She's been extremely active lately, as in climbing and cruising all around her tank 24-7 for weeks. You would think all that exercise burns enough calories to make a snake powerful hungry, but there are two mice living in our garage that prove otherwise.
When the timer tripped and lit up her tank the other day, I looked over my shoulder and it took me quite awhile to process what I was seeing:
Snake eggs! And smaller orange not snake eggs...
Poor girl was exhausted from pushing them out and didn't move a muscle for over 24 hours. Yesterday I was able to harvest them, and clean 'em up for a portrait:
After Googling for a few minutes I found out that it's normal for a captive female corn snake (and other species) to lay eggs and "slugs" without ever coming into contact with a suitable male during breeding season.
Last year at this time Candy was just as active and uninterested in food but didn't push out any weird stuff, although I suspected that her behavior was mating related. She was already an adult when I found her 5 years ago so it's odd that all of a sudden this stuff happens.
Over the next year I might try to find someone local with a suitable male who's interested in breeding. Hopefully I can find a male with normal corn snake colors, since the plethora of selective-bred fancy colors don't interest me as much--Candy being the exception because she's mine and oh so sweet.
I once built an incubator on the fly with stuff laying around the house when a lizard someone gave me dumped a clutch of eggs, and successfully hatched a half dozen babies 2 months later. No reason I couldn't do it again but much better with minimal investment.
When I get the time for dissection, we'll see if there's anything inside these eggs and slugs worth seeing.
1 comment:
Cool stuff. Plus, I bet those eggs are a sight better to take care off than a litter of puppies.
Don't get me wrong, I love puppies. But they're a helluva lotta work.
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