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This Year's Clutch

A

anankae

New member
You all probably don't remember but last year my little motley sunglow laid an entire clutch of slugs, I believe there were 19.

She just laid last night. I followed some advice from my vet, I brumated both of them and I fed her less. Less because she had a retained egg and he felt that it may have been caused by too much body fat so I backed off on feeding. I paired them 4 times, tried a fifth but she refused (tho the male tried his darndest).

Ironically, like last year, this year she again has a retained egg, tho this time I knew to look for it.

Without moving them around, I counted at least 25. Geez, she's prolific, and she's tiny! Weighs around 550-600g. The male is much larger, he is around 775g.

From the picture, do the eggs look viable to you? The ones on the bottom have that nice oblong shape but the ones on top are rounder and have that shiny characteristic that is bad.

Female is a beautiful motley sunglow het caramel. Male is a striped motley amel (cubed), possibly het caramel (breeder didn't keep any records on him but was pretty sure but not positive about the het). I am hoping for some caramels! From the corn calculator, they'll be caramel motleys.
 

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I'm seeing patches of shininess on some of them, but I can't see it all over the affected eggs. They could just be thin spots on the shells? If the photo has true colours then they look fine to me. The colour of the photo may be bleached out, but from that pic they seem a nice healthy parchment white colour.

With slugs it's not so much the size and shape, as the colour that clinches it for me. Slugs are a kind of pale orange/yellow and the surface feels smooth and waxy. Fertile eggs have that creamy-white colour and a few minutes after laying will feel dry to the touch with a very slightly textured surface - like a sheet of paper.

With any luck - Congratulations!
 
Here is a picture with no flash. Second count yielded 28. I touched a couple of them (hope that's okay) and they were dry and papery.
 

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We have a female I would consider very small, her "normal" weight is in the 330's she's a good breeder for her size. When she's packed with eggs she holds 15 +/-. That is tiny. I have only a handful of girls that are 600+
Back to the topic of the thread though, the eggs look good and a good size clutch! Congrats and good luck!
 
She's tiny compared to the male who's pushing 800g. Everything I read says the female is supposed to be larger!

Anyhow, read something here that says incubation container needs to be really clean so I moved the eggs and got an exact count. 26. :) :) They are heavy for their size, I take it that's a good sign.
 
I don't see why "really clean" would matter much. They're laid in *dirt* in the wild. Mine are in plastic tupperware containers with a bunch of organic moss in it.
 
Shiari said:
I don't see why "really clean" would matter much. They're laid in *dirt* in the wild. Mine are in plastic tupperware containers with a bunch of organic moss in it.
Click to expand...

I dunno, I was going by a post I read on here. (Aside - I read the post about taking out her water dish after Phoenix had laid her clutch. Tho I have never seen a snake drink so much as one that has just laid!)

Anyhow. Last year when I put the lay box in she went immediately in it and stayed there. This year she was in and out in and out all over the place. Thought about it later and not only had I not rinsed the box out since last year's use, but I had also used it for other things, like once I put it in a temporary mouse habitat for the mice to use as a hidebox. Ergo I moved the eggs to something cleaner.

Speaking of the eggs, their appearance has not changed one whit. Tried candling a few, definitely could see veins in some, not in others, but I'm not an expert on this either.

Eggs are 8 days old. Will I ever stop going in and peeking at them?
 
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