I´ve got eggs coocking!

It has been well over 15 years since I tried to hatch snake-egg the last time, but I am going to give it a go this year again. Got eggs from one of the most beautiful Cloubrids in Europe, the Leopardsnake Zamenis situla. This species is known to have rather small numbers of eggs in their clutches, usually about 2-5 eggs/clutch. This female is really large, about 120 centimeters compared to the normal size around 100 centimeters, and the clutchsize for her 2 years in a row is 10 eggs! The incubationtime is somewhere between 60 – 80 days, depending on the temperature.

Some pictures:

Egg-sizes ranging from the largest: 45 x 25 mm´s to the smallest: 37 x 27 mm´s.

 

Z. situla eggs.

The proud mom..

I also got some eggs from Aegean four-lined snake, Elaphe quatuorlineata muenteri, witch is the smaller islandform. The inland form reaches about 180 centimeters, but this subspecies becomes only about 120 – 130 centimeters in length.

I didn´t expect any eggs from the pair I keep, as I thought that they needed another year of growing first. As they are quite shy, I don´t see them more then about 10 seconds a week, I was surprised to see that the female was really fat. I put in a box with Sphagnum-moss in their terrarium, and it took only about an hour for her to enter the box and start digging around.

Since it was quite late, I decided to leave her for the night, and lookid in the box when I got home from work the following afternoon. And what do you know.. 4 eggs in the moss.

Some pictures:

Eggsize ranging from the largest at 77 x 22 mm´s to the smallest at 60 x 25 mm´s.

Elaphe quatuorlineata muenteri eggs.

The female, photographed late 2008.

The incubator.

Incubator.

 

More info and updates on Terrarium Morbidum forum (nonvenomous snakes section).

The awaitening…

The viperbabys that I am waiting for..

But I really think that they are coming soon because the notorious feeder a.k.a the yellowish V. a. ammodytes refused food at yesterdays feeding. A good sign..
She still looks like she ate recently, and didn´t  take a dump since May..
I am going to enjoy to see what the small ones will look like, as the mom is yellowish / orangeish in colours and the male is the “Zokadelic”-male. I really, really hope that there is at least one female that looks “Zokadelic” too, so I can keep it for future breedings. Will probably keep a male or two too, if they are “Zokadelic”´s.

The gravid V. renardi female is hissing loudly and striking at me everytime I show my face now, but she did take a little mouse yesterday to my surprise.. She´s also very large now..
I have to keep at least 2.2 from these too, as the parents are very old, at least 10 years old, possible allmost 15.
As far as I know, nobody have had young ones from this species in Sweden before. Can I be the first??
Good that I have lots of small crickets at home now, to feed the small ones with.

I have been trying to take decent pictures of the both gravid females, but it´s really hard, as they don´t show themselves as much as they usually do. Will continue trying though..

This week, or next, they will all arrive I think… Looking in the terrariums every day, up to three times now..

The eggs from the Z. situla..

You might remember this story: http://terrariummorbidum.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/409/

It will not happend again this year! The large female is clearly gravid, and shed her skin last week, so there should be eggs this week or in the beginning of next. I am just hoping that there is some lifes inside the eggs..

I have already prepared a hatchingmachine for the eggs, and trimmed it to keep the temperature at ~25,5 degrees C. Of course there will be some fluctuations in the temperature, but I am hoping that it will stay around 24,0 – 26,5 degrees C.
I am using a “Scherpner´s”-modell of hatcher ( wet-hatcher with a couple of wallbricks at the bottom with an eggbox ontop ) , and a immersion heater <– right word? for aquariums. The hatcher is in my garage, just to keep the risk of overheating the hatcher and the eggs at a minimum, as the garage don´t have windows and is a bit cooler then my little reptilehouse.

Would really be fun to hatch some eggs now, as I haven´t done it for years..

The idiot way..

Ok..  Here´s what NOT to do..

 

I keep a trio ( 2.1 ) of Zamenis situla, Leopardsnake, and the female is quite big. They are housed together, fed together ( under survelliance, of course.. ) and after a meal I give the terrarium a good shower to minimize the scent from food and to “help” them get out of feedingmoode. The trio is working perfect!! So far, so good..

Z. situla female.

Now, I had hopes last year on getting some eggs and later on juveniles from them, but nothing happened. It the terrarium I have a humidity-box made of a 3 litres plasticbox..

3 litres Bra Plast-box.

This box have a hole cut in the lid, and is covered in a brown tape of the kind that one can use to seal a package with, just to create a dark place for shedding snakes to feel safe in. About 1 litre of damp Sphagnum sp. moss was added in it too.

I was looking in that box every now ant then, especially around the time that I thought she would to lay her eggs.. The placing of the box have been optimal for the snakes, but not for me as it was placed in the rear of the terrarium. But no eggs.. After a while I looked it the box more seldom, then I did in the beginning of the season..

Anyway.. Yesterday evening, when I was to clean the terrarium out, to re-decorate it for them for this season, I flipped the old content out, and guess what!! There they where.! The eggs… 10 good looking eggs, or at least what was left of 10 good eggs..

Lesson learned.. The hard way..

You can surley imagine all the “good” words I called myself.. I WILL place AND check that box much better this year…

/Miqe

All my animals are up..

.. from hibernation now.

I have started to feed a little, taking it slow in the beginning as I don´t want them to die or returigate from overfeeding.

Hoping to breed:

Vipera a. ammodytes “Morph”: Zokadelic

Vipera a. ammodytes, Yellow

Vipera renardi

Timon lepidus

Hyla arborea

Merry Christmas!!!

..and a Happy New Year!

To all of you that have been wieving and reading my blog this year..

Here is a picture that I have been working for hours in Photoshop with..  Not.. 

Holidaytime! Almost..

Well.. Now it is almost time for a holiday, at least from the animals. They are now halfway down into hibernation. It´quite nice to put them into the refridgerator for a couple of months.

It feels that way now, but I know that when all the terrariums have been cleaned and “furnitured” again, I will be fed up by just going and looking in the “jars” that is without inhabitants..

 Night, night all my small friends, I see you again a “quarter to spring”..

Some pictures of V. ammodytes giving birth.

There pictures was taken in july 2006.

I really hope to be able to take new pictures this year, or even maybe catching it with a videocamera..

Hibernating ending..

Yesterday, I started to take some of my animals out of hibernation. I have had them all in a separate refridgerator in my garage, with temperatures ranging from +6,0 degrees Celcius to +7,5 degrees Celcius.

Started to tkae the male vipers out and some of the lizards, putting them on the garagefloor for a couple of days in a temperature of roughly +12 degrees Celcius - +15 degrees Celcius. This is to prevent the animals dying from a heatchock.

So, I will be busy this coming weekend, decorating terrariums for them. This is one of the pleasures in herptilekeeping, at least for me..

 Temperatureconverter

The Hyla arborea project..

I am going to try to breed Hyla arborea , European Green Tree frog this year. The project is going to be an outdoor one.

I have recently reconstructed the bathroom in my house, leaving a shower unused, of rather exchanged to a bathtub. Now, this shower is to be made into a hopefully suitable outdoor vivarium for these little frogs. I have never had an outdoor viv before, so this is going to be really exciting to me.

First, I have to make sure that the little buggars don´t get out of there, therefore I am planning to put a meshroof on the top. First I have to build a rim, and then put the mesh in it. The mesh have to be made of stainless steel, not only not to rust, but as a protection against birds. Crows and Magpies, mainly.

There have to be sufficient airflow in the vivarium, so the lower half of the backpiece is also going to be made out of stainless steel-mesh.

In order to make the frogs in the right “matingmood”, there have to be water running from a mouthpiece of a shower for a couple of days. A pump that transtorts the water around, from the little “pond” in the bottom of the shower to the mouthpiece and around again.

I sure hope that my nextdoor neighbours can stand the noise from the calling males, they have good voices and can reach up to 90 decibel..

Hopefully I will find some good plants to put in as well..

Here´s some thoughts about my Vipera a. ammodytes..

As some of you do not know  the story of “Zok“, I will now tell you all about it..

It began with two animals with (for the location) a normal coloration and pattern, a female and a male. They mated, and a whole pile of babies came out in June 2001. All looking as their parents, except for……. Zok. He was totally different in both coloration and pattern. A lot darker and with a broader zigzag-band.

 I have fed him and seeing him grow over the years. Getting more beautiful by every skin he shed.

Last year I thought that he was old enough to be a father, so I put him with the female that I wanted him to mate with toghether with the gray male (i.e he´s dad..) in a terrarium. And sat down to wait..

It took about 20-30 minutes, and the males started to wrestle (middle movieclip..) eachother as the are supposed to do. After letting them fight for an hour or so, I took out the gray male, as he was no supposed to be the “champ” this time. Zok then started to look around for the female. I left them to their business. Later on that evening, I looked into the terrarium and they was attatched to each other.

After a week or so I separated Zok from the female, so that I had two females in one terrarium and two males in another. As time went, the yellow female started to grow, she was definetley gravid! Yayy!! In july 2006, 13 small vipers came out. Here´s a link to some birthpictures and pictures of all the small.. Piclink

This year I will try to breed Zok with he´s mother, to see how the whole color/pattern thing acts then. I am trying to find out how it works with the genes..