Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have just bought a pair of silver phase red-tailed green rats and the female has just produced 8 eggs! Help! Is incubation similar to corn snake incubation? I've done corn snakes and beardies before but these came as a complete suprise! Can anyone help?

These can be done similar to cornsnake eggs. 1:1 vermiculite to water by weight.

A zoo I correspond with has had most sucess with lower temps for this genus. 78* to 80* on a lower shelf in a reptile room.

Where did you get the snakes from?

Oh yeah, don't be surprised if some or all of the babies come out green. It appears this species is somewhat polymorphic and the color of the adults is not a good predictor of the color of the offspring.

Here's a pic of my gray/silver female. She's shed several times since this picture was taken and it not nearly as orange.

Let me amend that statement re. color. I only know of green females producing polymorphic clutches. I don't know for sure that the silver females have also produced green offspring.

Hopefully you'll get to let all of use know

Coloration of G. oxycephala goes with locality. if you dont have pure animals, then from one litter can be hatched different color babys.

Incubation temp should be 26-30 C but i personally recommend 27 C.
Duration of Incubation with is 95-125, and with temp 27 C /- 105 days. What comes to vermiculit and water, i prefer 1/3 water to weight of vermiculite.

- kert Lipponen
www.hotsnakes.org

Hi Kert,

I have spoken with two different importers of this species. Both have had multiple WC green females from Java produce polymorphic clutches. According to one of the importers both green and grey adults are found in the same area of Java.

This seems to support polymorphism rather that some sort of inter-locality breeding. Also, if it were inter-locality breeding we'd expect some sort of blending of coloration, possibly, rather than clutches consisting of either green or grey specimens.

Regarding temps, I have heard of a lot of problems with spinal kinking and hydrocephaly at higher temps and reported better success at lower temps.

On the other hand, I have a few translated European articles that do recommend the higher temps. So who knows?

Regardless, I hope I can figure this out myself someday.

The friend who had my pair incubated eggs at about 82° but the hatchlings didn't survived.
Unfortunatly mi pair didn't survived to my year in spain, but surely i'll try again with this species and if I ever will have eggs again surely will incubate them at 79-80, no more
regards
nazzza

>>The friend who had my pair incubated eggs at about 82° but the hatchlings didn't survived.

I was just going through my inbox this morning and read some of our old exchanges regarding incubation. I'm very sorry to hear that your pair did not survive and that none of the eggs hatched.

Since we last spoke I lost both my proven breeder female and the male who bred her. This is a frustrating species... fortunately I have more.

Regarding temperatures, I should clarify that most of the reported troubles have ocurred at about 85* F which I believe is just over 29* C.

My suggestion of 78*F to 80*F (which should be 25.5*C to 26.5*C) is just a bit lower than what Kepa wrote. If he's had success at that temperature I would not hesitate to try it.

I hope my math for the conversions is correct. I don't have a calculator available and have been calculating the math on a piece of paper.

-----
1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

Thanks again for all of your helpful advice - I'm going to try and incubate them at 82 - as my incubator was set at 84 for corn eggs so I couldn't drop it too much otherwise my corn eggs might suffer - hopefully I will have success but I will keep you posted.

Hi uromastix,
i'd prefer keep the eggs at 80, 2° aren't so different for corn eggs that are very resistant, but this 2 could do the difference for the oxy eggs.
Chris I'd like see pics of your black janseni, I hope to find a pair of cb hatchlings
regards
nazzza