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1.5 y/o tiny girl laid 7 eggs!! HELP!

K

Kyra Omega

New member
Due to a family emergency I was out of town. Before I left I fed all my babies and have just now gotten a look at them after 1 1/2 weeks. I was feeding everyone when I opened up my baby female's tank and saw eggs!!! She is tiny for her age. I would say easily under 100 grams and she is a virgin! I have owned her since she was about 2 months old and now I am a little concerned. She is in blue right now but she doesn't look too skinny. Her spine is just bearly visable towards her tail and I did run my hands over her to see if she was bound anywhere. Feels ok. When should I try to feed her again? Will mom be ok? I am pretty worried about her.

Also here is a pic of the eggs. They definatly look a little calcium defficient but they were in a nice little clutch and look "okay" to my inexperienced eyes. They feel leathery and firm with a little give, but they seem very tiny as well. I put them in some damp moss, should i try to hatch them?

0614112150-1.jpg


0614112151.jpg
 
seems pretty unusual for them to lay that young. usually it's good to offer them a smaller than normal meal when they're done laying (same or next day), but if she's already in blue it might be better to wait til she sheds. use your own judgement with that...stage of blue, if you usually feed her regardless, etc.

if she's a virgin, the eggs can't possibly be fertile, and it's hard to tell from the pics. they do look a bit low on calcium but i think the color's off in the pic (so hard to take good pics!).

if she's gotten all the eggs out like you said, i suspect she will recover...just feed her small, frequent meals to get her back to a good weight and let her be for a while...no stress, etc.
 
the strange thing to me, is they don't look like slugs.

that is only judging by the one photo, but slugs (infertile eggs) are usually yellowish, and wet-looking. those eggs don't look shiny like slugs.

are you SURE she is a virgin? is there ANY chance she was paired with a male, even for a very short period of time?

might as well incubate them, but ONLY if you're prepared to deal with hatchlings. i had a snake lay a clutch that looked all snow-flaked like those ones. they looked okay for awhile but most have molded and collapsed.
 
I'd say go ahead and give it a shot...the worst that can happen is no eggs hatch.

Poor gal, I'd offer smaller than normal meals for her next few feedings, maybe slit the mice to make them easier to digest as well.
 
The eggs do look a bit calcium deficient but such eggs have been, successfully, incubated/hatched.

If she is a virgin there is no way for the eggs to be fertile. Plus, their very small size, etc., leads me to lean toward their not being fertile. However, if, as has been mentioned, there is any possible way that she was with a male, even for a short bit, ... never know ... they could be fertile.

BTW Although they may not quite look like slugs ... even very perfect looking, good sized, plump, white, fully calcified, eggs can be infertile.

Your girl is rather young (and quite under ideal weight), for egg laying, but, she should turn out just fine. As others have mentioned, just start her out on smaller, than usual, feed items and, gradually, go back up to normal sized (for her) feed items.
If you'd like, you could dust the back ends, of feed items, with a bit of calcium (that contains D3) for a few feedings.
Feeding can be done/attempted at any time after eggs are laid. I usually wait until the day after, or two days later, to offer the first (small) meal after eggs are laid. Some will accept food but others will not eat until after they have had their post lay shed.

Incubating the eggs is a personal choice.
However, if you know, 100%, without a doubt, that she has ~never~ been with a male ... (and although you could still try incubating if you'd like) there really is no point in it.:shrugs:
 
Something no one has mentioned- she is going to go blue fairly rapidly following the clutch, so you may only get one or two meals into her before that. If she refuses, try not to worry too much! I'd give her a mouse half the size of what she had been eating, and then about four days later a nearly-usual sized mouse, and then go to feeding her regular size every five days. I also slit the mice which makes them easier to digest.

I purchased a yearling last year that turned out to be gravid. She was about 80 grams when she laid, and made it through just fine.
 
I have seen you mention that before Nanci. Did you incubate the eggs? Did the babies come out ok with such a young mommy?
 
cmalchow said:
I have seen you mention that before Nanci. Did you incubate the eggs? Did the babies come out ok with such a young mommy?
Click to expand...

The snake laid five eggs, they all looked good, three went bad, two hatched, one baby had a very deformed jaw and was euthed, the other baby never ate. He was assist-fed for a couple months after a couple months of trying everything under the sun to get him to eat, and was fine one day, gone the next. Although that pair is up in the 350's now, I chose not to rebreed this year. Maybe next year. The non-feeder was really hard on me.
 
Are you sure she was a virgin? Surprisingly those eggs do not look like slugs. If she was ever housed with a male, or any snake of unknown gender, even for a couple hours then I would try to incubate them and see what happens.
 
I have to admit, if she has never been with a male even for a few minutes, I would so try to hatch those eggs. Parthenogenesis is possible in most reptiles, right?
 
i don't think anybody has mentioned candling yet; you can shine a flashlight through the eggs (in a very dark room) and tell us what you see!

slugs will have a yellowish glow to them, with not much inside. fertile eggs usually have a small mass, as well as red veins reaching out from that mass. lol, i hope that description makes sense! let me try and dig up a photo for you of fertile eggs being candled...

and YEP parthenogenesis is definitely possible; there was just a boa (not sure weather BCC or BCI or perhaps something else) that parthenogenesized. wow, big word and i'm not even sure it's real, but you get the idea.

Edit to Add: here is a photo of me candling a corn egg:

eggcandle.jpg


unfortunately i'm not sure how far along these eggs were in incubation, and i did adjust this photo to B&W to better show the contrast between the veins and the rest of the egg, but it gives you a basic idea of what you would see in a fertile egg.
 
SquamishSerpents said:
and YEP parthenogenesis is definitely possible; there was just a boa (not sure weather BCC or BCI or perhaps something else) that parthenogenesized. wow, big word and i'm not even sure it's real, but you get the idea.
Click to expand...

I remember the Boa.:)
There was also a Burmese Python, at a zoo, that laid eggs via parthenogenesis. When they did genetic testing, of the Burm's offspring, it showed that they were clones of the mother ... pretty cool.
Am sure there may be others.
 
Sorry it took so long to respond and Thank you all for all of your help!

So.. I talked to my friend who was giving the snaked fresh water for me every 2 days while I was gone and asked if there was any possible way that she was together with any of the other snakes that I have. He told me that to his knowledge the snakes were never together alone.... I asked what he meant and he said his 9 y/o boy was with him helping to water the snakes and spot clean their cages.. He said his son would hold the snakes 2 at a time but never left them alone together.

Is it possible they could have mated while the kid was holding them? Naughty baby snakes....

Anyway.. The eggs looked like they plumped up a bit and the shells didn't look quite so thick after a week. I decided to keep them to see what a "iiffy" Would look like after a few weeks and becoming a slug. But the eggs seemed to look better and better. SO I finally candled them as Squeamish Serpents suggested. I was very careful not to rotate any of the eggs when I did it and in at least 2 I saw veins!!!

I thought back to when I discovered them which was May 20th and realised it has hit the 60 day mark.... The eggs (because I thought them slugs) Have been at temps varying from 80-87 during the day and 75-80 at night. I keep them in a spare room in a tuperware and the AC is off during the day when I am at work but on at night when I am home. I plan on candling them again to see if there was more development but if all is well I should be seeing pips in about 10-20 more days right?

Thanks
Kyra
 
I candled them again today and from what I could see all of the eggs had veins and a tiny worm like shadow near the bottom of the egg. In a few of the eggs it even seemed to be moving! I'm getting excited and I hope they hatch. They just look so small...

As far as the morph, nothing too exciting unless these kids are carrying hets I don't know about. If the dad is who I suspect it is he is a snow and mom is an amel. So if I read correctly on corn calc I should get half normals/half amels unless there is a het they both share in there somewhere. Also it is possible they are brother and sister.. I got them from the same person.... Hope that is not a problem for the babies... If they are related that could mean snows and amels??

All I hope for is happy healthy pips!
 
If Dad is a snow and mom is an amel, then you should get all amels. Unless like you said there is matching hets.
 
Touche!!! However, if the babies are clones of mom and dont have a dad then they will all still be amels. lol
 
It would be cool to see parthenogenesis actually happen in corns...I don't know if it has been documented yet, someone correct me?
 
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