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All these slugs, we MUST be doing something wrong...

Serpwidgets

Serpwidgets

New member
I've been watching all the posts about who has laid what, an especially the nimber of infertile eggs in all these clutches. Can someone who has done a lot of (or even a little) field collecting tell us if there are this many slugs generally found in wild clutches?

It just seems like a tremendous waste of energy to lay that many infertile eggs, so my guess is that this isn't the case with wild corns.
 
the following not bolstered by any knowledge whatsoever on this topic....

here's my theory.... i would think that in the wild a female would have fairly good access to a male in the wild (at least more than weekly) i don't think the eggs probably stay permeable inside the female for very long after she ovulates. at some point they have to become impermeable and end up (non)life as slugs. my questions would be: how often do snakes ovulate and if it is cyclic? how long the window of opportunity is for an egg to be fertilized? (we know sperm is often viable for quite an extended period of time)
just venturing a guess.... love to know if anyone knows...---jim
 
just was wondering at the number of unfertilized eggs a chicken lays and they also have the burden (in energy consumption terms) of being warm-blooded...
 
Jim, I don't know about chickens, but I'll tell you about my canaries that I raise. I have bred 3 different breeds over the past 3 years. The red factor breed produced 28 eggs of which 5 hatched, and 2 of those babies died in a few days. The glosters produced 19 eggs, 4 hatched, and one died a day later. The waterslagers, however, had about 75% hatch rate and all but one survived to adulthood. The infertile eggs were all from the same 2 hens, and the other hens had excellent hatch rate. All these breeds are pure (line-bred). The few times that I've had "kitchen" canaries (mutts) they had close to 100% fertility. In general, birds and mammals are prone to low fertility when inbred. It looks like snakes aren't as susceptible, but I would guess that wild types are better at reproduction than pure breeds.
 
when my snakes are done......

I'll do a little research on my results to see if there is anything common.

Rich Z. once told me that the average for a large group of corns is about 10 eggs per female. So far, that seems pretty accurate in my case. I'm sure that results may vary, some folks may just be on the high or low end of the averages. I'm sure that the larger the collection, the better chance the averages rule. Someone with a small collection would be more susceptible to the extremes.
 
Egg Fertility

I have kept breeding & fertility records on my collection the last 4 years and found that 30% of all eggs produced over those years looked infertile when freshly layed. This includes double clutches that have a high percent of infertile eggs (I don't breed for second clutches). Also only 87% of eggs I concidered fertile when layed ended up actually hatching. So thats 61% hatching from all eggs (good & bad) produced. Note that this is data from only 37 clutches which includes one female that has a hatchling rate close to 100% and another that has had 1 egg hatch from 40 or so eggs she has produce over her breeding years. By the way, she for sale.
I would love to see Rich's or Kathy's breeding records!
Frank Pinello
 
Thanks for the thoughts. :)

I was thinking about all this, and remembered that miscarriages were also a lot more common in humans than I would have suspected. I guess it would be silly to expect a 100% fertility rate, especially with the amount of inbreeding that is still happening in order to produce all the morphs we're working on.

Clint, I've seen others on the forums that sound like their averages are way higher, more like 20-25. I know what you mean about the statistical averages becoming more absolute the higher your numbers get. But I also wonder if there's anything we can improve in our husbandry to help it along, and if those people may have just hit on some of those things without even realizing it.
 
Good point....

That may very well be. I have been going over all of my practices in my head wondering if there is something I need to change to boost the %'s in my favor.

Statistically, I'm actually well over the 10 eggs per female mark and I still have 2 females yet to lay. I guess the discouraging part is that it's always the 'SPECIAL' projects that seem to flop! :(
 
maybe its a problem with the males. you always hear about prepping a female but what about the male? perhaps a lean diet with good exercise, before breeding is to take place.
 
Hey Clint,

I know what you mean by "Special" project being a flop. Most of my projects this year are doing okay. The one flop that hasn't worked out yet is my pair of Amel Striped Motleys. The female just absolutely refuses to breed. The Male is willing but.... I've even tried a second Male,(Normal Male that produced a Sunglow last year) and nothing.
Mind you I'm not really complaining,(not to much anyway) Just wish this pair would breed.

Take Care!!
wc
 
You know, I certainly cannot speak for Rich here, but I believe he once told me the same thing about expecting ten per female on average. However, unless I'm mistaken, he was referring to the number of viable, sellable hatchlings. In this number he was taking slugs, non-viable hatchlings, AND non-feeders into account. If my memory is accurate, I would suspect that the actual number of eggs he's getting out of each female is far higher than the ten hatchlings he's later able to sell in good faith.

This number of ten sellable (is this a word?!?) hatchlings is one that I have found to be pretty accurate in my admittedly limited experience. I have more than this from older females and fewer than this out of first timers. All in all, the average seems to work out for me, though.

Darin
 
You may be right......

That may very well be what Rich was referring to in the 10 per statement.

That would probably be more representative of my results anyway.
 
In response to Serpwidgets original question:

I have found quite a few of the following:

(1) Gravid females that later laid eggs in my possession.

(2) Clutches of eggs in the wild.

(3) Groups of spent eggs from which snakes had very recently hatched out.

In absolutely NO instances have I ever found infertile eggs or unhatched eggs. Nor have I ever captured an egg bound female, nor had one of the wild caught gravid females become egg bound.

I have also never captured a wild caught kinked snake.

Obviously all our work and knowledge to date is just merely borderline for doing this correctly.

As for my past mentioning of a 10 per clutch 'seat of the pants' estimate, that was in reference to my projecting the number of babies I could expect in a season. What I would do is at the beginning of the breeding season, I would count up the number of eligible females and multiply that by 10 to come up with a pretty accurate count of the number of babies I would have hatch out in the final tally. Since I have gotten rid of all of my milk snakes, this factoring number has risen to 12.94. This year I counted 409 eligible females. Gulp! You do the math.........

The following is taken from my spreadsheet from the 2001 hatching season:

TOTALS 4076 good eggs 793 slugs
COUNT = 315 clutches
AVERAGE = 12.94
% fertile laid 83.71
% Hatched = 85.28
# eggs gone bad = 600
% Hatch Rate = 71.39
 
Here's a thought....

In the wild if you don't lay a lot of fertile eggs, your few offspring will probably get eaten and picked off in various ways, leaving very few hatchlings to grow up and pass on your small clutching genes. On the other hand if you are a wild female who lays large clutches you have a better chance of having more kids grow up to pass on your large clutching genes.

But if you are CB corn and lay few eggs, your kids will still be cared for and raised to breed and lay another small clutch.

Its just one of the down sides to breeding for color and pattern, its usually worth it though.

And as for egg binding, I am sure it is from lack of exercise, no wondering searching for food and no subduing it.

IMHO
 
Good point...

But it doesn't entirely explain it. If those genes are so detrimental, they shouldn't be so common in the wild gene pool, so it would take quite a lot of "non-selective" breeding for them to become so common.

Also, seems like a lot of them do lay large clutches, it's just that a large proportion of the clutches are not fertile. As Rich pointed out, this doesn't seem to happen in the wild, so it's feasible that we're also doing something to affect male fertility.

I agree, lack of exercise is probably a contributor to egg binding. I've been wondering about the factors of housing in a small cage vs. large cage, and if it might help to rearrange the furniture often enough that they feel like they're exploring a "new" place... so they get more activity.
 
On the egg binding subject I am tempted to make an experiment, feeding half of my growing females several live rat pups (as big as I can find that still lack teeth). To see if the exercise they get constricting helps. Thats an expensive experiment though, live rat pups are a fortune around here. Unless I start raising rats. NO THANK YOU! The stench fills the whole house. I think I will have to try this one next year.

Also on the male fertility, natural selection can work both ways offspring of less fertile males are still raised and bred. And I do think it explains why SOME clutches make it and some don't. Just like in nature, CB's who produce a lot, pump a lot of hatchlings into the market. Its just the ones who are less fertile don't really die out as quickly as they do in nature. Causing those few bomb clutches that bring down our averages. And unlike our "special projects" female corns in the wild are probably exposed to more males. Then again those males would probably be exposed to more females to expend themselves. Uggh. Hope I don't come off as argumentative, I just have extra time on my hands today.

My problem is I have a 00 Male who's fathered two clutches, one twenty eggs no slugs, one 14 eggs no slugs. He also mated with a female that I bred two males to so I won't know how many are his until they hatch. Well thats not the problem, its now I just bought my dream project female (Motley Miami het for amel) and this 00 Male that I love so much does not want anything to do with her. I put a different male in with her and he went nuts, I had to take him out quick because I really want her to mate with this other guy. UGH, again, I hope he comes around. Cause if he does I'll have candy canes het motley.
 
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Sometimes, if you put a handful of shavings from another male's cage in with a pair, it will encourage the reluctant male to breed before his "competitor" gets to her. Good luck!

Darin
 
There's another option :)

On the egg binding subject I am tempted to make an experiment, feeding half of my growing females several live rat pups (as big as I can find that still lack teeth). To see if the exercise they get constricting helps. Thats an expensive experiment though, live rat pups are a fortune around here. Unless I start raising rats. NO THANK YOU! The stench fills the whole house. I think I will have to try this one next year.
Click to expand...
You can easily get them to constrict dead ones by playing puppet with them. If they are voracious feeders, you can even get them to chase it around first. :)
 
abell82 said:
I would have to say that line-breeding/in-breeding is the biggest part of the infertility rate puzzle.It has been said that all amels originated from one snake.So all of the amels on the market share a common ancestor,and therefore common genes(serpwidgets help me out)
Click to expand...
True to a point, but how many generations ago was that? (What morph/locality hasn't been combined with amels?) IMO only traits linked to amel would have any tendency to follow it around for that long. My amel is the model of potency so far. :)

With newer traits, and the inbreeding it takes to reproduce them, I think you're right.
 
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