Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I got the WORST Freak'n Luck!!

My Goini X Brooksi eggs started hatching 2dayz ago... one on Sunday, three yesterday... now today HEAT WAVE & My AC blows... i didn't really think to move the eggs when i left this morning cuz i left the AC on... i get back home, AC's off and i got 2 snakes completely out of their eggs dead one egg that was a bit shriveled, the others look normal... i decided to slit them only to find four more snakes dead... and two more alive... all fully developed!!!

so out of an original 12 eggs... i now have 6 babies... one of which "acts" really funny (i.e. very sluggish, no "tongue action" and she doesn't feel firm like the others)...

~ZF

I hope everyone else is OK. Makes me think about backup systems again. I better do something before I get burned as well.

Sorry about your loss, it sucks.

That really sucks, sorry to hear about it. Tom Stevens

.

.

Sorry to hear that Zenny. I really know the feeling and you just gotta remember it could have been worse. Good luck with whats left. I hope you don't have to but, you may need to kull out the slow one. I don't know the info needed to make the leap to doing it but you do. I am really sorry to hear about this.
Good Luck
Jason

Hey Jason... I assume you meant I had to kill the slow one (not kull) so how would I go about doing such a thing? the snake moves, eyes dilate when I flashed light into them, breathing regularly... jut isn't as responsive to touch as the others and I haven't seen her tongue once since she'd been out the eggs

it's a nice looking snake (black with orange blotches) so I had some hope... she's actually moving more now that she was yesterday...

but send me the info or send me a link to the info

here's the questionable one... hope she pulls out... if not I'll just cry again

On another note the Mystery male got a meal out of my loss, I hope he starts feeding on pinkies after this.

~ZF

Sorry to hear that Zenny. I really know the feeling and you just gotta remember it could have been worse. Good luck with whats left. I hope you don't have to but, you may need to kull out the slow one. I don't know the info needed to make the leap to doing it but you do. I am really sorry to hear about this.
Good Luck
Jason

Hey Zenny,
I did mean kull as in to kill off the weak animals or deformed animals that might otherwise live. Ofcourse I might be thinking of a differant word that means the same but is spelled completely differantly LOL. Anyways the idea behind the statement was that you don't want a brain damaged animal I would assume and you shouldn't sell it so you kinda run out of options. And if you spell kill in a differant way it doesn't seem so bad I guess. As far as how to do it. Well that would be up to you. Freeze, feed dry ice fumes.
Pick your method or maybe start a thread on it to get some ideas. Just exspect some cruel responses. Oh yeah and my spelling sucks.
Later Jason
P.s. Killer looking snake. Maybe give it some time????

Hey I don't know if it will make you feel any better but I got some good eggs out of the second ????? female. Made me feel better but now I can't sleep waiting for her to finish laying
Later Jason

Looking Forward to seeing the hatchlings... let me know how many eggs you have for that female

~ZF

Kinda Funny I got six eggs again and one looks kinda like its gonna go bad like the other clutch. Hopefully I won't kill one of the eggs like the first clutch to make it the same all the way around.
Later Jason

I think you're looking for cull: anything picked out and set aside as inferior. And it does sound better.
Todd Hughes, wordsmith, LOL!

AH HA there it is So I am only half stupid. Right word wrong spelling. Anything over three letters gets tricky LOL
Later Jason

~ZF

Damn dude, that really sucks man. Sorry to hear about that. I'd just keep the questionable one for a week or so and see if it gets better. Have you tried feeding it yet?

Especially that nice one you have a pic of. Absolutely beautiful. Did you get any similar to it? If it makes you feel any better I have been having terrible luck as well. I must have dumped 500 bad eggs so far. Had 6 females not lay. One female eaten by her mate while gravid. Most of all the rest of my females only single clutched and I had several mysterious deaths of long time projects (just today a large GRAVID female albino Limburg rosy suddenly died )I am getting used to the tragedies. Just roll with the punches and hope for a better year next year. There have at least been several good posts on nesting and brumation and incubation that will help us all for future projects.

After a bad experience like that I still take pics of what was "lost" (ie DEAD) for future reference. You would be surprised how useful it will be in the future.

The Majority of um came out banded and blotched... that one was the only really aberrant hatchling... they were a nice orange color... a few black and white/cream/yellow?

I do have one that successfully hatched out that has a partial orange stripe...

I took pix of the dead hatchlings and I gotta say I'm really disappointed they were some really super looking snakes...

Any way I can't hold it over my head... nothing more I can do

Thanx alot

~ZF

check out the orange one at the top and the blotched at the bottom :

Especially that nice one you have a pic of. Absolutely beautiful. Did you get any similar to it? If it makes you feel any better I have been having terrible luck as well. I must have dumped 500 bad eggs so far. Had 6 females not lay. One female eaten by her mate while gravid. Most of all the rest of my females only single clutched and I had several mysterious deaths of long time projects (just today a large GRAVID female albino Limburg rosy suddenly died )I am getting used to the tragedies. Just roll with the punches and hope for a better year next year. There have at least been several good posts on nesting and brumation and incubation that will help us all for future projects.

After a bad experience like that I still take pics of what was "lost" (ie DEAD) for future reference. You would be surprised how useful it will be in the future.

Damn, that's a shame! But you're right, don't hold on to it, make some more next year and we all learned something. Thanks for sharing your experiences, good and bad.
Todd Hughes

Thanx man... the next time this cross is gonna happen is in `07 (unless the goini male can't do his job)...every thing i produce next season will be pure

now it's back to the drawing board...literally!

~ZF

Whoa 500 bad eggs this year or the last few 10-20 years??? And all the other stuff too. Can't all be this year, ....I hope
Jason

It makes me sick to think about it but realistically it was closer to 250 eggs. Just a whole lotta bad sperm or gay males. blankitti-blank-blank

Yeah but just this year or a couple years or what
Later Jason

Juz this year. Normally I am pretty successful. Always have been. This year I did some things different during brumation. Big mistake.

hey rainer-
what is your usual brumation routine, and what did you do different this year?
daveb

I usually put them down in dec and keep the heat tape on low for them to thermoregulate and then put them together in March. I do this right out of brumatiuon with no food. I feed the females as soon as they hook up. I have had better results than most everyone as I always hear of all the bad eggs and bad years from other breeders. The room they are in is not heated so it gets down to the 30's in our coldest month (feb) and naturally warms up in March where I live. I usually always have successful double triple clutches with fairly high fertility.

This year I decided to do things the way most other breeders do them being.. I heat them up mid febuary. I used no heat tape during the cold months. I warmeed them upfor a wekk and then fed them like crazy. I hoped this would make them breedd a little earlier and I would have earlier clutches this year. Instead it was later than normal and I wasted a bunch of food until trhey bred in early MAy. Then the first clucthes are mostly bad eggs (could be from the males sitting on the heat since feb) with some clutches being all bad and others only having 2-3 good eggs and 10-15 bad ones. Second clutches were worse with most all bad eggs. Some females did not breed at all. I also had many that were egg bound that are still retaining eggs and that eliminated the cahnces of second or third clucthes.

In the past I used the weather outside as an indicator to brumate and bring them up. It gets very cold in the snake room so I allowed them the heat tape to thermoregulate which thay always choose the cold side anyway.I was always late bringing them up but they bred right out of brumation with no food or real warming up period.. SO cooling them to much (or rather not giving them a heat gradient choice) was the other mistake. This year it got cold in feb as usual and the temps dropped in the snake room but they were not on any heat. I then turned the ehat on feb 20th. I think the males sitting on heat since feb did something to their sperm as well. Next year its back to the way that has always worked. What I can't figure out is why so many of my females never ovulated at all.

Sorry to hear about your loss, Zenny. At least you have something to continue on with. Chin up!
Todd Hughes

man thats a bummer but,,,ya gotta keep on the sunnyside at least the whole clutch wasnt lost live&learn,,,,,,,,,thomas