, and when we try to mimic her, sometimes things go wrong.

Our first clutch has just started to hatch.......we used vermiculite on the bottom and moss on the top, in a small tanks sitting on a heatmat....it seems to have worked....

There is a downloadable prodgeny predictor here

Good luck with future clutches!!!
Mick's Cornsnake Progeny Predictor

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Vicks and Bubbs

0.0.2 baby corn (Smokescreen and Demon - small boys named these two)
0.1 albino corn snake (Doris)
1.0 grey rat snake (Derek)
0.1 brindle pooch (Stella)
1.2 moggies (Sid, Sadie and Puddy)
0.0.5 fish (Bob,Bob,Bob, Long-one and Bob)
2.0 homo sapien monsters (aged 7 and 8)

Well, this is what I did. I soaked sphagnum moss in water then wrung it out as much as possible with my hands. I fluffed it out and laid a few inches of it in a medium sized sterlite container. I drilled about 18 small holes all around the sides. I put the clump of eggs in the middle and put another fluffy layer of moss on top of that. I had a probe next to the eggs. I put the container in the closet and set the room heater to 84. I checked the temps daily but only took the lid off to look at the eggs once a week. I never had any mold problems except for the 2 original duds. Didnt have to change the moss or add water. 13 eggs hatched at 60 days. Ive tried incubating other sp. eggs in perlite and never had any success. Hope this helps.

EP
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Occupants not paying rent:
16 eggs incubating
7 balls
2.2 corns(candy cane, creamsicle, ghost, normal)
1 pueblan milk
1 everglades rat
1 cal. king
1 gray band king
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2 fish
1 rat
1 mouse
5 cats

Running theme of these posts seem to be moss over any other, or at least not vermiculite. Interesting...gonna have to switch I think!

AJ
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1.0 Hypo Okeetee - Wesley (Princess Bride)
0.1 Ghost - Sydney (Scream)
2.0 Striped Amel - Jay and Aiden (Kevin Smith movies)
1.0 Snow - Silent Bob (Kevin Smith movies)
0.1 Anery - Columbia (Rocky Horror)
1.0 Creamcicle - Brandon (Mallrats)
0.1 Zig Zag Anery - Pepper (didn't name her)
0.1 Normal - Bindy (Croc. Hunter)
0.1 Motley - Craven (Underworld)

Well I can certainly sympathize.... This year I bred 2 california kings, 1 blotched king, 1 arizona mountain king, and 3 corns. 1 king had 12 eggs, 9 hatched, 2 molded and died early, 1 was dead in egg full term. 1 king laid 15 eggs, all died at about 10 days of incubation. The blotched king never laid any eggs, and when it seemed obvious she wasn't gravid, I went to introduce the male to her, only to find him dead in his cage. The Arizona Mountain Kings also didn't take, no eggs. All three corns laid eggs, 5, 10, and 21 viable eggs. I got 8 hatchlings altogether, and they ALL had kinks and deformities.

Next year, I will use a no-substrate method, see if that helps. I will use bottled water. I will pay closer attention to temperature and humidity. I will use a different male!

What else sucks, I crossed a creamcicle and an anery, crossed an amel striped with a zig zag anery, and crossed two double hets, and all that came out were normal looking babies! Not only do I suck at incubation, but I suck at genetics too.

The cream/anery cross should have yielded all het amel, het anery, "-sicle" corns.... not pure corn so shouldn't be called corns... I would call them normalsicles het amel het anery.

The Amel striped x zig-zag anery should have yielded up all normals het stripe, possible some zig-zaggyness, but not necessarily. I don't believe that zig-zag is simple recessive, so it's not exactly right to say "het zigzag"

The two double hets, if you crossed them and they were both het for the same traits, you have a 1/4 chance of the hatchlings showing one of the traits, 1/16 chance of a hatchling showing both traits, but with such a small turnout, it's not terribly surprising that your luck ran out.

I wouldn't give up on breeding... I'm not myself... not YET! If I have as bad a year next year as this year, I might just give it up!

But try once more, it's been a bad year for a lot of people. Give it another shot.

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~Sasheena

this is my first year breeding corns. i breed a pair of albinos. i got 13 eggs, i put them in a rubbermaid (maybe sterlite) "show off" container. i did have about 10-15 soldering iron size holes near the top of the container. i put three inches of vermiculite on the bottom and put the eggs ontop of teh vermiculite and covered with moss. i kept teh vermiculite very wet. i dont the teh humidity but i sprayed it every couple days and poured water on teh vermiculite when the the condensation level on the walls of the container was dropping. i used some heat lamps placed on each side of the container fro heat. i think the bulbs are 40 and 20 watts. i used a thermomator to check the temp daily. if it was geting hot i would move the lamps off a little and if it was cool id move them closer till i found a happy medium. i tried to keep the container between 77 and 83 degrees and did a pretty good job of it. of the 13 eggs, 11 hatched, 2 i fried when i first put the lamp to close. i now have a second clutch from teh albino and two clutches from WC great plains rats. all the eggs are doing well. i know i didnt do it "the right way", but the way i did it worked. one more thing, i also kept teh container in a closet where it wasnt very drafty.

mike

Sorry to hear that your hatch rate was down below 20%. It is discouraging but soldier on. This stuff is 60% patience, 30% persistence and 10% skill – remember we are working with Mother Nature in our environment and sometimes we are off a bit.

I have been hatching Corns for two years. I use Herbovators too, and with all clutches of eggs that have been incubated, I have had very good success. Some of the key points are:

1.) I use sphagnum moss. It is a long fluffy moss that is closer to what snakes use in the wild than pearlite or vermiculite. It is sold as dry in compact bags (at least around here in Central Pa.). I soak the dried moss it for 2 hours initially and squeeze out all extra water by hand. Take out the course fibers and fluff the stuff up. This is for both egg box and during incubation. I have never had a problem with mold.

2.) Once the eggs are incubating, every 6-7 days I take off the cover layer and rewet/squeeze it. The eggs are uncovered for about 2-3 minutes- this in not detrimental and aids in fresh air getting around the eggs as prescribed. The rewet sphagnum is squeezed again, fluffed and put back over the eggs. I ensure the eggs are not visible and keep them covered with the moss. I don’t check them until next moss rewetting. Due to the way the Herbovator heats (coil in top of lid), the top of the mound is going to dry out much sooner than the rest. If the egg mass is tall and covering is too thin, it can dry out the eggs on top quickly. I had one clutch that was right under one portion of the coil. I put a piece of aluminum foil loosely over the mound to reduce the direct heat coming off the coil after the first week. The egg covering moss was noticeable wetter at the end of the second week so that was continued the rest of the period. No problems. In fact, the top two eggs pipped 48 hours before the rest, likely due to the higher temperature…

3.) I monitor the temp and humidity with a digital probe. Big Apple has some relatively inexpensive ones that are accurate enough for this purpose. The dial/analogue type will not work well above 70% RH or so. They are a good general monitor but their sensitivity drops on the high end. It is also good to watch the temperature with a bulb type thermometer too – a second check is always good for temp since it is so important.

4.) The bottom layer of moss stays wet enough through incubation with no rewetting. After hatching, it was no wetter than when I put it in.

As noted, these are some of the points that I watch which seems to work for me.

As for the genetics, research a bit more before assuming you end up with 'normal'looking' hatchlings. Try a genetic predictor with different combinations of your breeding adults....
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2.3 Albino Nelsoni Milksnakes
0.1 Snow Corn
0.2 Sunglow Corns
1.1 Albino Motley Corns
0.0.23 '04 hatchlings
0.1 Albino Corns '03
bunch.bunch Bearded Dragons
some Bearded Dragons Cooking
1.3 Albino Leopord Geckos
1.0 Pictus Geckos
1 great wife
2 great boys
0.2 dogs (they're great too!!)