Thread: Umbilical cord?
View Single Post
Old 08-08-2005, 11:05 AM   #5
E. g. guttata
I had one of these last year and a whole bunch this year. The "umbilical cord" (known as a yolk stem) is hanging out because, for some reason, the snake felt that it needed to leave the egg early. This may be due to stress, to humid/dry of a shell, improper heat... etc. The first thing to do is to try to keep the yolk stem wet by either putting in a wet paper towel (make sure it's pretty wet, they have 100% humidity inside the egg) or or place the hatchling in the delicup with just enough water to cover the bottom of it. Leave it here for a few hours, and if the yolk stem isn't absorbed again, then you will need to transfer the hatchling to a really dry absorbient substrate, shredded paper towel works well. The yolk stem will most likely fall off, but DON'T PULL ON IT. Pulling on it or trying to cut it off may cause the hatchling to bleed to death. When the yolk stem DOES fall off, then feeding is the next challenge. There is only a 50% chance that this snake will eat anything. If it eats it's first meal, then you will pretty much be in the clear, and only have to worry about the basic problems. You may want to try feeding this one lizzards to see if it will eat anything, because it probably won't eat mice to start with.