A ~ C ~ S~N~A~K~E~S
Snake Breeders Based in Leicestershire, England, UK
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A ~ C ~ S~N~A~K~E~S Snake Breeders Based in Leicestershire, England, UK | ||
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Coelognathus radiatus
Pairs can be introduced at any time of year, in
our experience, mating is usually initiated quite
quickly.
After successful mating it is normally
around 1 month until the
female completes a pre-lay slough (If the majority of the clutch is
Infertile, it will normally be laid at this time and will be
followed approximately 1-2 weeks later with either a small number of
fertile eggs or a post-lay slough).
A
gravid radiated ratsnake will normally continue to eat throughout
although it is advisable to reduce the size of her food until after
laying.
From pre-lay slough to egg laying is
approximately 10-14 days. In our experience, if a fertile clutch is
laid at this time it will
not be
followed by a post lay slough. Incubation time is approx 2 months. Eggs
normally started to dimple and dent approximately one week before
hatching. If
the female is laying multiple fertile clutches, depending on your
incubation temperature, hatching will occur at approximately the
same time as the next clutch is being laid.
Gravid Radiated Ratsnakes normally have
a massive appetite and whilst we have never experienced any
problems with feeding whilst gravid we would recommend offering
smaller food items whilst your female is gravid.
Immediately after removing the eggs we place
the female in a tub of fresh luke warm water to clean the substrate,
particularly from her eyes and mouth and also to give her the chance
for a much needed drink. At this time offer her a single food
item of normal size but care should be taken as your female will be
desperate for food and accidental bites are not uncommon.
A few days later we begin feeding extremely
heavily, as much as twice the amount, twice as often for the
first month is quite usual.
Radiated Ratsnake eggs are extremely tough and
leathery which can cause some hatchlings to die in the egg after
breaking the egg tooth and being unable to slit the egg themselves.
We have found on average this occurs in about one third of our
hatchlings although we have had clutches that have been 100%
successful and others that have been 100% unsuccessful.
The solution to this would be to manually pip/slit the eggs
yourself which we would normally only do after the first hatchling has
pipped on its own. If you decide to manually pip the eggs yourself you
should know that hatchlings that have been manually pipped are often
smaller and certainly not a strong as those that have pipped on
their own. Hatchlings that have pipped the egg themselves usually
have a better initial feeding response.
If
you require assistance with manually pipping eggs please do not
hesitate to email us for advice.
An account of breeding 2 of our radiatedratsnakes,
Female T+ Albino named
Ishtar and
Male T- Albino
named Ivan
. Ishtar has previously had a really tough time
with breeding. Her first AND second season merged together when she
laid nothing but infertile eggs which she scattered all over the
place every month or two, including through the winter. All this
from only ONE mating. It was a really tough time for all of us, at
times we thought we would lose her because she was so thin, burning
off all that energy. Luckily she eats anything you put in front of
her so we were able to feed her every couple of days just to keep
her going.
In the end (against normal practice for this
species) we decided to cool her for a short time and thankfully it
worked by stopping the breeding cycle. We rested her for a year and
then paired her up again quite early in 2009. Relief came when she
did a pre-lay shed, as her infertile eggs were always scattered
around usually either just before or during a shed. Another thing to
note here is she is generally quite calm for the species but after a
good pre-lay shed she will puff up and be incredibly bad tempered!!
She went on to produce 3 clutches in 2009 with the first and last
ones being good fertile clutches. The hatchlings (all wild type)
were very large and healthy, ate well and their temperament was
surprisingly calm. Towards the end of
2009 we paired them up again and as usual he got straight to
business so we decided not to introduce him again. Unfortunately only a month later she started
scattering infertile eggs again. We did not want to repeat what had
happened previously and thought that maybe allowing only one mating was a mistake,
so we introduced him again and as usual he did not
disappoint but this time we left them together for a good
few days and then again the following week. A month later she did a pre-lay shed with a
really bad temper and that was subsequently followed by
13 perfect eggs. In 2010 she laid a total of 3 good clutches
and all 31 eggs were fertile, with 28 of them hatching
successfully. Ishtar always lays good clutches in a clump and
infertile clutches are scattered.
In 2011 we bred our
Female
T+ Albino named Ishtar
to one of her sons, Wild
Type het T+ and T- named Izak and produced both Wild Type
het T+ Albino and T+ Albinos all of which would be 50% possible het
T- Albino. Some of the Wild Types displayed more yellow colouration
than we had seen previously which could be an indication that the
het T- Albino has a "dulling" effect on the
colouration.
We also put
Male
T- Albino named Ivan to one of his daughters,
Wild Type het T+ and T- Albino named India
in 2011 and produced both Wild Type het T-
Albino and T- Albinos all of which would be 50% possible het T+
Albino. There were no signs of any brighter wild types as in the
other pairing.
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