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What do you guys do with a female who's egg bound? My first year breeding hondurans they didnt go at it when I thought they would but I still left the anery female in with my crazy line male... I've been busy so I was just dropping mice in and leaving... fast forward a month or so I take the anery out she's huge and clearly gravid, and in shed. She shed a couple days later and refused some small mice, I put her in a seperate container for egg laying and she started laying the next day.

She got 3 out and there's still 3 in her, this happened a little over a week ago so I'm convinced the eggs are stuck for good.. What can you do really?
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(New website, albinomilksnake.com coming June 2013)

Mike,
This is what my Snow Hondo did that last year. She dropped 2 slugs about 8 days after her shed and then approximately 20 days(after shed) dropped 4 good eggs(in her hide box-not egg box) that hatched and turned out fine. I kept feeding her small day old rat pinky's the whole time(about one every 2 or 3 days-basically just a little snack for a 4' snake). That turned out great. I've also palpated eggs out. Sometimes that works and sometimes the snake dies(I'm about 50%-Half die). There are many ways to do that which I won't go into but I'm sure someone will provide different techniques if you want to go in that direction. I also have talked with a bunch on well know Breeders/Dealers that have been working with reptiles for 40 plus years and they just leave the animals alone and a good % of the time they end up passing the eggs. I do that now. I had a Ghost het amel last year appear to be gravid then nothing. I thought she must have absorbed the eggs or something?? Well this year when she was gravid before the egg laying shed she dropped this weird looking shriveled up egg or something?? I should have taken a picture of it. Then after the shed about 10 days later she dropped 4 good eggs. Most of my Hondurans drop eggs around 10-12 days after shed but I have one that consistently drops on the 20 day which I believe is kind of late. So again I just leave them alone at this point it seems to work out better for me and the snake. She may still lay some good eggs(keep an egg box in with her). I'm sure there are others that will disagree and maybe they are right but for me I end up killing the snake a lot of time and this way recently has worked out.
Good luck and I hope the snake turns out okay.

Craig

Just thought of this...
I think it was last year I read on the Graybanded Kingsnake Forum that one guy has this problem a lot with his graybands so if I remember right this guy said he would keep the egg bound snake in a Rubbermaid tub with water (1 to 2" at about 80F for a few days and I think he said the snakes always pass the eggs(I'm sure timing has a lot to do with it…don’t wait too long). Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure that’s all he did(maybe go back a few years and look that up(June or July most likely). I might try that next time I run into an egg bound issue.

The year old slugs probably looked something like this:

I'm dealing with an egg bound female (again) this year and there are no easy full proof courses of action.

If you wait, you could get lucky and she will pass them on her own. She might retain them and pass them next year or the year after or die...there are so many factors.

You could aspirate the egg contents and that could make things better by reducing the egg size and allowing her to pass them...or it could make it worse if the egg has already fused to the oviduct, because now you have introduced a leaking egg which could cause an infection and kill her.

If the female is large, over 800 grams, I would lean towards waiting.

Either way, keeping her in high humidity is a REALLY good idea and I believe a high % of the time dehydration is the root cause of egg binding...well along with having slugs (non fertile eggs).

If you want to talk, just shoot me an e-mail and we can discuss more options if you'd like.

Thanks,
Rusty

I like the suggestions folks have made.

I had an egg-bound sinaloan years ago. I put her in a bigger enclosure (tub) filled with coir fiber, the coconut husk stuff. I moistened it just enough and left her in there. She passed the slugs fortunately after a few weeks.

The next year I put her in that same setup after she shed, and she laid good eggs earlier. I am fairly convinced that the larger nest box (her entire cage is the nest box) was more conducive to her laying before the eggs got bigger, hard or stuck.

hey Mike. Its probably too late for this advice. Im sorry I got on this post late. I hang out in the Boa forum mostly. If the egg was stuck at the vent and it was very early on, I used to take a small needle and go through the snake and reduce the contents of the first egg stuck at the vent. Once that was reduced, the female could pass the collapsed contents and the remaining eggs would come right out. Of course once a few days pass by, the stuck eggs harden and this method will not work. So....maybe for the next time. Best of luck. Mike Panichi