• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Girl is eggbound - Please describe the probe method!

Kels88

Kels88

New member
Our girl laid 11 little eggs which we found last night. They could have been laid up to 24 hours before we found them. She has 2-3 more still inside, very close to the vent. We've tried a lukewarm bath and massage, but no luck. She has been refusing food for 3-4 weeks and is getting weak and we're worried.
It's her first time laying, but she's about 5 years old and of size.

We have probes and lube and I think if we can get the one out, she can pass the others. This one looks twice the size of the others she laid and is blocking the last from coming out. Can someone please describe the Kathy Love probe/lube method in detail? There are posts that mention it but I haven't seen a detailed description. I've read her book but it's been a couple years and I don't have access to it right now. Pictures or video would be extremely helpful.
 
And Kathy Love's e-mail is [email protected] She has a phone number listed on her website, but I am not sure if it's the same phone, since she has moved out of Florida. Kathy will definitely help you if you can reach her.
 
Otherwise, Rich (rich333) will be home around 5:30 or 6PM EST. He's good at it. :) (Gave him the heads up just in case...)
 
We can't see anything, but the egg is less than an inch from the vent. We gave her a 45 min soak and she pooed, so maybe that will help.
Will rich be on the forums?
 
Ok,

First get these Items together: A Helper, a towel, A Sexing probe with a small diameter ball.. BB sized or slightly smaller. Some type of Lubricant. Razor blade or Something sharp.Table or a stable platform to perform the "operation" on.

OK...Lay towels down, Because..once the egg comes out...Poo is sure to follow. Have the helper Hold the head end of the snake....what you want to do is turn the snake belly up (They HATE this)....slide your thumb down the belly until it rests just behind the stuck egg...DONT PUSH!!! your thumb is there more to keep the egg from going up than it is to try and push it out. Ok...Take the lubbed Sexing probe and lift the anal scale...making sure to coat the area with the lube....Slowly...Insert probe into cloaca. I cannot stress this enough...NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE IN A HURRY!!!! Press the ball against the interior wall just past the cloacal opening.Making small circles stay in contact with interior wall...after a few minutes move in a little deeper....Soon...she will relax her cloaca...and it will widen dramatically. ok...at this point...if the end of the egg is visible from the cloaca..IE..Exposed...and there is no Membrane of any sort around the egg tip...Take the razor blade...and deflate the egg. It wont take much....hold her tail over the towel and allow egg to drain. It should pop right out. Ok..if the egg is a bit farther up...continue your circles..staying in contact with the interior walls....You will eventually...feel the egg..If it feels bumpy or rough...continue...if it feels slick..stop..the egg is most likely surrounded by a membrane. If rough or bumpy and you continue...follow the contour of the egg with the ball tip..Slow circles. What your doing is stretching and loosening the interior enough to allow the egg to pass...remember your thumb....DONT PUSH!! But steady pressure...if the egg moves toward the cloaca you want that thumb there...so it doesnt go back in. And just keep doing the circles...Gentle slow circles. Steady pressure with the thumb...but not pushing...

Ok..now, if the egg has moved down...and it is exposed...but you feel your girl has been through enough, and you don't feel the egg will come out comfortably.....Deflate the egg. It sucks...but theres a 99.999% chance that stuck egg wont hatch anyway(infertile or dead already).

The Key is go slow..it wont be easy for your helper to hold her still...And it might require a bit of tough love on your part....

Also, I would attempt to remove the first egg...then allow her to try and pass the rest....if within 24 hrs. the others haven't moved...repeat the procedure...each time giving her at LEAST 24 hrs to recuperate.

And by all means...If you can get a hold of Kathy Love...By all means do so!!
She's the one that walked me through this last year.

PM me if you have troubles or if you would rather i talk you through this on the phone.

Best Of Luck!!!

Let us Know how She does!!!
 
Last edited:
We tried with a probe doing small circles with lots of lube for a few minutes, but she was clenched up so tight we couldn't get in past the ball of the probe. We were going to try to put some lube up there with an oral syringe but we couldn't get in. Is that normal? And we have the tools to aspirate, but how dangerous is that?
 
Have you tried exercising her on a flight of stairs to see if the movement helps the egg move along?
 
Have you looked at the aspiration video that is a sticky at the top of this section? I think you should contact Kathy- she will be really helpful. There is a time limit for being able to aspirate because the eggs solidify. I do not know how long you have.
 
Rich suggests trying again with a probe with a smaller ball, "slow but with purpose." He says the snake won't like it.
 
No luck with lubricant, so today we aspirated the one closest to the vent (largest one). We were very careful about cleanliness and used a disinfected table with a clean towel and then paper towels over it. We washed ourselves up and wiped her with alcohol. We used a sterile 16 gauge needle (would've used an 18 if I'd had access) and put iodine and then antibiotic ointment one her after and only had a couple dots of blood. We removed about 4 cc of yolk/whatever which was a milky white with a very slight yellow hint. The shell seemed to deflate well and wasn't hard yet at all. It's been about 4 hours since the procedure (4 pm central) and she is relaxing in her cool hide with no shell passed yet.
I disinfected her viv, hides, and bowl, and put down paper towels so we can keep a close eye on her. No blood on her paper towels at all.
She still has a decent sized egg that was behind the other, but I would like to give her the chance to pass it normally if possible.

Questions:
How long should it take for the shell to pass?
Should we give her a small meal (we have fuzzies for a different snake, so they're already available)? Would it give her more energy or help move everything downward? We could cut the skin to ease digestion.
Should we give her a lukewarm bath? Or should we wait til morning/later tomorrow so she has time to heal up the spot from the aspiration? I don't want infection, but we have a plastic tub we can disinfect and we could reapply iodine and antibiotic ointment after the soak.
Should we try exercising her on our stairs? We have given her some exercise but not on the stairs yet. I don't want to add stress to an already rough day for her :(
 
Personally....I'd let her rest for at least 24hrs. Give the deflated egg time to be passed..... Sounds like your doing everything right. Sorry to hear you couldn't get the Probe procedure to work for you.

I'll let the More expert residence answer the rest of the questions. :)
 
I would not feed her. I'd just let her rest and see what has happened in the morning. No more exercising or bothering.
 
It's been 30 hours since aspiration and no egg has passed. Her eyes have gone from blue back to pink, so she should shed soon (her post-lay shed).

Time for another soak? Or should we maybe aspirate the second egg that's still in her? It's not as big as the other was, maybe the size of a dime or penny in diameter.
 
No. She has just stayed in her cool hide from what I've seen with no changes.
I think today we will do a soak and aspirate the other egg, unless someone thinks that's a really bad idea.
 
Personally, I've had a female pass a retained egg after the post-lay shed, after feeding, without any interference on my part. I would recommend a wait and see approach.
I know there are cases of successful aspiration, successful manipulation and successful surgery, but there are also females who die despite of (or perhaps because of) all the interventions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top