A Nice Surprise...

Firstly, my apologies - this post is a little delayed, it's been a very busy week, and you'll soon understand why.

As I ended my last post, I mentioned that Rory (female Amel Corn) was looking very close to laying a double clutch, after laying her first clutch 5 weeks ago. Double clutching is fairly common in a good condition female, but the odds of these being infertile (slugs) is increased. Well, I'm pleased to say that a couple of days after writing, I decided to have a rummage in the nest box, as I'd not seen Rory that day, so my suspicions were aroused. After carefully removing some moss, I found 13 neatly laid healthy lookijg eggs, ready to be placed into the incubator. All have candled fine, so that's a nice bonus!

So then on Monday, I come home from work, and set about doing my evening checks - which basically involves wandering around with a temp gun and a jug, opening vivariums and tubs to check temperatures, looking out for excretes for spot cleaning, and topping up waterbowls. I always have a look in the incubator, just to check everything is working as should be and humidity is good, and then just as I was about to close the door, I spotted... something...

 Sure enough, a little Corn snake pipping away out of the shell, right on day 56 of incubation. For a few minutes, due to the initial excitement, I failed to even notice it was pink - this is (or rather, was supposedly) from an Amel x Charcoal pairing, so all hatchlings should have been Carolinas (normals), which are a dark chocolatey brown in colour when first hatched. After a quick bit of identification work with some help from the knowledgeable folk on RFUK, it was decided that this little hatchling was in fact a Snow - which is a mixture of Amel and Anery. We know that Rory is an Amel, and we thought that the sire, Cornelius, was a Charcoal, but the pipping of this little hatchlings proves that he is actually an Anery instead.

What's more interesting, and a complete surprise, is that both Rory and Cornelius are carrying a hidden heterozygous gene of each other. As, on a whole, Corn snake morphs are generally recessive genes, both parents must be carrying genes for the offspring to inherit and visually display them. This mean that Rory is actually an Amel, het. for Anery, and vice-versa; Cornelius is an Anery het. for Amel. Hidden hets are impossible to determine visually, and must be proved out by breeding - as is the case with the little Snow above. This has come as a very nice added bonus, and a complete shock.

Over the next two days, the other little snakes we're not far behind, with a new one pipping every hour or so, and a variety of different coloured heads poking out - confirming the new genetic identities of the parents, with a mix of more Snows, Anerys, Amels, and Carolinas. Soon enough, the first one was out of the egg and racing around the incubation tub, followed closely by the rest of the offspring. By the Wednesday, all eggs had hatched, giving me a 100% hatch rate with no defects (which is a huge relief), and a nice mixture of little Corn snake morphs.

All hatchlings are now housed individually in the hatchling rack I've just finished building, and are getting ready to go through their first shed - after which they'll all be offered their own feed, which I'm keeping my fingers crossed for being a drama-less affair.

The next clutch is due to hatch sometime in the first week of October, from Cornelia - so this will now be an Anery x Anery pairing, which "should" result in all-Anery hatchlings... unless we're in for any more surprises. This does of course mean that my plan for breeding Blizzards is now out of the window, but I'm equally happy at the surprise clutch of Snows - especially since I've just saved three years proving Cornelius out - and I will of course be keeping one back for myself. The hard bit will be deciding on which one...

Bumper Clutches

As I was nearing the end of writing my last post, Cornelia (female Anery Corn) was right in the middle of laying her eggs, so I left her alone, finished off the post, and checked in on her the next morning - I like to leave the snakes for at least 12 hours after I think they've finished laying, just to make sure I don't stress them out too much and increase the chances of egg binding if there are a stray couple of eggs that they are taking their sweet time to lay.

So here's what lovely sight I was greeted with the following morning: A whopping clutch of 28 lovely plump eggs. Their a little on the small side - much smaller than Rory's clutch, but I can hardly say I'm surprised, what with there being nearly twice as many in all. This girl was in great condition prior to breeding, which is evident in her clutch size (even if it did make it a little tricky to palpate her), but I'm even more pleased to say that she has remained in great condition after laying eggs, carrying a large portion of her weight and size with her - which is a relief, after seeing how Rory looked after her clutch.

And here they all are in the eggs tub. All eggs have been candled and are looking good to date - I'll candle them again in another couple of weeks, but at present I have no reason to suspect that any are infertile. Having spoken to a couple of breeders that I know, it seems that this clutch of 28 is the largest of this season to date, or certainly of the people i have spoken to - so I'm obviously really pleased with how this season has turned out so far. I'm very much looking forward to this clutch hatching too, and this pairing confirms Cornelius's genetics - either as an Anery, or a Charcoal. We'll find out soon enough!

And it doesn't end there. Monty (female Royal) has been showing all the right signs of getting ever closer to laying eggs over the last month. The last time I wrote, I had prepared a nest box, and Monty was laid on her back - which is a sign of been very close to laying, and positioning the eggs before the big day. In the latter stages of follicular development back when it was possible to palpate her to count for potential eggs, I thought (with a heavy emphasis of distrust) that I could feel 8 large follicles, but this being her first season, I was expecting 4 really, as this would be a realistic clutch for a first season.

Well, bang on day 30, I return home to find...

After carefully removing her from the clutch and temporarily popping her in a tub, a quick count up revealed 8 large eggs, with a total clutch weight of 705 grams. I had to recount a few times as I couldn't quite believe the result! She had decided to lay them inside her hot hide rather than in the nest box I had prepared, so they were a little sunken from being dehydrated, but nothing drastic, and nothing that a few days at the high humidity of the incubation tub hasn't fixed. As the eggs had been laid in a pile and had been allowed to dry together, I decided to to attempt to separate them, and have placed them in the incubator as they were found.

This is a brilliant result from any female, but almost unheard of from a first time mum at her young age - and I think it goes some way to proving that the overall condition and health, as well as a healthy balance of overall size, muscle tone and body fat pays off. As well as being obviously very pleased at the result of the count up, I extremely pleased with just how well Monty looks after laying this clutch - she looks almost as good as she did before she became gravid, and weighs in at 1350 grams. She has resumed eating with her previous aggression and reliability, and will be back up to her former size in no time at all.

Well, this just about wraps up my season this year at a total egg count of 51 - it's looking increasingly likely that Rory (Amel Corn) will double clutch, with her eggs expected any day now, but the odds of these being infertile are quite high, so we'll see. Either way, I'm amazed at how well this season has gone for me, and I'll be back shortly with news of hatchlings.