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Swcp Eggs


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#1 Peckoltia

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Posted 06 January 2017 - 11:13 AM

My female SWCP laid a nice clutch of eggs this morning. 16 healthy eggs no slugs. I am artificially incubating them in a modified wine fridge. Used vermiculite as a medium. 50:50 by weight. 

 

This female is about 6 years old, but not a big animal. So 16 eggs I am stoked with. Felt sorry for her pinching her eggs, 

 

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#2 sajica

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Posted 07 January 2017 - 09:56 AM

Great result Alex :)

 

Now the long incubation process begins :)



#3 chocky

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Posted 07 January 2017 - 12:23 PM

Wow the eggs look like Asian steam buns ... :) haha 789a6948050ba90fb6f273f26c057adb.jpg


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#4 Peckoltia

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Posted 09 January 2017 - 08:53 AM

Great result Alex :)

 

Now the long incubation process begins :)

 

Thanks, I am a handful of days into a ~50 day incubation. Going to be a long stressful process, so far so good. Eggs seem to be doing well, and the incubator I made seems to holding heat well.



#5 ice

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Posted 10 January 2017 - 11:25 AM

If its holding heat and the eggs candle well then it should be relatively stress free mate :)

 

Just don't make the mistake of opening the egg container every day to "check" them as itll upset the environment in the egg tub. We check ours visually daily and open it up for a candle every week or so to check development and watch for any that may be fading away (veins will dull and disappear).

 

Handy tip, put a few water bottles inside the incubator. They act as heat sinks and will bring the temperature back to the set point much faster after the incubator has been opened up.



#6 Peckoltia

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Posted 10 January 2017 - 11:36 AM

Thanks for the tips mate. 

 

I already have a couple large water bottles sitting in the bottom of the incubator. I also have a small container with no lid on it, to increase the humidity in the incubator slightly (not sure if it is doing anything though). 

 

The incubator has a glass door so I can visually inspect the eggs, but can only see about 1/2 the eggs as i left them in a clump. 

 

Candled a few of the eggs the first day they were laid and seemed fine (veins etc). Will leave the eggs be and only open the container once a week to have a look in case any start to mould.

 

Do you have any ventilation holes in your container? I have one on one end and that's it. I've seen one on each end of the container recommended to allow better airflow and I've heard other recommended no air holes, with a daily opening of the container for gas exchange. 

 

Incubation container seems to be sitting at 30.8C consistently. When i open the fridge and container it only takes the incubation container maybe 30min to return back to 30.8C (drops to about 28C).

 

I am not monitoring humidity with any sort of instrument so I am not sure at what % the humidity is sitting at. On visual inspection the sides on the egg container have misted up a bit, mainly 'mist' with a few droplets of water on the side. There is very little to no condensation on the lid (no chance of any water dripping onto eggs) so humidity seems ok from a visual sense.


Edited by Peckoltia, 10 January 2017 - 11:39 AM.


#7 ice

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Posted 10 January 2017 - 11:50 AM

No worries mate.

 

Glass doors are so handy but they can also make condensation occur at the side of the tub closest to the glass so I usually move my tubs as far back as I can.

 

We don't have any ventilation holes in any of our incubation tubs and never had any problems at all with only weekly opening, toward the end of incubation when the eggs start to dimple and give off a bit of extra heat of their own we opened it up probably 3 times a week. Although, I know an experienced breeder who has left imbricata eggs in a closed non vented tub from beginning to end without touching them without any losses, so I would debate how critical that is unless your incubation container is absolutely air tight. Ventilation holes in my opinion would just dry out the mixture over time.

 

The only thing I can pick with yours is the size of the incubation tub, ours look to be at least 2 or 3 times the size of yours. More media and more air space makes the environment in the tub more stable to any changes that may occur. I believe the loss of my BHP clutch may have had something to do with this, as I had all 5 large eggs together in a container that had them sitting about 5mm from each other and 15mm from the walls, this is something I wont ever repeat.

 

We incubated our imbricata at 31 degrees C but it fluctuated as high at 34 on really hot days when we forgot to turn the AC on in the house, 30.8 will be perfectly fine though so don;t go playing with your setting at this stage of the game.



#8 Peckoltia

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Posted 10 January 2017 - 11:59 AM

Yeah I was thinking the tub may be a bit on the small side. So far it seems to be working well. 

 

Not sure if I am game enough to change it now though. I wonder if i was going to increase the tub size at some point during this incubation - should I make the vermiculite mix slightly drier as the mix they are coming from would have dried since the initial 50:50 water to vermiculite by weight ratio I made at the start of the incubation period. Maybe decease the water to 70:30 or 60:40.

 

I have heard of people incubating on completely dry vermiculite and still hatching imbricata eggs. By all account imbricata eggs seem to be fairly hardy. 



#9 ice

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Posted 10 January 2017 - 12:52 PM

You could change it now I reckon without having any real impact on the eggs, id mix up the new media and give it a few days in the incubator to settle down before moving the eggs over though.

 

I usually use perlite as the media, but that's just personal preference and plenty of breeders have used vermiculite for years and still do.

 

I too have heard of people incubating on dry media but I wouldn't recommend it, I tried a dry mix with my womas this year and an experimental egg in a basically dry tub. The dry one hatched out underweight and died that night, the remainder of the clutch hatched out underweight and seemed dehydrated but otherwise healthy and are looking good now. It appears that whilst they may not need water in order to grow and hatch, it definitely produces a more robust hatchling to have the correct amount provided during incubation.



#10 Peckoltia

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Posted 10 January 2017 - 08:06 PM

Cheers for the pointers.

 

Will leave the incubation container as is for now. As it doesn't appear broke so I won't try fix it.

 

Ps- It's painful not checking on the eggs!



#11 Peckoltia

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Posted 16 January 2017 - 11:17 AM

Did my 'weekly' check yesterday evening - everything seems to be going well. candled the eggs I could get too and all appeared viable and healthy (veins etc). 

 

I know theirs quite a few reptile keepers on the forum, anyone else cooking eggs at the minute?

 

A mate of mine is building me a hatchie rack at the minute.



#12 Voodoo

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Posted 16 January 2017 - 11:31 AM

ive got a clutch of woma eggs cooking :)



#13 Peckoltia

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 09:06 AM

Nice work, how far along the incubation are you? 

 

Best of luck, post some pics when they hatch.



#14 Voodoo

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 09:33 AM

laid boxing day - seems a bit late from what I can see on facebook alot of people are hatching at the moment



#15 Jules

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 11:04 AM

Hey Ice, I heard you got some BHP eggs this year?



#16 ice

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 11:39 AM

I did indeed Jules, had successful breeding and she laid 5 big perfect looking eggs, after a week in the incubator I candled them all and none of them were looking particularly robust, usually the embryo will sink to the bottom and the veins will develop but these ones didn't. Within a month they were all dead as they developed windows in the eggs and went mouldy.

 

The incubation media was the same as my woma clutch which came out fine, so I think there must have been something wrong with the eggs themselves. That or I had them in too smaller incubation tub perhaps. Will try again next year I suppose, I was pretty stoked just to get eggs to be honest with how difficult they are to get breeding over here for whatever reason.



#17 Peckoltia

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 11:55 AM

laid boxing day - seems a bit late from what I can see on facebook alot of people are hatching at the moment

 

Awesome mate. You are a couple weeks ahead of me (my carpet laid on the 6/1/17), obviously different species. Better late than never!

 

I did indeed Jules, had successful breeding and she laid 5 big perfect looking eggs, after a week in the incubator I candled them all and none of them were looking particularly robust, usually the embryo will sink to the bottom and the veins will develop but these ones didn't. Within a month they were all dead as they developed windows in the eggs and went mouldy.

 

The incubation media was the same as my woma clutch which came out fine, so I think there must have been something wrong with the eggs themselves. That or I had them in too smaller incubation tub perhaps. Will try again next year I suppose, I was pretty stoked just to get eggs to be honest with how difficult they are to get breeding over here for whatever reason.

 

A mate of mine who I sold my womas to suffered a similar fate. BHP's produced eggs and lost them during the incubation process, he tells a fairly similar story too. Well done on getting some eggs though, step in the right direction. 

 

Hopefully there are lots of photos getting posted of hatchie woma's and SWCP's in the next couple of months. 



#18 Jules

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 12:48 PM

Yeah well done. Hopefully next year youll crack it and I'm hoping my pair will be big enough to breed (female 4-5ft and 2.5yo male 6ft and approx. 3.5yo).

 

Been toying with the idea of an olive again since a few where bred again this season, asking $750 is quite reasonable too for a hell of a snake.

 

Only thing stopping me is the ridiculous licensing price and the inspection fees etc you'd need to pay to keep 1 animal.


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#19 Peckoltia

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 01:13 PM

On a side note - where is everyone getting their snake food from? I have been using "Ratz" that deliver to my door. Price is reasonable and the quality is first class.

 

Where are people sourcing day old chickens from? I think I used to get them from a hatchery out Forrestfield way,



#20 ice

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 01:38 PM

Yeah if youre going to get an Olive the initial purchase cost is the least of your worries, housing and feeding them is more of an issue. The DPAW fees and the hoops they make you go through are pretty nuts, although people tend to overlook how dangerous a full grown olive python can be. I would rate them as a higher risk than most venomous species just due to their power and size alone. I've heard of people being overpowered by them before, heard a story of a bloke in a wildlife park up north that walked into an olive enclosure and it was sitting above the doorway, bit him on the back of the neck and lifted him off the ground! Definitely not a species to be taken lightly. I love my olive, get one if you have the means.

 

If you have the experience and confidence just go for a full cat 5 which gives you free reign on whatever the hell you want to keep on the keepers list, that in itself is a flawed system too as I could now go and buy an adult Goulds or heath monitor, even though as far as DPAW know I have no experience with them (even though I do have some).

 

I buy all my rats from Armadale reptile park, they are a little more expensive than Ratz and don't deliver, however the size and quality of the rats is FAR better so in reality you are probably paying less if you go by weight. Mice I get from a mate and DOCs if you want to buy bulk (and i mean bulk 1000 at a time) you'd go to Altona hatchery and buy a whole big black bag full for bugger all but then you have to sort/clean/bag and freeze. If you cant be bothered then Pythonalia or there's a bloke NOR called Stuart Evans who sells them for very cheap also, he also sells mice. If you look around on some of the reptile pages on FB you'll find him.






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