Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well my second cal king clutch of the season has hatched out. I got good results from the clutch. She laid 16 eggs, but two of them went bad early in gestation. The very first baby out of the egg looked "funny" in that it had a deep "dent" right in back of the head on the neck.... I thought that was funny and with my bad luck with cornsnake I wondered if I was seeing a deformity. It acted funny too... crawling about an inch and a half out of the egg and just sitting like that.... straight up from the egg. I left the eggs in peace overnight and in the morning the first baby had crawled out of the egg and was lying on its side with its mouth open. It looked dead. The umbilicus was still attached to a yolk mass in the egg. I picked it up and it started to writhe in my hand and then it died. ?! I was worried about the rest but whatever was wrong with the first baby didn't seem to effect the rest. So out of 14 full-term eggs, I got 13 beautiful babies.

Here's the first one:

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~Sasheena

baby #3

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~Sasheena

#4

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~Sasheena

#5

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~Sasheena

#6

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~Sasheena

#7

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~Sasheena

#8

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~Sasheena

#9

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~Sasheena

#10

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~Sasheena

#11

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~Sasheena

#12

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~Sasheena

#13

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~Sasheena

#14

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~Sasheena

Great looking clutch!!! Of course my favorites are the abberant ones, especially #2. I'm a sucker for abberancy!!!

Pat

>>Great looking clutch!!! Of course my favorites are the abberant ones, especially #2. I'm a sucker for abberancy!!!
>>
>>Pat

Thank you. I also prefer the aberrant ones. I had planned to put my high white with my banded female, but hubby stayed home from work back in the pairing up time of the year, and decided to pair up all my snakes regardless of my specific plans for the animals, so none of the pairings I made this year were actually planned! Ah well. There's always next year. The great thing about these babies (aside from the one that inexplicably died) is that they are very very healthy, fat, sassy, 12 to 16 inches long, and AGGRESSIVE! One already bit me five times.

And I agree, #2 is the best of the bunch!

Here's the papa:

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~Sasheena

congratulations on the clutch... i really like the aberrant ones what else are you expecting this season?

~ZF

>>congratulations on the clutch... i really like the aberrant ones what else are you expecting this season?
>>
>>~ZF

The next clutch "up to bat" is my albino high white and my aberrant albino ~ 7 eggs. He's possible het for albino, so we'll find out with this clutch! They're on day 62 today and my other clutches have been hatching on day 62. I expect (hopefully) half of them to be albino, the rest should be aberrant to high white.

The next clutch after that is an Aberrant x Aberrant, so I expect to get some aberrant babies. They are on day 59. There were 7 eggs but five of the eggs died (see the Sweating Egg thread) Those babies had faint patterns and I saw one normal banded (?) one stripe, one that appeared to be mostly high white with thin black zebra like bands, and I didn't catch the pattern on the other babies. I don't know why they died, but doubt it was due to over-hydration as was suggested in an earlier thread. All of my eggs seem to be doing well... they don't swell and grow, the egg boxes have the same level of hydration, judging by the level of moisture on lid and sides. I can't explain why the eggs died, but they did. The last remaining two have very strong veins when I candled them the other day, so I'm hoping they'll hatch soon. This female double clutched without being reintroduced to the male and had 7 more eggs plus a slug. Luckily I discovered the clutch within approximately six hours of her laying them. Those eggs are half the size of the other eggs. I've had a lot of bad luck with ENORMOUS eggs dying during incubation. I'm not sure why this is, but it has happened two years in a row. The two smallest eggs in the first clutch are the only ones that are still good. The second clutch is due Sept. 22

And the final clutch I'm expecting soon is my Newport Cal King bred to my aberrant banded male. I expect mostly aberrant babies from those 11 eggs. That clutch is on day 58 so those are due by Thursday.

Here's a picture of my high white male

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~Sasheena