this was her first clutch. Not sure of the reason behind the low fertility. I have had numerous pythons in the past do very well on their first breeding, actually many more so than did not do well. There were just a couple of slugs, and both the fertile and infertile eggs were well shelled, so this would tend to point to a fecundity issue with the male. I had a tough time cooling them down last winter and early spring here as it was much warmer than usual and the background temp of the room was not as cool as I would have liked. This could have produced a low sperm count in the male, but that is pure speculation on my part.



On the humidity question, I attached a photo below on the setup I have been using for almost 30 years for maternal incubation and it has always worked very well. The combination of the nest box lined with damp sphagnum, and the water containers with towel wicks does great at keeping an elevated humidity level. After the females lays, I partition off the cage to give the smallest cage volume possible to humidify. This setup will easily maintain the humidity at around 85% to 90% continuously.



Kelly

[ Show Entire Thread ]