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This is "Patience" who I should rename to "Pickie" since she has very particular preferences especially in nest boxes. Every time I move her box over, she would flip it around and get behind it. Anyhow, it didn't stop her from laying her eggs.

She was still at it at the time of this picture. Photo taken around 10:45pm CDT. I figured she was due starting Monday, but this was better. I peeked around to see and all eggs look good at this point. I "tweeked" my husbandry this year a bit to see if it had any effect. Looks good so far. Lets see what happens in 60 or so days.

Enjoy!

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Hey Rich,
What a joy to come home to that. I love it! congratulations and may you have a fine hatch this year. Care to share your tweeking changes?
-Angel
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"Until we lose our self, there is no way of finding our self."
-Henry Miller.

In prior years, I introduced the male intermittently instead of keeping him in over extended periods as I did this year. I kept him in until I noticed the female to begin basking when he wouldn't.

Also, I kept her leaner than in past years. She had good shape, but just less of a blob. Sounds rough, but I have weights and estimated length and she was lighter per length that before.

This year I provided a second heat tape. The cage used is a Vision 422. I have one 2ftx11" heat tape running the length near the water and another 1ftx11" heat tape on the opposite side under the hide box. Both were left at around 50% power versus the 75% normally. The ambient was around 75F instead of 82F.

Many of these details sound like the basic recipe, but in practice it is difficult to keep them consistant. In past years, I kept my herp room too warm. This year I backed off considerably on the heating and dropped temps down 5-10F. Not only did it help my girls "feel" the seasonal difference, it helped keep my gas and electric bills down...A plus here in the Midwest!
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Support your local herp society
www.chicagoherp.org

Looks like your new recipe for cooling is working out.Looks like a nice number of eggs also.Are you pulling them to incubate them artificially or letting her take care of the eggs.Best of luck, and lets see some hatching pics when it happens.Later, Ethan

The final count was 24 healthy eggs.

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Support your local herp society
www.chicagoherp.org

n/p

Rich I'm loving that incubator! So simple but looks like it works great... just a cooler with a plexi top and some 3 in heat tape? If you have any more specifics I'd love to see, that looks right up my alley!
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

Wow, she looks great and so do her eggs. Very cool incubator you have there also. Best of luck, and thanks for sharing the pictures. I love seeing a nice healthy snake sitting on a pretty clutch of eggs......... jody