un"egg"spected!

[bubblesharp]

On Saturday, one of my unsexed "male" cornsnakes started laying eggs. I never probed the snake, just checked the tail as it was in any case a bit small, in my opinion, for breeding so would have probed next year to make sure,

Long story short, this was a runaway snake that some poor guy found in his house and nearly had a heart attack, on a second glance he recognised it as a corn snake and brought it to me. I checked the tail, over all condition, made sure it does not have mites, checked the mouth etc and decided to take it in, it was in perfect condition.

I put with a normal male corn of the same size and checked that they would not fight. During the past week i had a spare cage that opened, and moved it to a new cage, on Saturday one of my customers were holding it and told me that something was wrong with the snake as there were big lumps in the belly, and within 20min, she laid the first egg. She continued the whole day and laid 10 beautifull healthy eggs. This posed a new problem, namely incubation. Weekends being my busiest times I did not have time to build an incubator, I found a 3l tub with ventilation holes around the top, so filled it half way with vermiculite, moistened it placed it in the cage for her to lay in, by this time only 2eggs has been laid. She was still busy laying when we had to leave, when we got back on Sunday, 10 eggs were laid in total, 6 of which was laid outside the laybox, in the cage, so by the time we got there the eggs were pretty dehydrated. Still without an incubator it was time for drastic measures to save the eggs, I placed the lid on the tub, added a thermometer, and left it floating in my Malawi tank. The tub is now kept constantly between 28.2 and 29C. So decided that it might not look the part but is probably the cheapest way to incubate.

The eggs has swelled and recovered fully by Sunday afternoon,
Wil keep you posted on the development. So if you unexpectedly get eggs and have a tropical fish tank, which runs on higher temps you could always incubate your eggs in there

[Bushviper]

Thats a bonus. They will in all likelihood hatch too. Just make sure you have a lid on the tub so they dont climb out and drown or get eaten.

[@ndy]

Congrats Bubblesharp, nice idea with the fish tank hope they all hatch!

[bubblesharp]

The tub is closed with a lid, but we have to open it at least every second day to prevent to much droplets falling on the eggs, have placed a drip guard so that should sort out that problem!

With the cooler temps this weekend, the temp did drop to around 27C, but we have upped the heater a bit, just keeping an eye on it to make sure it does not overheat when it get hot again!

[bubblesharp]

Thought I would quickly send an update on this matter.

On day 50 tragedy struck when I walked into the store and found that the whole container has sunk to the bottom of the tank. I had no idea how long the eggs have been submerged but decided to move the eggs to a new container and keep incubating as if nothing happened. On day 67 I cut the first egg the baby seemed lifeless but a good size, I decided to cut one more egg and not much better. I left them for a while and when I returned noticed that the first baby has moved. I decided to leave all the eggs as is for another few days, the next day almost all babies were "piping" their eggs. We ended up with 9 out of 10 healthy babies, 1 must have drowned during the time the eggs was submerged as he it did not hatch, I cut it on day 70, but the baby was lifeless.

They were fed their first meals yesterday and most took without too much hassling. There is a second batch of eggs from another female incubated in the same way, they should start hatching by the weekend.

[insaniac]

Luck struck twice !

Awesome !

[brentraf]

Are you going to post photos of the little guys? Really keen to see them