Reptile & Amphibian Forums

in every sense of the word. just got ANOTHER pair of eggs from my LTC female last night. that brings the total # of henk eggs im waiting on to 8 right now, a total of 10 have been laid this season, with that first cracked pair going bad. i think i can actually tell the difference between my females' eggs now. my LTC female always has pearly white ones, and my newer female LTC (LTC outside of my care) rolls hers around in the dirt more so they always come out dirtier looking. so it seems as though she's actually been laying eggs for me since the beginning, and my other female just takes a good while inbetween clutches. cannot complain one bit! cept for the fact im gonna have to think about removing my male for a while soon.

just found yet another clutch from them.

what in the world am i gonna do when all of these hatch out?!

I can think of something.

Email me for my address and ill let you know ;D
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-Jeff
My Photo Gallery

haha how did i know to expect responses like that?

im sure im giving eve a run for her money nowadays with her "egg" words.

keep em comin!

well, i got an email from someone who wanted to know my tricks, so i figured i would share it with everyone, even though im sure ive revealed these bits and pieces over time. they're really not secrets or anything. but here goes my reply. hope it helps some of you, but dont think that this is the ONLY way or the RIGHT way to do it, just how i do it.

well, i dont know if its the substrate alone thats doing it for me. i've tried a lot of stuff over the past 2 years. anyway, ill do my best to describe my most successful enclosure. it's a 30 gal long. it's furnished with a small ficus tree, some pothos which has crept its way around the tank, and theres also some dried vines for them to climb around on. at the far end of the tank, i have two short pieces of cork bark wedged together to make a fake kinda tree trunk, then theres peat moss packed behind it to the top of the bark slabs. the substrate across the entire tank is peat moss. in all honesty i have meant to try the whole drainage thing with my tanks, but i never have. theres also some dried fiber moss near the ficus, but ive never seen any of the females take interest in it, nor have i found any eggs near it. i've also got some orchid bark chips around the middle of the tank, that kinda run in a strip from front to back. over these wood chips i placed some dried oak leaves and since then i have recovered 2 clutches from nearly the same spot. the first clutch was laid up against the fake stump. i pack dried fiber moss in where the "stump" meets the glass. this helps keep the peat moss from washing out over time with the waterings/sprayings. apart from that, i feed my gex 2-3 times a week, usually dusted crickets, and i let them free roam. ive also got some small land snails that i put in there around march. within the last month i added some pill bugs. the tank has 3 males and 3 females, and i have viewed each of the males mating. the down side is i have actually seen aggression between the males, although its rare. once in a while one of the males will have a bite mark, but i simply put some neosporin over it and let it heal, keeping a close eye on them if possible to make sure the aggression doesnt go too far. thats about all i can think of.

throw up a picture so we can see it.

lol. And I've seen it many a times on kingsnake.

BTW, send me some oakleaves.

Jason

yea man, i keep forgetting to mention all this stuff to you. i was gonna wait until the next time i go home so i can pick up a good number of land snails too. when i was just putting together that tank for all my hatchlings last night there were oak leaves everywhere and that reminded me of this. i might even be able to convince my mom to dig up some snails for me, since she gardens all the time and is always out in the yard. that will save a lot of time cuz i dont know when ill get home next. im sooo bad with actually sending stuff off to people. my apologies.

You can use any kind of leaves of anything that offers some cover(moss) in you cages as a breeding medium. The key is to keep the the majority of the bottom of your cage clear and only offer 1 or 2 places for egg laying. If you offer leaves you can be certain about her laying in them and don't have to worry about them burying eggs.
-Matt

well the reason jason requested oak leaves from me, along with the reason i used them to begin with, is because at one point he let me know that they resist molding.

I actually use leaves from a tree outside my apartment without many problems until its been a few weeks. After that, they fall to pieces and are loaded with mold and fungus. So given that and how many monitors lizards I used to keep, I remember how well Oak leaves were resistant to mold and how great they were for odor fighting. Trust Mangrove monitor feces is worse than diarrhea. Its bad, especially if they eat eggs too. And that stuff was able to hide it nicely.

Jason

I have been using maple leaves and they too decompose rather rapidly. I have several oak trees right near my house maybe I'll try them and see how they work out. Thanks for the info.
-Matt

Thanks for the info!
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-Jeff
My Photo Gallery

It looks like you may have our own "Neil Meister" in the USA before long.
-Matt

haha, id love recognition like he has. but i dont think i have nearly the number of species he does, and all that good stuff. gimme time though, and hopefully ill beat out the other aspiring meisters around here.