2015-2016 Breeding Season Update 2

by Terrell Zeigler

WE HAVE OUR FIRST CLUTCH!

Day before laying 04/16/2016 5:15pm

The waiting and second guessing is finally over. Our 2009 Irian Jaya girl, Sydney, laid her clutch for the year. This has been a confusing one because I did things radically different than I did the year prior and with the weather flip flopping back and forth, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. It wasn't until the past week that I started seeing tell tale signs from her and knew we were on the right track. I had woken up today around 6:00am and was doing my a quick glance check and saw one of the pearly white eggs poking out from the center of her coil. Immediately, I felt relief and an excitement that you only get in this particular moment. It is a surreal feeling to say the least.

I peaked into her tub, just as she was preparing to push the final egg out. 5 more minutes in bed and I would've missed the entire thing! The outcome of this years clutch is far better in contrast to lat years clutch at first glance. The volume of eggs has increased by one and there were no slugs this year. I have also noticed that the eggs are bigger and look to be in good health. Now I won't know that till I pull them and candle each one, but a quick visual shows a drastic difference to last years clutch. 

4/17/2016 6:10am Total Clutch: 12 Eggs, no slugs

Now that she has completed the task of laying the eggs, I have decided that this year I will be artificially incubating the clutch. Last year I let her maternally incubate the clutch and out of a clutch of 11, two have survived to see their first birthday. There are many reasons and variables that could play a part in that, but I want to do AI this year to see if our hatch rate is much better. She will be rested for 1-2 years before she is bred again and I also want to get her back to feeding as soon as possible to speed up recovery. On the surface the pairing isn't something revolutionary by industry standards, but it is laying the foundation for a line breeding project we will be working on going forward and that is what is most import

Cleopatra Update

Cleopatra, our Albino Carpet Python is next up to lay a clutch for us. She had what could have been her pre-lay shed 4/16/2016 so we are counting down 27 days or so till we might see the first clutch from this girl. Like Sydney, Cleo has been hard to read, but she's starting to look and act the part so we can be nothing but hopeful. This is an important clutch for me as this would be the first pairing that we have done were we have raised the animals up ourselves. it will also be the first high end Carpet Python clutch for Designer Exotics. We have had a few interested parties in this clutch which has been exciting as well. We definitely are not counting our eggs before they hatch though and have a ways to go before we can really get excited about this clutch.

Possible Post Ovulation Shed 4/16/2016