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What is wrong with my sankes, or is it just me?

N

Northwestsnakes

New member
A little while back I tried breeding corn snakes. However, I got very little success out of the three clutches I had in 2 years. This is exactly what happened:
The first clutch came completely shriveled up (more than they should ever be) and a shade of brown, I had seen her laying the eggs so I know I didn't leave them out for too long, I immediately got rid of that female, and tried a new pair. The next batch of eggs only three of the eggs where healthy so I took them and incubated them properly but they slowly began to look like the others until they eventually died. for the third clutch, I used the male from the first clutch and a new female that was never proven, she laid 12 eggs and they where all looking great until a month in where they too started dying off one by one, however, 3 of the babies hatched with one being much larger than the other 2, the first small baby died only a few hours after hatching and the second baby died after a day. The only one that great up big and strong was the large baby. I always made sure that the temperature in the cages and the incubator where at optimal temperatures, so I'm not sure what went wrong.
_______
 
Sounds like an ongoing humidity issue. The first clutch sounds all duds. The others dying off could be a humidity problem in the incubator. What temps were you incubating out and how was the incubator set up?
 
I kept the temp at 80 and the humidity at 85%, I used a Hova Bator that was just set on my desk away from any windows. All the eggs were placed in vermiculite about an inch apart from each other.
 
My sympathy with your frustration. Been there breeding bullsnakes. After them, I bred several pairs of corns. Hatching results with the corns were never less than 80%, ranging up to 100%.

I also think the first clutch were duds. Possibly the male was too young to produce sperm that year.

I know what "optimum temperature" means to me. It may mean something different to others. For adult corns, optimum cage temperature to me is 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day at the hot end of the cage. At night, I turn off the heat, and the temperature drops to around 70 degrees (room temperature). A day/night temperature cycle prevents heat sterilization of the male's sperm. Were the snakes brumated? Sperm is produced late in the summer when food is plentiful, and winter brumation helps keep the sperm from using up their resources before spring breeding season.

Optimum egg incubation temperature for me is a constant 82-84 range. What sort of thermometer was used to check temperatures? Some brands are not very accurate.

Clutch 3's Vermiculite may have dried out too much. Was water ever added to the incubation medium? My eggs were incubated in closed plastic boxes to retard evaporation, and the boxes were opened once or twice a week for air exchange. I always had to add water after about a month.

A common cause of low fertility and embryonic death in a variety of domestic animals (trout, chickens, pigs, etc.) is borderline vitamin deficiency in the mother. In the wild, corn snakes often eat bird eggs. That may provide nutrients that are lower in rodents. I've added a drop of Avitron liquid multiple vitamins for cage birds in the belly of a dead rodent once a month. Any other good brand should work, too. Vitamins for cage birds have vitamin D3, which is better for reptiles than the vitamin D2 in human vitamins. The extra vitamins never seemed to hurt my corn snakes, and I think they helped in at least some cases.

Best of luck in future breeding.
 
I did not keep a lid of on the separate containers so that may have been the problem I had a bowl of water in the incubator for humidity and I sprayed the vermiculite with a spray bottle, do you think that was not enough water? thank you for the reply
 
paulh said:
My sympathy with your frustration. Been there breeding bullsnakes. After them, I bred several pairs of corns. Hatching results with the corns were never less than 80%, ranging up to 100%.

I also think the first clutch were duds. Possibly the male was too young to produce sperm that year.

I know what "optimum temperature" means to me. It may mean something different to others. For adult corns, optimum cage temperature to me is 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day at the hot end of the cage. At night, I turn off the heat, and the temperature drops to around 70 degrees (room temperature). A day/night temperature cycle prevents heat sterilization of the male's sperm. Were the snakes brumated? Sperm is produced late in the summer when food is plentiful, and winter brumation helps keep the sperm from using up their resources before spring breeding season.

Optimum egg incubation temperature for me is a constant 82-84 range. What sort of thermometer was used to check temperatures? Some brands are not very accurate.

Clutch 3's Vermiculite may have dried out too much. Was water ever added to the incubation medium? My eggs were incubated in closed plastic boxes to retard evaporation, and the boxes were opened once or twice a week for air exchange. I always had to add water after about a month.

A common cause of low fertility and embryonic death in a variety of domestic animals (trout, chickens, pigs, etc.) is borderline vitamin deficiency in the mother. In the wild, corn snakes often eat bird eggs. That may provide nutrients that are lower in rodents. I've added a drop of Avitron liquid multiple vitamins for cage birds in the belly of a dead rodent once a month. Any other good brand should work, too. Vitamins for cage birds have vitamin D3, which is better for reptiles than the vitamin D2 in human vitamins. The extra vitamins never seemed to hurt my corn snakes, and I think they helped in at least some cases.

Best of luck in future breeding.
Click to expand...

Good information, thank you for posting that! I have used reptile vitamin powder with recovering females before, I'll have to look into the D2 vs D3 information.

I agree that keeping the egg container closed to help hold in humidity, and open it about once a week to get fresh air in periodically.


I brumated the first year of breeding, but haven't since. Mostly due to not being in a position to do it correctly. I do keep the males on lower racks for lower temps, as I had heard about being to warm causing infertility issues.
I have had fairly successful breeding without brumating.

I am looking into starting to brumate again, hopefully starting this year, depending on how timing goes with my pending move.
 
MysticExotics said:
Good information, thank you for posting that! I have used reptile vitamin powder with recovering females before, I'll have to look into the D2 vs D3 information.

I agree that keeping the egg container closed to help hold in humidity, and open it about once a week to get fresh air in periodically.


I brumated the first year of breeding, but haven't since. Mostly due to not being in a position to do it correctly. I do keep the males on lower racks for lower temps, as I had heard about being to warm causing infertility issues.
I have had fairly successful breeding without brumating.

I am looking into starting to brumate again, hopefully starting this year, depending on how timing goes with my pending move.
Click to expand...

I brumated religiously for many years because I often heard the male sperm will not be viable if they weren't brumated. I was also told the corns will not cycle during the breeding season without brumation. Since moving to Florida the corn breeders here told me few of them bother brumating. I haven't brumated for the past 3 years and all my males were fertile anyway. I didn't have any problems with cycling either. This year all my females laid fertile eggs. I don't even reduce the temps for a short period. One of my friends does brumate every year, but he said it saves him 3 months of rodents and a lot of cleaning. Now that makes sense.
 
Northwestsnakes said:
I did not keep a lid of on the separate containers so that may have been the problem I had a bowl of water in the incubator for humidity and I sprayed the vermiculite with a spray bottle, do you think that was not enough water? thank you for the reply
Click to expand...
Yes, I think that was not enough water. It's at the top of my list. Next on the list is possible vitamin deficiency. I think 80 degrees is a shade low for incubation, but that should simply have lengthened incubation time.

Twolunger said:
I brumated religiously for many years because I often heard the male sperm will not be viable if they weren't brumated. I was also told the corns will not cycle during the breeding season without brumation. Since moving to Florida the corn breeders here told me few of them bother brumating. I haven't brumated for the past 3 years and all my males were fertile anyway. I didn't have any problems with cycling either. This year all my females laid fertile eggs. I don't even reduce the temps for a short period. One of my friends does brumate every year, but he said it saves him 3 months of rodents and a lot of cleaning. Now that makes sense.
Click to expand...
Congratulations on your successes this year!

Brumation does make sense from the feeding and cleaning standpoint. I have a friend who bred corns without brumation, but his house had heating issues and was on a pretty steep day/night temperature cycle during the winter.

IMO, the increasing daylight length is sufficient to induce spring breeding in corn snakes. Adding brumation simply covers all the bases.
 
Congratulations on your successes this year!

Brumation does make sense from the feeding and cleaning standpoint. I have a friend who bred corns without brumation, but his house had heating issues and was on a pretty steep day/night temperature cycle during the winter.

IMO, the increasing daylight length is sufficient to induce spring breeding in corn snakes. Adding brumation simply covers all the bases.[/QUOTE]

I agree, increasing the daylight, or artificial daylight, is something I do every year too.
 
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