Blood left behind

[halicorn]

Ok so my friend got her snakes to mate..but there was blood left behind after mating. Is that a good thing or is that some kinda sign?

Please inform cause she is going crazy .

Thanks

 

[divapixie]

This is only my second corn snake season but I've heard and witnessed that blood after mating is quite normal.

 

[patm1313]

You should look for a little blood and a yellowish white mix after mating. This shows that they have sucessfully mated. Tell your friend good luck!

 

[KJUN]

IO HATE seeing it, but it is NOT uncommon. I have yet to observe a problem associated with a little blood. I just TRY to not breed that same male or female for 48 hours. I doubt that delay is necessary, though!
KJ

 

[patm1313]

Why do you hate seeing it? I mean, if you didnt see it you would have no clue that anything happened. And though I do believe that snakes should be given a day or two's rest before mating again, I doubt that if you see blood you should wait for any special reason.

 

[Emanon]

yeah normal... I had the same thing a few times last year... this year is starting off slow... well understatement of the century... when it starts it will have started off slow

 

[KJUN]

Why do you hate seeing it?

I don't know how to really answer this. Why would you NOT like to see blood? Bleeding means SOMEONE has broken their skin meaning an infection (or even a damaged hemipene if from the male) is possible. Because I haven't noticed a problem does not mean I never will, and I don't think anyone has ever tried to see if females that DO bleed are significantly more likely to eggbind or not. I'd say this was possible, but dystocia here is so rare that I don't bother watching for trends since none would be meaningful are a reasonable P-value.

Even if no infection occurs, the process can't feel good. I don't have empathy for a snake, but I would still rather not see evidence that one got hurt while under my care - even if it was relatively unavoidable. Sooo, why would you NOT hate to see bleeding? It only occurs in MAYBE 12-15% of the pairs we breed each year, anyway. ...and it is almost always the female that bleeds thanks to the hemipenal spines.

I mean, if you didnt see it you would have no clue that anything happened.

Very wrong assumption. As a policy, I don't put my snakes together and leave them. I feel that is not the best husbandry techniques. I put my snakes together in the evening and check them 10-15 minutes until they breed or I separate them to head off to bed. I don't go to bed while they are hooked up (exception would be getula and the occasional sayi since they can lock up for HOURS. It is unlikely I'll miss one at that frequency of checking, but if I do I can still SMELL that breeding did occur in-between checks. Once I make that smell, it is EASY to look for leaked semen or even check the female directly for the presence of semen following intromission. Even behavior of the pair from one check to the other will make me take a better smell/look if it implies copulation occurred.

There are MANY reasons I do it this way, but it is mainly to reduce stress to the female, possible damage to the male and female, and because I don't want the male breeding 8 times overnight with the same female since I likely plan to use him of ADDITIONAL females shortly. Good or bad, I tend to end up too female high spreading my males more thin than I would like. It seems like when I try to correct it, I always hold back more females than I intended and keep myself short on females.......lol. THAT and I tend to use the best males and let the B-males go fallow each year. :dancer:

I do believe that snakes should be given a day or two's rest before mating again

OK, you questioned me for more details, so I'll ask you: why do you believe this? I tend not not breed a male (regardless of bleeding) more than 2 our of 3 days for more than 2 weeks in a row, but I have had males breed at least 5 days per week for at least 3 straight weeks when it was a valuable male I wanted to plug into multiple females (minimum of twice per female; maximum of four times per female). The male stopped breeding because I ran out of females, and there was no decrease in the percentage of fertile eggs from early breedings to late breedings....and the male still had a high percentage of fertile sperm from beginning to end.

I don't recommend this - nor do I do it commonly or believe all males could hold up to that pace - but why do you say not to breed 2 days in a row? They have 2 hemipenes and they are "designed" for multiple copulations in a short period.....and they do TEND to rotate the hemipene used.

 

[tayce101]

its my first time breeding this year but i've seen it happen at the reptile shop i work in when cornsnakes are breeding all the time so i guess it's pretty normal.:dancer:

 

[Susielea]

You should look for a little blood and a yellowish white mix after mating. This shows that they have sucessfully mated. Tell your friend good luck!

So what you're saying is, "If there is NO blood with the "yellowish white mix" then the mating was NOT successful"???

Sorry, but I think you need to get a lot more first hand experience, before giving out this kind of advice. You've only had a hatchling for a few weeks.

Successful copulation can take place with little or no visible signs, apart from seeing the pair hooked up, as I myself have witnessed this.
And so far I have not seen blood after a hook up in person, although I know it can happen.

Just be careful with the advice you give and if you don't know the answer or are unsure, then let a more experienced member respond to the question.

 

[patm1313]

I don't know how to really answer this. Why would you NOT like to see blood? Bleeding means SOMEONE has broken their skin meaning an infection (or even a damaged hemipene if from the male) is possible. Because I haven't noticed a problem does not mean I never will, and I don't think anyone has ever tried to see if females that DO bleed are significantly more likely to eggbind or not. I'd say this was possible, but dystocia here is so rare that I don't bother watching for trends since none would be meaningful are a reasonable P-value.

Even if no infection occurs, the process can't feel good. I don't have empathy for a snake, but I would still rather not see evidence that one got hurt while under my care - even if it was relatively unavoidable. Sooo, why would you NOT hate to see bleeding? It only occurs in MAYBE 12-15% of the pairs we breed each year, anyway. ...and it is almost always the female that bleeds thanks to the hemipenal spines.



Very wrong assumption. As a policy, I don't put my snakes together and leave them. I feel that is not the best husbandry techniques. I put my snakes together in the evening and check them 10-15 minutes until they breed or I separate them to head off to bed. I don't go to bed while they are hooked up (exception would be getula and the occasional sayi since they can lock up for HOURS. It is unlikely I'll miss one at that frequency of checking, but if I do I can still SMELL that breeding did occur in-between checks. Once I make that smell, it is EASY to look for leaked semen or even check the female directly for the presence of semen following intromission. Even behavior of the pair from one check to the other will make me take a better smell/look if it implies copulation occurred.

There are MANY reasons I do it this way, but it is mainly to reduce stress to the female, possible damage to the male and female, and because I don't want the male breeding 8 times overnight with the same female since I likely plan to use him of ADDITIONAL females shortly. Good or bad, I tend to end up too female high spreading my males more thin than I would like. It seems like when I try to correct it, I always hold back more females than I intended and keep myself short on females.......lol. THAT and I tend to use the best males and let the B-males go fallow each year. :dancer:



OK, you questioned me for more details, so I'll ask you: why do you believe this? I tend not not breed a male (regardless of bleeding) more than 2 our of 3 days for more than 2 weeks in a row, but I have had males breed at least 5 days per week for at least 3 straight weeks when it was a valuable male I wanted to plug into multiple females (minimum of twice per female; maximum of four times per female). The male stopped breeding because I ran out of females, and there was no decrease in the percentage of fertile eggs from early breedings to late breedings....and the male still had a high percentage of fertile sperm from beginning to end.

I don't recommend this - nor do I do it commonly or believe all males could hold up to that pace - but why do you say not to breed 2 days in a row? They have 2 hemipenes and they are "designed" for multiple copulations in a short period.....and they do TEND to rotate the hemipene used.

About the rest period, how would you feel if you were like that? Gain some empathy, really. They're living beings, and should be well known.

Now i'm not trying to be an A-hole, so let me admit my mistakes. I wasnt paying attention and though that you just left your snakes alone and let them do there thing. Anyway, thanks for teaching me about the rotating hemipenes, never knew they did that.

 

[patm1313]

So what you're saying is, "If there is NO blood with the "yellowish white mix" then the mating was NOT successful"???

Sorry, but I think you need to get a lot more first hand experience, before giving out this kind of advice. You've only had a hatchling for a few weeks.

Successful copulation can take place with little or no visible signs, apart from seeing the pair hooked up, as I myself have witnessed this.
And so far I have not seen blood after a hook up in person, although I know it can happen.

Just be careful with the advice you give and if you don't know the answer or are unsure, then let a more experienced member respond to the question.

I wasn't saying that you should look for blood, I'm saying that if there's some don't worry. In fact, I will create a study someday once I have the time to see what the exact results are of blood. I will call it the Susie mating study. Lol.

Another thing, will the Top posters on this site stop attacking me??? It's getting annoying. I speak out of personal experience, an what trustworthy knowledge has come to me. If I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I don't post. Trust me, I go through tons of threads, and post on a small portion of them, because a large portion of them I end up saying "What the hell?" I'm not here to give out false info, just to learn and let others learn. You're absolutley right, that If I dont know what I'm talking about I should let others post. I actually came across this forum after doing yahoo answers for a while. I know as much as anyone else how annoying it is to have people who dont know anything answering people's questions.

I keep on having to explain myself to you guys. I'm trying to stay on good terms with all of you.

P.S. To the OP: Sorry for misusing your thread to talk with Susie.

 

[Susielea]

You should look for a little blood and a yellowish white mix after mating. This shows that they have sucessfully mated. Tell your friend good luck!

:shrugs: But that's what you did say..."You should look for a little blood and a yellowish white mix after mating".....see :shrugs:

The "top posters" on this site are not attacking you, they are offering you friendly advice. Imagine how you would feel if someone misunderstood or accepted some inaccurate advice from you, and then they came back saying they had a really bad situation now because "patm1313" gave out the wrong info. I'm sorry you feel you are being attacked but we are just trying to save you from making a big blunder later down the line.

If you don't want to accept that, then fine, I'm done trying to explain.


P.S. Original poster, my apologies!

 

[KJUN]

About the rest period, how would you feel if you were like that? Gain some empathy, really. They're living beings, and should be well known.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are trying to ask/tell me there. The first sentences makes no sense to me. As far as the rest, I'm the one that said I hated seeing them bleed - you are the one that acted like you did not care. :shrugs:

 

[KJUN]

In fact, I will create a study someday once I have the time to see what the exact results are of blood.

Yeah, you are going to run a scope up your females' vents to compare post-breeding abrasions. Anything less is just pointless unless you have a colony large enough to give significant results.

I know as much as anyone else how annoying it is to have people who dont know anything answering people's questions.

The underlined portion did give me a smile, but you need to stop repeating info you read off of yahoo searches unless you KNOW the data is correct. Obviously, nobody is attacking you (see below), but when more experienced people know otherwise......well, do you want them to IGNORE misinformation when you or someone else posts something wrong. Obviously, nobody would WANT uncorrected misinformation in a thread! Besides, I've never even NOTICED your user name until you tried to correct me about blood post-breeding. If anyone started an attack - and I don't fell like ANYONE was attacking ANYONE - it was you in this case.

I keep on having to explain myself to you guys.

If you say something that someone with lots of experience believes is wrong - or that they feel is new to them - don't you feel like you should explain it. If I came on here saying "not all cornsnakes lay eggs," wouldn't you ask me for PROOF or question my statement? Of course you should! You imply that bleeding occurs with all copulations, and you WILL get informed otherwise. If that is how you define an attack, then you may need to calm down, take a deep breathe, and realize that people are trying to HELP you and others avoid misinformation and/or LEARN from you in case you have new information to support your claim.

KJ

 

[diamondlil]

I wasn't saying that you should look for blood, I'm saying that if there's some don't worry. In fact, I will create a study someday once I have the time to see what the exact results are of blood. I will call it the Susie mating study. Lol.

Another thing, will the Top posters on this site stop attacking me??? It's getting annoying. I speak out of personal experience, an what trustworthy knowledge has come to me. If I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I don't post. Trust me, I go through tons of threads, and post on a small portion of them, because a large portion of them I end up saying "What the hell?" I'm not here to give out false info, just to learn and let others learn. You're absolutley right, that If I dont know what I'm talking about I should let others post. I actually came across this forum after doing yahoo answers for a while. I know as much as anyone else how annoying it is to have people who dont know anything answering people's questions.

I keep on having to explain myself to you guys. I'm trying to stay on good terms with all of you.

P.S. To the OP: Sorry for misusing your thread to talk with Susie.

How many corns have you bred or seen being bred? Personally I'd want advice from an experienced breeder, if I had a problem:shrugs:

 

[pgr8dnlvr]

I've had about 20 pairs breed so far this year, Only two of them had any bleeding and it was the same male both occasions. The first was very small amount of blood the second time had a bit more of a smear.

Last year we bred about 15 pairs and only one incidence of blood <there was a lot though>. The breeding was successfull though and the male subsequently bred other females with no more blood.

Year before that we only bred about 8 females. No bleeding at all.

So in all, bleeding is not super rare, but certainly not something that I would say is common or needed to see successfull reproduction Good luck on your future babies!

Rebecca

ps- The bleeding male this year was put onto newspaper bedding for a few days after, as it seems the very tip of one of his hemipenes doesn't want to go in now. I think it's a good idea to inspect males after breeding to be sure you'll notice if something looks awry with a penis and bodes extra vigilance to be sure no infections ensue! I'm sure we'll be off to the vet soon if it doesn't want to go all the way in again! DOH!

 

[KJUN]

ps- The bleeding male this year was put onto newspaper bedding for a few days after, as it seems the very tip of one of his hemipenes doesn't want to go in now. I think it's a good idea to inspect males after breeding to be sure you'll notice if something looks awry with a penis and bodes extra vigilance to be sure no infections ensue! I'm sure we'll be off to the vet soon if it doesn't want to go all the way in again! DOH!

Actually, you need to keep it MOIST. If it dries out, they usually have the remove it. My wife has had to remove a fair amount, and I've had to do it on 2 animals in our collection over the past years...and one WC animal that had its tail apparently crushed on the road prior to us capturing it. Usually, the best thing to do is to soak it in sugar water....or at least put some type of lube on it like Vaseline if the sugar water doesn't work.......keep him ion DAMP towels - NOT dessicating newspaper. Make sure the reason the hemipene can't retract isn't due to some foreign debris stuck to the hemipene. (By the way, it is MOST likely that you are seeing the BASE of the himipene and not the tip....unless it is a foreign body preventing the retraction.)

 

[diamondlil]

Actually, you need to keep it MOIST. If it dries out, they usually have the remove it. My wife has had to remove a fair amount, and I've had to do it on 2 animals in our collection over the past years...and one WC animal that had its tail apparently crushed on the road prior to us capturing it. Usually, the best thing to do is to soak it in sugar water....or at least put some type of lube on it like Vaseline if the sugar water doesn't work.......keep him ion DAMP towels - NOT dessicating newspaper. Make sure the reason the hemipene can't retract isn't due to some foreign debris stuck to the hemipene. (By the way, it is MOST likely that you are seeing the BASE of the himipene and not the tip....unless it is a foreign body preventing the retraction.)

Slightly off-topic, but that's what we had to do with our degu too. Sugar water in a strong solution to try to reduce the tissue swelling and lube to keep his penis moist until the vet could see him.

 

[pgr8dnlvr]

Cool! Thanks for the advice!! Just an aside, the males that had to have partial amputation, Did they successfully breed again?

Oh and not sure how foreign debris stuck on the penis could factor in on this particular case, due to the fact I breed supervised, in clean bare tubs.. But guess you never know eh?

Thanks again guys!

Rebecca

 

[KJUN]

Cool! Thanks for the advice!! Just an aside, the males that had to have partial amputation, Did they successfully breed again?

Yeah, it is usually a COMPLETE amputation of the affected hemipene. The male can still breed with the other one in following years. I've had clutches sired my males who were short a hemipene.

...they just leaned to one side or the other when they crawled. :laugh01: