Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a quick question that I hope can be answered here. I have an adult pair of Pueblans and the female is gravid for the second year. She appears to have 4 eggs inside her (last year she laid 3 eggs and I was not ready for them, they subsequently died). She has been off feed for about 2 weeks, and appears to be getting ready to shed.

So, my questions are as follows:

1. I am planning on using soaked (but only moist) vermiculite in a box for her to lay the eggs. Is this the best substrate/container I can provide?

2. I bought an incubator. Should I use it for the eggs, or will keeping the eggs in the box and in the 29 gallon reptile enclosure suffice?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

Matt

Hi Matt,

There are many different ways to successfully do the same thing. here is what i recommend:

1) use long-fiber sphagnum moss (NOT sphagnum peat) -- submerge it for a few minutes, wring it out by hand, fill the laybox to the top with it loosely piled.

2) if you have a room where temps stay around 80 (maybe your snake room) just incubate on a shelf in that room. that temp is optimal and temps are less likely to vary radically in a big volume (like a room) than in a small volume (like an incubator) if there's a power outage or other mechanical/electrical malfunction.

simplicity works. the pic is in my snake room early in the 2003 laying season: eventually the 24 slots get filled up with egg boxes and more end up stacked on top.

the link right below the photo is to a pic of one of the layboxes after a female laid. USUALLY they burrow under the moss and lay on the bottom of the container; this female crawled around on top of the moss and matted it down and then laid on top of it. Not typical behavior.

peace
terry

snake in laybox with eggs