OMG................

whoa i just got the biggest surprise of my life omg omg the male i have isnt reallly a male the guy that told me it was a male probally didnt know what he was doin or something !!!!!!!!!!!! omg omg the reasont why my bigger snake wasnt eating iiisss.................................... omg it jussed laid EGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im exited i dont know what to do i bought her like 2 months ago omg omg i dont know theres only one egg but its an oval shape ??? i felt more lumps in her i fdont know what to do i dont think theres a baby in it cause ive seen all the other eggs in a spere shape ima go crazy this is crazy i was tottaly not prepred for this.......................... what to do what to do i need advice on what to do please anyone it will be appretiated

woot!

Wow, congrats to the potential "father"! If you don't have The Corn Snake Manual or other similar referenceyou need to get searching - the information is available online if you look.

A few things I can mention that you probably already know: the eggs need high humidity, but not so high that they drown or get moldy. The eggs need to be kept warm! Nobody knows really, but it's probable that corn snake sex is determined in the first 2-5 days of incubation based on environmental conditions. Also, the eggs must remain oriented, so before you move them, if possible, put a little mark on the "top" with a sharpie.

The preferred incubation substrate is vermiculite. The eggs should be about half-burried in the substrate to help them stay moist, while ensuring they can also breathe ok.

Good Luck, 007!
^Curtis

whoa

thanks thanks the temp in the tank is 79 degreez right now............. how bout the Oval shape that normal ?????

2 EGGS !!!!!!?????

Oval eggs are normal...

I would leave her alone for about 24 hours after she first started laying, then gently remove the eggs and incubate them. Homebreeder already covered how to incubate them. Vermiculite is hard to find where I live...if you can't find it, then sphagnum moss also works well. That's what mine are incubating in. Congratulations! I know exactly how you feel...I have eggs for the first time, too (2 clutches)!

I know this may sound dumb but you never said if you have been housing it with a real male snake because if not those eggs are not furtile.

If he only got the snake two months ago, it could have been fertilized before he bought it. I just hope she is big enough to handle eggs. Good Luck!

~!*!~ ~!*!~ its ok

.............

i am pumped and exited still i woke up and thought it was a dream until i saw them again this morning she laid a couple more in the nigh im really exited i never thought this would happen to me

yellow

one of the eggs came out yellow though is that normal ??
uim goin to measure her and tell you guys her measurements today ..............

If one of the eggs is noticeable yellower than the others, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that the yellow one is most likely infertile. The good news is that the others are probably fine! If they are all the same color, it's difficult for first timers to know what is what, but you've got contrast enough to see for yourself how fertile and infertile eggs look.

I don't think there is any reliable proof about the sex of corn hatchlings being determined by their environment while in the egg. If that were the case, I don't think Kathy Love, Rich Z. and others would be pulling their hair out and charging extra for lone females as they find themselves having to do. I keep all of my eggs in the same incubator at the same temperature. Im my multiple clutches of eggs, I've had a fairly normal distribution of males and females.

Darin

Darin,

I didn't mean to imply I knew what caused sex determination (as you state, nobody knows what causes sex determination in corn snakes.) In many herps it is fairly well proven that incubation temp, if not the single deciding factor, is at least a major participant in sex determination. Many species also provide strong evidence that determination occurs very early in the incubation cycle (some species within 24 hours) though of course this certainly doesn't apply to all herps. Something I don't think I've ever heard suggested though, is the possibility that the eggs might release a hormone when they've decided what sex they will be, and their neibouring eggs determine sex based, at least in part, on such signals.

I'm not a bonified scientist but I absolutely plan to study how sex is determined in corns... who knows, if I ever figure it out, and then learn to control it it might be my best chance to "make a mark" on herpetology. Everybody needs a dream

^Curtis

Isnt there a frog that can change its sex on its own depending on what umm err the family needs???

Some fish do...

SilverTongue said:

Isnt there a frog that can change its sex on its own depending on what umm err the family needs???

Click to expand...

I had a swordtail that changed from female to male. We had no males in the tank, and one of the females changed. It was really weird!

they aren't alone - lost of animals can changce sex "on the fly", at least among herps and fish ("lots" being a relative term, of course)

I don't know any specific examples, but are there also animals born sexless? (not really talking about hermaphroditic species, but reagular "sexual" species.)

How bout this for a twist - among sea horses, the male is the one that becomes pregnant and carries the embryos around while they gestate.

The evidence that in most circumstances you get about 50/50 male/female with corns has me a bit perplexed, which is why I offer the hormone idea. I'll never have a mircon microscope, nor the required skills or equipment to do any serious analysys of corn snake sperm or egg cells or the genetic sequencing that might be invoved, but there must be some more "casual" experiemnts one can do... If it's a hormone thing though, how much do you have to seperate the eggs to prevent one from influencing an other? And if corns determine sex very early (or even at the moment of conception, as with humans) I might never get any interesting data from working with that idea, but it's worth a try, I guess...

Anyone have any other ideas? (One way I theorize I might be able to see success with my "hormone study" is if the theory is correct, AND I manage to seperate some eggs both in time, and far enough from each other.... maybe they'll have a marked shift toward female or male offspring.

I gotta say though, it'd also be nice if a university with the people, the talent, and the tools at their disposal could do some research into this themselves - at least to see if in fact some herps determine sex before copulation in a similar way as the X/Y chromosomes in humans....

^Curtis

???

i woke up today (monday) and i had to go an hour away to miami i just got home (sunday) and when i wake up in the morning ima buy the moss to relocate the eggs when i got home i saw that 2 eggs have curves movin inward like when one squeezes a soda can its that normal ??? it isnt caved in too much just a lilbit

feed??

should i try to feed the female now ?? she hasnt eaten in 2 weeks

How wet is the moss?

The eggs shouldn't cave in. The moss, according to the corn snake manual, should be gotten wet, then should be wrung out as much as possible. The eggs will absorb some moisture so you have to check the dampness of the moss about once a week. <b>Someone with more experience, please help 007.</b>

How many eggs did you end up with?

Re: feed??

SnakesRus007 said:

should i try to feed the female now ?? she hasnt eaten in 2 weeks

Click to expand...

I would try to feed her, but feed a smaller meal than you normally would. It will be easier for her to digest. I asked people this same question and was told to feed her every five days for the next 2 to 3 weeks. She will need to regain some weight after laying eggs. Remember...she will have a post-laying shed, too! Good luck and keep us posted!

The Hormone theory is....

interesting. If you could catch the eggs early enough to separate all of them and then put them in separate hatching containers. It would be a lot of extra work but that would garantee no hormone transfer. But then the question would be what sex would the eggs become without the hormone signal? It could be very interesting to set up at least. But I'm still sort of leaning toward temps being the decideing factor. I don't know how this could be determined but someday maybe we'll know. There's even another possibilty that sex is determined in the first few days after hatching. Isn't this how some lizards work, I think some kind of monitor. The dominant hatchlings become males and all others are female, there could be something similiar going on here. And last but not least environmental factors affecting adults could determine sexes. Oh well so many theories so little time.
Rhoman

tied up

ive been really really tied up im going to hom depot now to get the moss i was i could of taken care of everything at the time the first egg came out cause they looked nice but they dont look o good now would they change with the moisture ??/ i hope so .................. i hope it works out ..... i have 6 eggs my girl isnt all that big and 1 is not fertile cause its extremely yellow si that leaves me with 5 .... ill keep you guys posted i wasnt really ready for this so i guess ill have to learn from experiance ......................
i have to go to miami again thanks for everyones help