GTP with eggs

[stretch]

I posted pics a couple of months back of my GTPs mating. The eggs have finally arrived, I can count 5, but hopefully there are more.

I mounted a nesting box with spaghnum moss inside on the cage wall and secured a small heating bad underneath with a thermostat to keep the temp at 29c as recomended in Greg maxwell's book. I decided to let the female incubate the eggs herself in the nesting box, rather than do it myself as this is recomended as the more successful & easier method.

Anyway as Murphy would have the the female has laid the eggs on top of the nesting box and has formed a coil around them there.

The question to any experienced GTP keepers, do I leave her on top of the box or attemp to move her and the eggs into the box. She is bad tempered at the best of times and I can only imagine this being stepped up a few levels with eggs. My main concern if I try and move the eggs is not being bitten but that the eggs will get damaged.

Any advice welcome.

[Urucone]

Call me an Idiot, but won't it be better to get those eggs into a incubator?

@ Stretch - Gongrats bud - If all 5 of them hatch your'e going to be between R22 500 and R27 500 richer.

[Snakes4Africa]

If she laid them on top of the box, she felt that this was a better place than inside the box. I would advise you to incubate them yourself, but if you have not yet set up your incubator, you are wasting your time. If that light in the background works, you are going to cook the snake and the eggs!
Leaving the female to incubate her own eggs is not always wise as nature can accept losses that we cannot. She will abandon the clutch if things are not perfect for her.

[Graeme]

Hi stretch
I have a GTP incubator that is up and running as we speak, the egg boxes are ready and everythings good to go. Let me know if you want to discuss a deal, although I fear that we may be too late.
Regards
G.

[stretch]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I moved the female with her eggs into the nest box and all seems good (counted 12 eggs). I have the incubator set up in case she leaves the eggs. The nest box is kept at a constant 29c.

In The more complete chondro by Greg Maxwell, he reccomends leaving the eggs with the female in the set up I have if you are not an experienced keeper of GTPs, appaently they ae quite tricky to incubate.

If they don't hatch I will be very dissapointed but the one positive is that at least I am sure that I have a compatible pair of snakes.

@Snakes for Africa, that is an old light that never gets used, doesn't even have a plug on it, thanks.

[Snakes4Africa]

Excellent! Good luck and keep us informed. Well done so far.

[Carpetpythons]

your problem will be maintaining enough humidity in your cage without your cage falling apart. Mum always knows best when it comes to hatching eggs.

[eyed_lizard]

The only problem is that with our so reliable Eskom, and these cable repair people that never return the cables... I don't think that the mother will run out of power.
A mate of mine lost 80% of his one clutch of 12 GTP eggs due to cable theft.
Work out the damage on that number, and he had a UPS installed but 11hours down, nothing will help for that especially if you are asleep.
Good luck and well done! hope you succeed!