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Slugs

J

jstar

New member
Ok, so I have been breeding my corns for about 4 years now and always a litttle more growth on them every year. I've never had more than 2 or 3 slugs per clutch in the past. This year I had two females go with really smaller than normal clutches and at least 7 slugs per clutch. Is it normal to have this happen occassionally?
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It can happen, depending on if the male wasn't quite ready, or he partially missed her ovulation.

How old is the female? If she is older, that might have something to do with it as well.
 
Girls maybe around 7 years old. I have new breeders growing up for next year. This was the first weird laying year I've ever had like this.

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My girls mostly slugged out on me last year. All 6 of 'em. This year I've done much, much better so I don't know what happened.
 
In general, I've heard of snakes close to 20yrs old that are still producing healthy clutches. They have been well taken care of. They were not power fed, not overfed, and not bred year after year.
I've heard of snakes dying at half that age because they were not well taken care of.

Snakes should be living to around 20yrs old or more.
 
Thanks for the responses.everyone. These females were.cared for well and should have gone again this year, but it seems the clutch gods were.not with me this year.
Maybe they just needed a year off and this was the results.
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I saw in your first post that you've been breeding 4 years in a row. Have you bred that female four years in a row?
If so, I'd give her a year or two off from breeding. That is really hard on them. That could be why the fertility is off this year.

I personally would do no more than two years in a row for females, then give them a year, maybe two off.
 
And then she'll lay slugs anyway- a lot of mine do that, especially Cherry...She has taken one year off, bred or not, since I got her in 2007. And she usually double clutches!
 
I must be the odd one out since none of my female snakes have ever had a clutch unless they were bred. I see people saying how common it is, just hasn't happened to me. Unexpected second clutches the same year, yes, with a higher percentage of slugs if she was not reintroduced to the male. I have never gotten clutches in a year that particular female has not been with a male (from "retained sperm" the previous year)
Breeding a female takes a lot out of her and especially if she lays a second clutch, I try to give my females a break every other year. It's a good reason to hold back more than one female with the desired genes so that you aren't overtaxing one snake to get your desired results.
I would first suspect the male's fertility rate especially with an older female that has bred successfully before. I've had a ghost stripe male that was a good breeder for a couple of years become infertile and the females he was with went on to lay successful clutches when paired with a different male. Slugs are eggs that weren't fertilized, that's all a female can produce unless the male does his part.
 
I get the females need a rest. Just didn't know the younger girls wouldn't go every year. I thought they would be rested every other year as they got older, especially since they gain a little weight every year. How often does everyone rest their females. Do you really give them every other year off? Im not sure about male infertility because one male was a first time breed (making that a possibility) but in another clutch it was a proven breeder that gave me two other good clutches this year.

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I think I've heard the males can be less fertile if kept at too high a temp also.
With females I do give them every other year off, and I have begun to feel the "300 gram" minimum is a bit on the low side. I'd rather breed a bigger older female than one that meets the 300 gram rule but still has growing to do. The smaller females have smaller clutches which means fewer chances to get your desired morph combos...
 
I just had a snake who was bred last year lay a hidden clutch of slugs this year- found them today. So that makes five for me this year!!

I keep my males at a max of 78-80- in their own rack.

And I guess I just breed different females every year- both to rest the ones who bred the previous year, and to not flood the market with the same old thing every year.
 
I had a TERRIBLE year for slugs, just terrible.

This is also the year I've had girls lay double clutches without me even re-breeding them, girls that have never even doubled before. Most of their first clutches were pretty good, with the odd slug here and there. But the doubles were about half good, half slugs, and I just got an entire "clutch" of slugs today, from a first-time Mom who decided to double clutch without me re-introducing a male again.

I just don't know. Snakes do what they want!
 
That's for sure. My milkshake-phase matriarch, Cherry, was laying eggs as a virgin. She's an egg factory when she's bred. And then in the years off, she still lays. It feels like kind of a waste for her to spend all that energy making infertile eggs. I think I will breed her again next year- since she again laid a big clutch of slugs this year. See- I have her son, and granddaughter, and a new unrelated male, all ready to go, so she could retire in peace, but she doesn't want to, and her babies are gorgeous, so...
 
My female is 23 this year and she lays slugs every other year or so. I haven't put her to a male in a very long time. She didn't lay slugs this year but she did last year.
 
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