Large Egg

[Classic]

Poor thing has been struggling with this football for 2 days. She has abandoned her lay box so i removed it. She has laid all the stragglers outside the laybox so it was just taking space. She laid her first egg 9 days ago.
I hope she can pass it.
She took down a small meal last night.


Brian
HighWaterHerps

[Tim_Cranwill]

Yikes! Good luck with her... let us know how it goes.

[hooked]

Hi Brian

Keep me updated Brian... my poor baby..... I hope she will be OK.
That is one big egg... wow

[vanderkm]

Owwww! That looks painful - poor girl! We have had a couple girls in the past that continued to pass infertile eggs even a couple weeks after the clutch, and after they started eating agin, but never one that big - hope she comes through this ok. Are you considering aspirating it?

mary v.

[Classic]

The thought has crossed my mind. I've been giving her warm baths and gentle handling over the past 24 hrs. I think tomorrow a decision will have to be made.

Brian

[Stockwell]

This example of egg binding is fairly common and certainly not isolated to Brian, nor is it specific to Hondurans. Many captive colubrids seem to retain eggs. My female Hondo had about 3 stuck in her last year, and the year before she also carried slugs most of the summer
Not quite that big, but not far off. When they are down close to the cloaca I force them out.I do it under water in the bath tub, as the water acts as a lubricant as the egg starts to emerge and stretch the cloaca. It requires a great deal of force which must be applied between the ribs on the belly side to prevent breaking the ribs
I have had some bad experiences with trying to push out eggs that are up much higher than a few inches. Sometimes they bond to the oviduct and the pressure required to move the egg, simply ruptures the oviduct and the egg comes out wrapped in a thin membrane, which was the snakes reproductive tract.
Aspiration(sucking the yolk out through the abdominal wall) is popular and often successful but sometimes not, and its not without risk. If the egg has bonded to the oviduct wall, then it may not move even with the yolk sucked out of it. Of course if the egg is fertile and contains a dead embryo , aspiration probably wont be entirely effective as there is too much solids , and there is higher risk of infection as some of the contents leaks into the perforated oviduct and body cavity.
Our fellow breeder,Simon Sansom aspriated a Cave Rat egg last year, only to find she ejected her entire oviduct a couple weeks later... The egg was probably bonded to the oviduct. She pushed the egg out but the egg was not free to slide in the oviduct, so the entire oviduct was pushed out with the collapsed ova
Brian that egg looks like it is getting fairly close to the cloaca. The meal will give her a bit of strength and she might push it further, but that is an awfully big egg and the female will probably not be able to generate the force required to push that out.
I can't quite see where the vent is in the photo, but it looks like the egg is getting close to the cloaca...
A mass that size will probably prevent normal defecation, so it will need to come out or at least be aspirated if it's possible...
Here's a pic of one of my hondo's retained eggs
last year, and what it looked like after I successfully pushed it out.. It was big, and fertile, containing a dead embryo

[jwsporty]

Thanks Roy for the insight, likewise I am concerned about my girl. My #3 cali, did the same thing and she hauled that last egg around with her for almost three weeks. She was successful though in dropping it and is non the worse for wear. I gave her a small food item once a week until she dropped.

Hoping everything is ok.

Cheers
Jim

[Classic]

Thanks Roy, I'll try some pushing later on if she has not made any progress. Thanks for the advice.
I am thinking that aspiration may be to late as the rest of the clutch was laid 10 days ago. I'll try some more warm baths and gentle massaging a couple more times and work her up to more forcful pushing.

Thanks for the info Roy.
Brian

[Simon]

Ouch
that is a huge egg stuck inside.

I basically do what Roy does with the egg bound. If it is close to the vent, I try to push it out with a little force. But of course do not do it with a lot of force, just gentlely massage it down. I also let the snake 'run about' and with the motion of it sliding down (anywhere that is considered clean) would help it push the egg a bit futher down.

If the egg is not near the vent, I usually do nothing. Just offer it a large meal (if it would take it, if not try a small meal) and make the snake push it down with the poop. I find that it is more effective to let the snake do its own pushing if the egg(s) are too high up. It is a risk, but I don't see it any better with forcing the eggs down manually. I don't usally trust the vets with these kinds of things. Most of the time when eggs are actually removed by surgery......most (all in my case) have died after the surgery of removing the eggs. I think that the cut was either too big or something like that. So I don't trust my vet in doing egg bound surgery. I myself removing eggs with the water with gentle massage, and giving it large meals to help push the eggs have better chance.

I had 3 females that had egg bound this year. 1 had at least 12 eggs bounded and she ended up dead but I had success in getting 9 out...and the other 2 had 3 and 4 eggs inside. With the gentle massage and large meals did good for them and passed out the eggs with no problem at all.

I have heard from Don Soderberg (South Montain Reptiles) that he got an albino western hognose to get the egg bounded eggs out in a period of 7 months. The western had 7 eggs inside. So basically 1 a month.

So don't lose hope. Keep it up! At least its eating right?
So that is already a great sign!! (My female that had 12 eggs or more inside didn't eat at all and died.....) So at least your is eating. Which is already a great sign~!!

Good luck and hope to hear that the gal passed the huge egg out soon~~~

Don't get overly stressed out~

All the best!!

[Classic]

Thanks for the helpful hints Simon. I appreciate it very much.

Brian

[BoidKeeper]

That's not good Brian but I'm sure both of you will be fine. Keep us posted. Also I'm sure Dr. McGregor could be of help too.
Good luck,
Trevor

[Stockwell]

I think it's good that we discuss this topic openly, as I've found some breeders are embarrassed by it and tend to avoid revealing that they have had similar problems. In this short thread several have already come forward and indicated similar problems... Believe me it's widespread.
There are lots of us in the same boat and i think the incidence of this is rising in captive colubrids, or at least the number of breeders is growing therefore I hear about it much more.
Oddly enough egg binding is not a common problem in captive Pythons. I have discussed this with Dr. Phil Blais, and he speculates that since Pythons are normally quite inactive tending to lay in wait for their prey, that they might be less susceptible to getting out of shape in small enclosures.
Colubrids on the other hand normally are always on the move and probabaly travel several miles over the course of a season, up down around over...
Colubrids in the wild get alot of exercise, however in captivity they are confined to small cages and rack boxes , probably overfed fatty lab rodents, and get very little excercise. This is in stark contrast to many Pythons that sit on their arses for days on end both in the wild and in captivity. It might well be that they are less likely to lose muscle tone, since they don't normally move around as much as colubrids.
Over feeding and breeding too young also appear to be factors in egg binding.
Last year I fed huge meals to my Honduran with hopes of increasing the clutch size.
It worked, to some extent, but the female laid a dozen eggs, but apparently just ran out of steam on the last 3. So 15 Honduran eggs would have been great, but its not much good if she retains the last 3 which is what happened.
This year I fed her only moderately. She laid 8 good eggs and 4 slugs, but they all came out. They were also slightly smaller.
It could be that over feeding produces eggs with higher yolk volumes, and greater diameter thus increasing deliver problems.
I also have my suspicions that interfering during egg laying is somtimes to blame for egg retention.
There is a widspread habit of photographing layings ,removing eggs while they are being deposited, and otherwise disturbing the female. I'm guitly of this as well, but think this may be bad practice.
If a female snake gets spooked, and fears she is in danger, the smooth process of oviposition might well be curtailed.
I have noticed over the years that when I find surprise clutches they are usually complete with no retained eggs.
Its females I tamper with that seem to end up with incomplete deliveries.

These above comments are speculation on my part, but I present these ideas only for consideration.
We have little scientific data to confirm the exact causes of egg binding, but I suspect it doesn't happen in nature the way it does in captivety, so if that is true, we're doing something wrong and breeders must keep an open mind to all the possible causes,and continue to experiment to find solutions.
To summarize.. I think I can make a few basic recommendations.
1. Don't over feed
2. Don't breed snakes too young, or too small
3. Give breeder colubrids as much room as possible
4. Provide branches and rough substrates to allow
for better muscle tone and excercise

[Classic]

That's alot of fantastic observations. To ad a couple of my own.
With the two female hondurans i bred this year there a alot of differences in thrie respective body dispositions.
Subject A. is a long female with a history of successful breeding. She's 61 inches and her weight before laying was 1330 grams.. Not over weight. She produced 15 viable and 1 slug this season and i removed her eggs every couple hours to avoid clumping.

Subject B. is a shorter more robust female. Breeding history is unknown but this is most likely her first year breeding. She is approx 50+ inches and somewhat over weight but otherwise very healthy. At laying she was 1296 grams. She has laid 11 good eggs and one slug. She has retained what i suspect as 3. The current one at the cloaca and two more that are up high but not together.

All the practices and husbandry for both have been identical including feeding, temps, and enviroments as thay are kept in identiacl enclosures in the same breeding rack. Both bred to the same male.

The factors for both that are distinguishable only in breeding history and the respective sizes of both. Otherwise, everything else is identical.

Just a few thoughts. Anyone else got any observations?

Brian
hwh

[BoidKeeper]

Great post Roy. I must admit that this is my biggest fear about breeding snakes.
Cheers,
Trevor

[gonesnakee]

Good Points People & I will have to point out one point in particular made by Unca Roy. Everyone wants to take pics & start taking away eggs etc. from females while they are laying IMHO BAD IDEA notice how I have no pics of eggs being laid, nor do I take any eggs away from her in the middle of laying. This is a delicate time for the females & all this Fing around with them while they want absolutely nothing but to be LEFT ALONE is not good. I have personally had females STOP Laying in the middle of their clutches & become eggbound as a result of bothering them during this sensitive time. I check them all once a day & if I catch them in the act I leave them be & may check 10-12 hours later if I think they are done to take the eggs laid at that point or better yet wait until the next day. If you have a proper nesting box for her the eggs will be fine in there with her for days. I personally know breeders that only check their females 2-3 times a week for this very reason (fear of EB due to disruptions). There is zero reason to disturb her between eggs to get them into an incubator etc. Pics are nice & if are to be taken should be done very quickly while you are checking her status, not a full blown phototshoot while she is doing her best to be alone & undisturbed. In the beginning I was as Guilty as anyone for doing this, but after having had to get help with eggbound females as a result along with stern warnings from other breeders more knowledgable than myself to LEAVE THEM ALONE! As it was believed that my "messing with them" caused the eggbinding in a couple of cases in the first place. Something to think about anyhow folks. Mark
P.S. same can be applied when they are pipping/hatching. If you keep messing with them they will keep pulling back into the eggs. I have personally lost babies that were fully pipped with their heads out. After they were scared pulled back into the eggs only to be found drowned later after not being able to get out again. Extreme let down folks especially when they were alive & well & then drown as a result of over anxious curiousity. Curiousity kills more than Cats