20 eggs, 8 plugs and 7 retained!
I have been expecting my best layer to lay any day and it had gone a couple of days passed when I thought she should lay. The night before, I noticed a huge swelling at mid length like she had eaten a rat. I felt the mass and it was full of about 12 eggs. I have never seen this before and suspected trouble.
I was relieved in the morning to see a pile of eggs in her lay box but it was obvious that she was not done laying. I checked her in about an hour and found that she had stopped laying, but had several eggs still in her. She was not contracting any more and the eggs that were left were not down by the vent, but near her middle. Great, just what I needed! Egg binding or females not passing all of their eggs is one of the things I hate about breeding corns. I get a few every year that do not pass all of their eggs.
There are a few options when this happens and I thought I had caught it in time to try Oxytocin. I took the eggs out that she had laid. She had laid 20 eggs and 8 plugs and gave her a good dose of Oxytocin and put her in a closed lay box. For those of you who are wondering, I gave her 20 mg. The recommended dose that I have seen for snakes of her size is 5 - 20 mg. I have only had success with Oxytocin in high doses so I gave her a full dose. She crawled around for about 20 minutes and settled down. I checked the box though the side and saw an egg! This was a very good sign. In about a half hour I check her again and she had laid 7 more fertile eggs and there were none left inside of her. Oxytocin doesn’t always work, but when it does it is a gift from the gods.
My best layer is getting pretty old. She is 15 years old now and has laid more eggs than any snake I have ever owned. She is looking pretty soft and flabby. Perhaps I should put her in a larger cage so she can crawl around more and take her out for a walk once in a while to strengthen up her muscles. She always double clutches and I think if I tried not to breed her she would produce plugs anyway. I think that if I tried to retire her, she is in such a routine that she would probably cycle in the spring anyway. I think I will give her some vitamins, put her in the bigger cage, and really see if a little exercise helps. I will feed her well and hope that she lives many more years.