| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| anatess |
Posted - 12/07/2011 : 16:14:38
My pastel girl laid eggs yesterday! We thought she wouldn't go this year because she maternally incubated last year (hatched in July). We bred her in December/January and she didn't lay in April/May as we expected, so we thought she's not ready for another round.
Anyway, we're doing the maternal incubation again and we'll keep you posted.
No pictures yet because you can't pass by her enclosure without her ready for a strike. We are doing very minimum maintenance - just the quick temp and humidity check and water changes until she settles down a bit.
From what we can see through the opening of the lay-box, she has 6, maybe 7 eggs.
Daddy is a spider.
The next 50 days is going to be one heck of a wait! Grrrr!
The particulars:
Ambient temps at 82 Fahrenheit.
She laid the eggs on the 90-92F hotspot laybox (there's another laybox in the other end which is at around 82, but she didn't use it).
Humidity raised to 70% (regularly at 50%) for the duration of the incubation period.
Momma last weighed in at 2100g a month ago, hasn't missed a meal - 1 large african soft-furred rat every 7 days. She last ate last Friday.
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| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| anatess |
Posted - 13/07/2011 : 21:00:38
In this world of instant gratification, I figured you should not have to wait for my clutch to hatch.
Here's my friend's maternally incubated clutches this year. She's been maternally incubating for 3 years with 100% hatch rate so far...
Some really cute pictures in there as well!
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?141044-First-eggs-of-the-season-for-me.-
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?143859-Maternally-Incubating-Clutch-2
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?146594-Henna-s-Clutch |
| Welly |
Posted - 13/07/2011 : 17:15:37
Best of luck, this does interest me. With it being all natural etc |
| GMac |
Posted - 13/07/2011 : 14:39:24
good luck |
| anatess |
Posted - 13/07/2011 : 14:38:37
quote:
Originally posted by Royalbob
Very interested. Watching this post carefully.
Can i ask why you chose to go with maternal incubation.
Will you keep the temp at 90-92F?
Good luck as well.
I'm keeping temps the same as how it always is in the royal's enclosure - 80-82F ambient, 90-92F hotspot. I'm keeping humidity the same as in a shed cycle.
We're newbies in the royal world. We got our first royal (the pastel) back in October 2008. We never really planned on breeding these guys. But, my husband and sons wanted me to shell out $600 for a Bumblebee that the reptile store was selling. I said no. We already had 4 snakes at that time, I thought we had enough snakes to last us a lifetime and there are better ways to spend $600. Well, the boys looked at our female pastel and male spider and had an "a-ha!" moment. So, they put the two together last year.
They made this DIY styrofoam cooler incubator and I look at it and think... "I don't know about this one...", so when the eggs got laid I convinced them to let the mother do her thing because I trust the mother more than that styrofoam box!
It's all about who gets to control the process. We were newbies and I didn't think I nor the boys are knowledgeable enough to control the process. The mother - now, she should know what she's doing since it's been written into her genes for thousands of years. She is better qualified than we were to control the process. We're just sidekicks. So, I researched maternal incubation and went for it.
Interestingly, the mother never stopped eating - she ate every 10 days (we stretched it out from 7 days just to minimize disturbance). And 67 days later (yeah, it took a long time for our first one!), we got 2 bumblebees and a normal. We didn't have a normal royal either. So we kept the normal and the bumblebee and sold the other bumblebee for $400 (sold for cheap because we didn't have any references or whatever - it was our one and only royal we ever sold, so the buyer will have to trust that we're not scam artists).
Here's an article that may be relevant:
http://talkbirth.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/birth-lessons-from-a-chicken/
Since maternal incubation worked out okay for us the last time, we decided to continue with that method this time. We still have the styrofoam box as a stand-by.
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| hodgie |
Posted - 13/07/2011 : 07:56:59
good luck |
| Blackecho |
Posted - 13/07/2011 : 06:53:34
Good luck. |
| Royalbob |
Posted - 13/07/2011 : 01:04:04
Very interested. Watching this post carefully.
Can i ask why you chose to go with maternal incubation.
Will you keep the temp at 90-92F?
Good luck as well. |
