hadn't really wanted to do this but....

[JCam99]

I suppose I'm going to go ahead and be rebreeding my amel who just give me the 28 or so eggs. She's ovulating again, the male is ballistically trying to get out of his cage and get to her. If she's going to ovulate I might as well get a good fertility rate, let her energy put into reproduction not be pointless. Her weight is good, her feeding response has been excellent, and she's bulking up fast.

This is my first time ever double clutching a female. Any advice or guidelines? The only thing that is worrying me is that previous egg binding issue with the one freaky bad egg. Would allowing her to breed potentially cause any problems with this? I would hate for her to develop more eggs and have another eggbinding problem. But yet if she's going to form eggs anyways I might as well get a decent fertility, even though she probably has extra sperm to use. Grrr....I don't know what I should do.

Any advice I'd greatly appreciate.
Thanks
Jcam99

 

[Susan]

In my experience (have been double clutching many females for past 6 years), second clutches tend to be smaller in both number and size of eggs (but not always). Just because a female had trouble with one egg in one clutch doesn't mean that she will always have a problem. She may never have trouble again. And a female that has been laying eggs for years with no problems may egg-bind sometime in the future, or never. As long as her weight and condition look excellent, go ahead and breed her again...IMO.

 

[JCam99]

Thanks Susan for the advice. That makes me feel a lot better. Actually I think the reason she became eggbound was because like I mentioned to Elaphe_Mo in a previous post my snakes are kept in the computer room in my house where I do a lot of schoolwork and such. I'm in here a lot when I'm home, and even though I don't necessarily go near the snakes everytime I'm in here they undoubtably sense my presence. She's a very tame snake and all but I think even when the tamest of animals is pregnant or gravid or whatever they become more cautious, shy, reserved, the whole instinctual thing. I think she saw me as a threat being in here and that is why she didnt lay her main clutch or the eggbound egg until times when I was out of town and gone the entire day and most of the night. It's just a little theory I thought up. I think that is something a lot of people who have snakes that become eggbound should consider, that even though they don't necessarily fear us and may act tame and all, when they're gravid they are vulnerable, I imagine they don't feel well at all being bloated like that (I know I wouldnt!), and their instincts are telling them to find a place isolated from potential threats where they can safely provide a place for their future offspring to have the least chance of predation. So sometimes it is best to simply leave them alone, give them some time and they'll do their thing when they feel are most comfortable. As to whether or not the last egg when she passed it was ever fertile or not, I doubt it. I think she was just stressed from laying to begin with, me coming in there pestering her to take the main clutch away (which meant literally having to pick her up, move her, take the eggs away, put the box back in there, then put her back in it), and just plain worn out.

sorry i got a little off topic there. Once she sheds I'll reintroduce her to the male and just keep feeding her frequently during the next few weeks in case she does decide to go through with a second clutch.
Thanks for making me feel more comfortable about it.
Later
Jared