Two more pipped today, and the first one (a Tessera), made its way out to explore.

I hope there is no problem with snakes crawling through ‘HatchRite’; given it contains water absorbing gel (non toxic, I hope).

I stroked some of the other eggs with a clean brush (Once read that this can stimulate others to hatch?), and this little one came up to the brush to sniff it ☺

Fingers crossed some more emerge 🤞

 

Amber recently shed and was very restless last night.
Found quite a few big poops, so hopefully she is more settled now

 

Or... she could double clutch...

Beautiful snakes, corns get "dismissed" as beginner snakes, or boring, but l think they are perfect.

 

Oh, I hope she doesn't double clutch - that feels like too much on her body, and 18 babies is more than enough to keep me occupied.

I shall offer her a small meal tonight and hope that she is hungry 🫣

I really enjoy my two corns. I don’t find them boring at all. Amongst my most treasured memories were of Noodle (RIP) free roaming the attic bedroom whilst I tended to other vivariums. He was a delightful character.

 

A few more pics

 

They look as if they will develop some insanely bright colours. Some really nice hatchlings youve produced!

 

Thank you Ian ☺
I honestly couldn’t tell from their initial colours whether they will be ‘belters‘, but if they are, it’s credit to Amber and Pepperoni, bless them.

 

What I found really interesting is how thirsty many of them were. Lifting them with a hook and presenting them to a water bowl, most of them took a long drink.

 

When l was taking the newly hatched corn snakes out of the hatch container, l put them in a tub with shallow water ( same temperature as the incubator ), and they all drunk l just thought l'd let them wash off the egg gunk and vermiculite.

Yours are absolutely stunning... the okeetee influence

 

Thank you Mrs Tim ☺

I used ‘HatchRite’ which seems to be like granular perlite with absorbent gel?

I was a bit concerned about them ingesting the substrate, but I gather it is pretty popular so ought not to be hazardous to them.

I will definitely consider bathing hatchlings in future.

I presume they drink/swallow the egg fluid whilst still in the egg, like babies drinking amniotic fluid?

 

Well, Amber the Mum was not interested in feeding which might allude to a double clutch 😟
She doesn’t look big, so who knows 🤷🏻‍♂️ Lay box is ready if it does become required.

Meanwhile the babies are all looking good. Just one shed so far.

 

Poor Amber did double clutch, bless her.

7 viable and 6 infertile slugs.

The viable had already developed veins, so I presume Amber had been sitting with them for quite a few days?

 

The babies from the first clutch

Babies have since been separated.

 

I can spend a lot of time faffing around with feeding snakes, but these baby corns have been an absolute dream, all have taken drop feeds of both mouse pinkies and African soft fur pinkies, getting onto 5-6 feeds now. I might push them through to second shed, but they all seem healthy and vigorous.

 

pic from a week or two ago.

 

Congrats man. You must get through alot of rodents. Do you breed your own?

 

Very cute bubbas How is Amber doing, recovered from double clutch ?

 

Very cute bubbas How is Amber doing, recovered from double clutch ?

Amber is looking very lean and is very hungry, but also healthy ☺

She comes right out the viv to feed and just munches down the mouse with me leaning over her - no fear or shyness from her.
She occasionally twitches when I initially touch her to lift her, but she tolerates me.

When I fed her on Saturday I verbally asked her to go back into her viv, which she obliged 😆 I don’t think she has mastered English language, but through repetition and redirecting her, I think it is plausible she may recognise positive and negative tones, and has the capacity to anticipate my intervention if she hears the associated verbal tones.

She is a thorough pest when I am spot cleaning, because she gets right in the way, nosey thing 😂😂😂, constantly having to lift her out of the way, or back into the viv.

I’d love to let her free roam, but it’s not practical or safe to do so where her viv is located.

 

I have a standard freezer just for snake meals.

I don’t have time to breed and care for rodents, so it’s bulk orders. I mainly use Ridgeway, occasionally buy local.

A Chest freezer would be great as they retain the cold and have much bigger capacity, but I couldn’t spare the space.

The amount I spend on electricity is way more than food 🤦🏻 but both are pretty substantial.

 

The babies are doing great.
Switched from kitchen roll to lignocel as moisture and odour was not being suitably managed.

I don’t like them soiling meals with substrate, so try to place meals on bottle caps or plastic hides. Some of the babies are ‘messier’ than others with their feeding techniques.

I will probably add some climbing frame features just to improve the 3D aspect of these grow on braplast containers.

 

The quality of your frozen food is much higher than mine. Im trying to stop using the local fish and reptile shop. their frozen is always freezer burnt and after defrost looks like a scrawny sack of liquid with not alot of meat.

It's so satisfying when the ridgeway order turns up and they are all neatly packed in the bag. They all seem way healthier when they were frozen too.

I have another freezer in the garage but its not being used. Once my snakes are fully grown I'll definitely have to bite the bullet and get it running

 

I guess there may be some deterioration in nutrients over time, but I don’t know that freezer burn in itself is soo bad, it just doesn’t look as appealing 🤷🏻‍♂️
I prefer shops that have chest freezers to front opening freezers, because of that thaw/freeze effects, and customers might not always be considerate.

I agree it’s definitely satisfying receiving an order delivery and everything is still frozen solid.

 

I'm fortunate that I'm only a 10 minute walk away from a good reliable pet shop that always has a full range of quality frozen rodents, chicks etc supplied by Monkfield Nutrition.

 

Rather risky feeding together, not advisable but I was on hand to intervene if needed.