• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

how to tell when a corn is gravid

SquamishSerpents

SquamishSerpents

Katia
how obvious is it when a female corn is gravid? today i was holding my female (who has been rather hostile, as of late. she rattled her tail at me the other day!) and as she was slinking back into her cage, i thought i felt something like...little gas bubbles is the only way to describe it. i had my index and middle finger open like scissors, and my middle finger was on her belly, and my index finger on her back, and as she passed through it felt like little bubbles.

last year when my boyfriends corns bred, i COMPLETELY missed the stage of the female being gravid (as it was an unplanned "gravidcey" so to speak) another story altogether that i won't really get into. they weren't my snakes. but are now separated. and tra la la please no cohabing lecture cause I KNOW
:p

so the point of this thread, i have never felt a gravid female corn.

also, yes, my female has been paired with a male, though i didn't witness any locks.
 
I usually find it is pretty obvious when a corn snake is gravid. Her bottom half will be swollen, and you should be able to feel the individual eggs forming and get a pretty accurate count of how many there will be. This is how I check my females: Place the snake on the floor. Holding her semi-firmly with your thumb on her back and your index finger on her belly, allow her to slither through your hand. You should feel prominent bumps passing through your fingers if she has ovulated. Fertile eggs tend to feel more firm and prominent than slugs, from my experience. Also, corn snakes will start refusing food two or more weeks before they lay eggs. If you have a fat female refusing food, be suspicious!
 
I find that if she's eyeing my ice cream or my hostess cupcake and drooling, she's probably gravid.
 
Feeling a series of evenly-spaced, same-sized lumps in her lower third, would indicate to me that she's probably gravid. Pop a laying box in with her, just in case (same as a humid hide). She might just be ovulating (unfertilised ova can sometimes feel like eggs) but it's an odd time of year for that.

I've found that the indicators are different in each female. Some you can feel egg lumps by having your fingers on either side of their bodies. On some you can only feel the lumps through their belly underneath, and running your fingers down their sides you can feel nothing. Some look bloated or swollen, some show no visual change at all. On some you can't see or feel anything and the first confirmation you have is a refusal to eat followed by a shed - some of them eat right up to laying, so you can't even rely on that. One of mine gives every appearance of being gravid wth both bloating and lumps, but is only ever ovulating and has never produced an egg in her life.

They do love to confound!
 
thanks guys.

maybe it's just wishful thinking! :p the reason i had paired her with my male is because he was cruising his cage like crazy, in the same manner as last year during breeding season.

actually last season is what confirmed his sex, i was holding him and my female in the same hand, and i look down, and he has a hemipene (?) protruding, as if he was trying to get at her right then and there! talk about jumping the gun a little bit? has anyone else ever heard of this happening?

i was going to try to get some pictures, but i didn't want to disrupt her too bad. i figure the best i can do is give her a lay box (i used a very large deli-cup sorta thing, with a layer of vermiculite). so i'm just going to leave that in with her and see what happens.
 
*pics*

well i'm pretty hungover *ahem* i mean bored on this fine sunday evening, so i thought i'd post some pictures. anybody care to take wagers on weather or not miss millypants is gravid?

i still just think it's wishful thinking, but i managed to catch a few pictures of her looking rather bumpy.

i ran her through my hands again, and the "bumps" that i think, i mean HOPE i can feel seem to stop about 2.5 - 3 inches before her vent.

excuse the quality of the photos, they were taken with my sony P&S and i didn't want to disrupt her too much.

she has been hangin' out in her lay box, but i suspect that is because i put it in her "regular" hanging out spot, where she spends 85% of her time.

so what're you guys thinkin, gravid, or not?

november26-29004.jpg

november26-29006.jpg

november26-29007.jpg

november26-29009.jpg

november26-29010.jpg

november26-29017.jpg

november26-29021.jpg

november26-29022-1.jpg
 
How long ago did the suspected hookup take place?

I think she may be gravid. Some signs to look out for would be the following.
Bottom two thirds of the body very swollen sometimes showing skin between the scales, the body takes on an almost triangular shape with the dorsal being the top of the triangle, the belly becomes very rounded in shape.

I hope this helps a bit.

Ciao
 
rolandslf, it's been a little over 3 weeks since the suspected hookup. i paired them before i went to bed and removed the male before i went to work the next day. i'm not sure if it actually took place, as i put them together in her display viv, which is a 50 gallon littered with many ornaments, and aspen as a substrate.
so there was no solid "evidence"
 
I think 3 weeks is a bit soon to be showing really positive visible signs of being Gravid.

However, in the last 2 pics you can definitely see signs of the belly being uneven and bumpy as well as slightly swollen.

Did you only have them together for that one time only?

Ciao
 
o_o what an interesting thread to keep up with. I have no breeding experience what-so-ever, so I can't say much. hehe. But I agree, there are definitely bumps visible. As far as them being developed eggs by three weeks, anyones guess could be better than mine. ^^;;

Good luck finding out though! I'll be checking back here later to see if anyone else has anything to say.
 
Milly was not gravid! i forgot to update :p

i suspect she was ovulating. i still haven't witnessed any locks with her, but i have paired her with my male snow, who is VERY eager to get going, and she is having NONE of it. she's whipping her tail around, wagging her tail, jerking like crazy, but as far as actual hookups, none. i don't see any "evidence" in the tub, either. so i don't know why she isn't being receptive to his advances.
 
From those two last pictures, to me she looks like she is definetly carrying eggs. I bred my two female corns last year and that exactly how they looked when they were gravid and about to lay. Good luck! :)
 
lol, CornSnakeBreeder, you missed my last updated post about how she WASN'T gravid! weird, hey! i'm assuming it was an ovulation, because 2 or so weeks after this thread was started, she stopped feeling lumpy! and now, 3 months later, she feels lumpy again, even though she hasn't locked up with a male this year!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top