Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had a tragedy last week to report. I had smaller male Juarez holdback first time breeder male get killed and eaten by a first time breeder female. This is the first time this has ever happened to me in working with agalma. I had a female Santa Cruz zonata a while back try to eat the male any time I would put him in the cage, but never had any signs of that with my Juarez line or Martir animals. My routine is that I feed all the females, wait a day, and then rotate in the males during breeding season. So I came down to the garage to check on and feed everyone about three days since I last checked on everyone. When I pulled out her cage, the first thing I noticed was that the paper towel I have in the cage to help during feeding(so that shavings don't get stuck on the thawed mouse)was all balled up. Then a split second later I saw the last few inches of the male sticking out of the female! Holy [bleep] I said. "You [bleep]!" I was furious with her. I said their is no way I am letting you keep this male in your gullet and I started pulling him out of her inch by inch. I thought their might be a chance that the male was still alive but he was deader than a doornail. So sad. This was probably my best looking male I had produced and raised. Needless to say that now I know this female is a known cannibal, she will always have a chaperone looking on(ME)!) when a male is with her again. I'm hoping that the little male bred with her before he got black widowed so I have something to show from his genes.

On a brighter note, it appears that all the adult female Juarez(5) and both Martir girls are gravid. In fact a couple of Juarez girls have already started refusing food are deep in the blue for their pre-lay shed. Fingers are crossed for good fertility.
Juarez Wonders

Damn Allan, I am sorry to hear about your loss. I hope he did in fact hook up before getting eaten. Well, the good news is you should have plenty of eggs and hatchlings to help you get over the loss of the male. Again, sorry, that sucks.

Joe

LOL Joe. That's the silver lining I'm taking from this whole episode.
Juarez Wonders

Allan,

That completely blows. Sorry to hear about your misfortune. I had two females this year try to do the same thing. They both latched onto their partners heads and were trying their hardest to eat them. I usually find that if you see this behavior the female is simply not ready to breed. Because of this I'll bet that she isn't gravid, as she probably consumed him before he had a chance to breed with her.

Glad to hear though about all your other snakes. Best of luck with hatchlings!

Mitch

She is actually appearing gravid now. Whether she throws good eggs is another thing entirely. My fingers are crossed.
Juarez Wonders

Allan, should she give you good eggs please don't tell the hatchlings what she did to their daddy. They would hold it against her forever. LOL Keep us posted on the "black window" and what happens, I for one am interested to hear.

Joe

Am most sorry to hear of your loss! How shocking and heartbreaking to discover that! I know it is just instinct that they do that, but I would have felt like doing more to that female than just taking her "meal" away.
I lost one of my young pyro males this spring right after brumation, but not due to cannibalization, he just up and died and he was my favorite male.

Also checked out your blog; great stuff!
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

That sucks, dude but watch one of the offspring be a spitting image of dad! Funny you brought this up. This year I had a Big Bear Lake pair of parvs female try to eat the male on two seperate occasions. I was able to get her off him and he got on her. The good way lol. Good thing zonata are quick to get their breeding sessions over with. I had to hang out in the room with them and get them apart as soon as they were done. She's bloated with eggs now and not him lol.

PL

I had just fed her two adult mice the day before when I had a female amelanistic Cal King try to eat her mate. She had his head and several inches of his front body down when I discovered them and separated them. Fortunately he was still alive.
After I separated them I waited a couple days and fed her four adult mice, which she devoured greedily, and a couple hours later I put the male in with her. She looked like a zeppelin but she didn't try to eat him and they bred. Always after that in the following years I made sure to feed her two mice, wait one or two days then feed her two more, before letting them breed and she never attacked him again. But I always watched them to make sure nothing bad happened again.
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