More eggs! and Pictures

[Catherine]

Here I am happily awaiting hatchings and my girls are having second clutches. Pete laid another six eggs and they are already in the incubator.

Mike is laying eggs right now. There are at least a dozen. She already has 18 new hatchlings. You think that would be enough for a girl in one year.
It can't be the nice weather because we have had a terrible winter and a non existent spring. This place is going to be a giant snake nursery soon enough.

[Tobi]

Wow!
It must be like 'Snake Central' where you live right now! lol!

[Catherine]

It sure feels like snake central. Mike ended up with 12 eggs all of them healthy and a good size. So she is resting. After a second clutches my girls will not breed until next spring. So they get to rest.

And my work is just beginning.
I have four clutches still in the incubator. Two of the newly hatched clutches are resting and getting ready to shed. They are in a group set up. The oldest hatchlings(Pete and Sam's) have all shed and I have set them up two to a "baby" box(a special container with airholes, a water dish, a "house" and everything they need to feel safe and secure) and I will start trying to feed them.
In a few days Mike's babies will need to be set up in baby boxes and I will start offering food.

In a couple of weeks Aurora's babies will need to be set up and by then Raven's eggs should be hatching.

Good thing I have the boxes ready and lots of tiny water dishes and everything else. I brought home a big bag of the bedding they will need. It is going to be fun in a busy kind of way.

[LPC]

Sounds like snake paradise to me! Congratulations on all the successful hatchings, and best wishes for those to come.

[Catherine]

I have some little beauties. I will get pictures. It is not easy, I try to wait until they are awake and then get pictures. The last clutch hatched in secret and are still buried in the moss. I have 15 empty egg shells so I know I have 15 babies. There is a mix of colours, but I do not know exactly what.

I am getting practiced on setting them up so that they can feel secure enough to get a good start in life. Baby snakes are timid and delicate and yet they start out life on their own so they must have some strong instincts about what to do. Staying hidden in the moss for a couple of weeks is the best thing for them. It lets them grow and gain strength.

[Cibach]

Snake Central indeed. I didn't realise that they could lay more than one clutch in a year. Do they do that regularly? Or is this year an exception?

I'm very interested in snakes but wouldn't keep them myself.

[Catherine]

Corn snakes can double clutch, as we call it. They will lay a second smaller set of eggs. I think it is more a sign that a female is in her prime. If the weather was so bad that breeding started late they might not do it. My girls are at their best right now so a second set of eggs was expected.

This is Mike and Sam's first clutch. There were 18 in total.
This little guy is still wet and I think his colour makes him look like a little tiger, sort of.

Here is one coming out of the egg.

Here he is fully out

Here is the whole lot of them, all 18.

Of course theydo not stay put.

Compare them to my hand and you can see how small they are.

Getting the lid back on was like herding cats.

These are Aurora and Sam's babies. They just hatched.

They are still being very secretive. I know I have 15 empty egg shells so there must be 15 babies.

I do not know exactly what colours they are. I just know they are all oranges and whites.

I will get a better idea when I move them into their own baby boxes.

You may have noticed that Sam is the father of all three of my clutches. Sam may be small, but he is my best breeder.

The babies look very different from each other because they have very different mothers. The three moms live with Sam as a big happy family. They all really like each other.

[Tobi]

They are lovely new pictures Catherine.

I can't believe I missed these the other day!

They all look like happy little snakes.

[Catherine]

There is another clutch hatching today. No one is out of the egg yet, but they have opened the eggs and started to breath air. Maybe by Friday they will leave the egg.

I am finding it hard to keep up with all the hatchings. Corn snakes only breed in the spring/early summer so it all happens in a rush.
I will get pictures of the orange ones soon and the newest clutch when the actually hatch. All I see is noses right now.

[LPC]

Congratulations on all the latest arrivals. Have you ever got a photo of the egg cracking and a head emerging?