Kinks, Deformities, and Conjoined Twins

[Sasheena]

Well I had a lot of bad luck this year!

Clutch #1: 10 eggs Mother snake got mouth rot from ingesting some substrate, recuperated well and double clutched.
1 kinked with deformed head normal (will be kept as a pet)
1 amel with very slight domed head
8 dead in egg and/or severely kinked babies all live ones put down.

Clutch #2: 5 eggs... Mother was very young but didn't double clutch and is growing VERY fast!
2 striped normals het for anery PERFECT in every way (one is a BITER!)
2 kinked striped normal dead in egg
1 normal striped dead in egg.

Clutch #3: 19 eggs.... mother snake was ill after laying and finally PTS after the last of her eggs was opened.
1 normal kinked/deformed head (will be kept as a pet)
1 Amel
2 normals
14 eggs yielded either dead in egg or badly kinked, deformed heads, missing deformed jaw babies.
1 egg yielded up a pair of conjoined twins. The twins were joined at the ventral surface, twisted around each other like the medical symbol, body cavity open at the join and the joint heart out in the open (and BEATING!)... tails separate, kinked loops so severe that the baby snakes were fused into complete "snake disks". ... the heads were joined at the throat..... each head had two bottom jaws... they were connected sideways so that the communal mouth had four sides... top and bottom were the heads of the snakes, and the two sides were the bottom jaws. VERY bizarre. Never would have been viable.

Clutch #6 is 4 eggs in a double clutch. Not due for a while. Three look like they could hatch. (no veins in one despite looking very fertile and viable.)

My two other clutches were kingsnake eggs....

Clutch #4: 12 eggs, two died in incubation, one was dead in egg, one baby was wrapped by the umbilical but saved... it's smaller than a corn hatchling.... took an hour to down a pinky head.

Clutch #5: 15 eggs... all died.

Been a bad year!

But I'm not giving up! :)

Just thought I would share. I haven't gotten any good pics of the babies... they're gettin ready to shed. Not as easy to take pictures of compared to taking pictures of black and white kingsnakes!

[Mark and Aimee]

I'm curious about your incubation techniques, temperatures, and humidity. Can you share any data on the methods used?

Are all these clutches from different males, or has the same male sired several of these "problem" clutches?

[WebSlave]

Ouch! I would say that something is seriously wrong somewhere! No way you should have that much bad luck in one season. How about a run down on how you set up your eggs, incubating temps, etc.? Maybe we can spot something to help you out for next year.

Sorry to see this happen to you.

[Glenn Bartley]

Sasheena,

I too am curious, but not just incubation procedures, temps, and genetics. It is possible there are other factors in the environment that caused these problems. Even if the same male sired all the corn snake eggs, it is possible it could be environmental especially in light of the fact that the kingsnake eggs were also effected. If different males sired the corn snake eggs, then it is very likely that some environmental factor or factors are causing these deformities and dead eggs. I am wondering if incubation temps at some critical stages of the incubation process caused these abnormalities or if something else of an environmental nature fouled things up.

Is it possible that all of these eggs were exposed to some sort of chemical toxin (this could be while developing in the females such as from tainted food that both the corns and kings were fed) or could be during incubation (such as from tainted incubator medium or a tainted incubator itself). Things that could taint the medium or the incubator might include cleaning agents used to clean the incubator or the snake enclosures (even trace elements of some chemicals can be toxic), toxins on rodents fed to the female snakes while they were gravid (such toxins might include phenols from cleaners used in rodent cages and where traces were taken into the rodent fur or the toxic substances in cedar shavings), insecticides used in the snake room, cleaning agents used in the snake room, deodorizers used in the snake room and so on.

Hopefully you will discover the cause, and be able to eliminate it.

Best of luck,
Glenn B

[Sasheena]

This was my first year with Cornsnakes. I incubated the kingsnakes and cornsnakes exactly the same. Temperatures ranged from 79 to 84 in general... with one extreme temp spike to 88 degrees for a 12 hour period when the AC failed. This was in the first 20 days of incubation. The eggs were on vermiculite, in general the vermiculite was damp enough to clump when squeezed, but not so damp that it would drip water when squeezed. EXCEPT one of the clutches did have too damp a substrate, which I corrected shortly after the heat spike. I incubated them in sealed "gladware" containers with no airholes, but checked them every couple of weeks. I began incubation with tapwater and later changed all the eggs to new vermiculite with bottled water instead. I had one kingsnake still gravid when the AC went down, she subsequently laid 15 eggs that all died. Two of the kingsnake eggs died, one was "dead in egg" at hatching, the rest of hte kingsnakes were all fine... no kinks or deformities in the clutch.

The cornsnakes were all fathered by an '02 striped cornsnake male.

The first clutch was laid by an '02 "Normal het motley" who seems to really be a "hypo het amel". She was well within the prescribed size. She laid 10 eggs, and all ten eggs went full term. Four of the eggs had mold problems, two of which were black with mold at time of hatching. This clutch (the too damp one) was very ugly at the time of hatching. I had some doubts. Only two of the hatchlings actually pipped their own eggs, and those are the two I still have. The rest had varying degrees of deformed jaws/heads/kinked spines.

The second clutch was laid by an '02 Striped Anery. She was really a bit too small to breed and I worried about her becoming eggbound. She laid 6 eggs and 6 slugs. ONe egg died. The remaining five eggs went full term. Two perfect striped normals het anery hatched out. The other three were dead in the egg, two kinked with deformed jaws and heads, one perfect, but dead.

The third clutch was laid by an '01 or '00 Reverse Okeetee. I believe she was sold as a proven breeder to a friend of mine, who then gave her to me. She laid 21 good eggs. One died early in incubation (ruptured) and one died later in incubation (ruptured). One ruptured but was "band-aided" and crawled out of the manually pipped egg.... looked perfect and died within hours of leaving her egg. These eggs were kept drier than the rest. Of the 19 eggs that went full term, 2 pipped. After 48 hours I pipped the rest. 1 appeared to be a snow (but not sure, it was dead). The two that pipped on their own were perfect in every respect. Another amel and normal made it out of their pre-pipped eggs alive. The rest were either dead in their eggs, or pathetically needing euthanization. Including the conjoined pair of twins.

My thoughts on the source of my troubles....

* it could be the male. (genetic)
* it could be the tap-water
* it is probably the heat spike

Now.... if it is genetic, there are two basic possibilities. (yes, more than that, but I'm talking simple genetics)... it could be a dominant or a recessive gene. If it is dominant, the male snake looks good for having a dominant deformity gene. He has no kinks, his jaw is the perfect shape, and his head is also the perfect shape. BUT even if he doesn't express the gene and passes it on to be expressed in 50% of his offspring, then I should have had better than 2/10, 2/5 and 4/19 viable offspring out of the three clutches. If it is recessive, since I had the same basic expression with all three sets of eggs, then that would assume that all three females are coincidentally recessive for the same deformity.... which seems unlikely... the Flourescent Corn was bred by Rich at Serpenco, or is the offspring of snakes bred by him. The striper was bred by a local breeder here in AZ. And the Hypo het Amel (sold as normal het motley) was bred by a friend of Kathy Love's. IF it was recessive I should have had even more "successfully healthy" babies.

The water here is foul, with the water company openly claiming it has more fecal matter in it than is currently acceptable, but that "some things can't be removed from the water." So that could be a factor... but the kingsnake eggs weren't effected.

The heat spike is absolutely the most likely cause of this tragic breeding season. All three corns laid their eggs within a 5 day period. the eggs themselves were in a similar state of development. The kingsnake eggs were also laid at the same time, but in their case, my thought is that they were protected by their larger size... different point in incubation, or some other factor (AZ natives can take the AZ heat better than FL snakes?)

Next year I plan the following as a followup to the possible defective male theory.

I'm going to breed Hermes to one female only. I'll breed my Snow Motley to two of the females that bred this year (the reverse okeetee never recovered from laying the eggs and had to be put down). I will use only bottled water. I may try a no-substrate method. If I find some good sphagnum moss that doesn't mold within days of getting moist, I'll try that. I probably won't use an incubator, no real need here in AZ.

I've attached a picture of the conjoined twins.

[Sasheena]

some more pictures of the twins...

Regarding the food the snakes ate... I raise my own feeders, feed them practically the same thing as my snakes last year (I had a 100% hatch rate with two king clutches last year). They get PetsMart Cheap dogfood, Corn, Oats, Barley, Black Oil Sunflower Seeds, and occasionaly other supplementary materials. They are all thumped and fed warm to the snakes. Aside from perhaps a too-high fat content in the mice, and a concentration of rats lately, the snakes have a very good diet of very good mice. Nothing has changed in my routine.

[Sasheena]

Of course there WAS an incident out at the power plant... the reporters all said it was "mild," and "no big deal".... but you never know! This WAS while the snakes were in early gestation. Of course the power plant is five or six miles away so perhaps that is a weak theory.

[Sasheena]

One last picture of the conjoined twins

[Willis Wildlife Enterprises]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. I've had clutches give me the same results (severe deformities, kinks, dead in shell, and those that looked normal all refused to eat...ever). In Florida, I have the same problem with temp spikes, so attribute these problems to that, but since I have multiple clutches laid throughout a few months, not all get affected by a temp spike. I've also wondered about problems with specific males. I have 2 males that either fail to fertilize most of the eggs, even after 3-4 "successful" matings, or most of the fertilized eggs go bad within the first month of incubation. Both males have been bred to several, unrelated females each year for the past 2 years.

The age of your snakes may also need to be considered. Even though they are of the proper size/weight, '02 hatchlings may not have been fully mature, sexually, to reproduce successfully. If you consider that most '02 hatchlings were probably born somewhere between May and August, they were put into brumation at roughly 1 1/2 years of age and bred before they were 2 yrs old. I've done this in the past myself, with poor results, and lost several females that couldn't recover from egg-laying. And most of those that did recover, weren't recovered fully enough to breed the next year. I won't breed "2 yr olds" again, no matter their size.

Definately use bottled water in the future. I've had no problems with my well water, yet, but it is definately something for you to consider since you know your water isn't the best, and I get my water tested regularly, just to make sure.

And you could also try a different incubation medium next year. I use sphagnum moss, but you do need to watch the quality. Last year, the quality I had wasn't the best and I had alot of problems. This year, the quality was super (same brand as last year, surprisingly) and I've had alot fewer problems. I'm sure that the quality can vary from year to year since we're talking about something that was once alive and growing conditions can vary from year to year. I won't use vermiculite anymore (did when I raised chameleons) because I had alot of trouble keeping it at the right moisture level. The moss works much better for me.

Hopefully you'll have better luck next year and Mr. Murphy will leave you alone!

[Wilomn]

Several years ago I had my snakes in an industrial/retail strip center. There was a chinese reataurant and a place that imported clothes and junk from the orient. We had a LOT of cochroaches after the clothes and junk importer moved in.

I had bred my snakes there for several years. One year I had a bunch, over a hundred, of eggs laid infertile. Of the other two hundred or so that were laid good almost all of them failed to hatch. Multiple males, multiple species. I was also figuring it was temp spikes as we had temps in the 110s, even though I had an airconditioner in the room it was all I could think of to account for so many eggs being bad when I had never had those numbers laid bad or fail to hatch before.

Then one day I was down there about 6 am. There was a pest control guy spraying around the exterior of the entire building, including the doorways of everyones shops. I asked him how long he had been coming around as I had NEVER seen anyone do this prior to me seeing him. He told me it had been about six months, shortly after the importer of clothes and junk and cochroaches had moved in. Coincidentally just before breeding season.

You may want to see if there is any pesticide spraying happening in your complex or if they have changed companies or chemicals they are using. It sure screwed up my breeding that year.

I moved out the following year, downsized and have not had that problem since.

[Sasheena]

There's a lot of food for thought in both of your posts... in particular about age of females, age of male, and pesticides. I do know that I had a no-pest strip in the mouse-house... decided against it after a while, but for a few months (breeding season) the snakes were eating mice that were living with a no-pest strip. Hubby also has occassionally sprayed out side the mouse house with some roach and ant spray... perhaps this is related. The only one of my snakes not to recover from egg-laying was an older snake, the ones who were younger have recuperated very well from egg laying. The older proven breeder is the one who did not survive the experience.

I just got done trying to feed the first two who shed, from the first clutch, the "normal" looking amel ate right away. The other is thinking about it.

Next year I will change a lot, and see what happens. No petsicides around hte mouse house (hubby has already been TOLD) and no tap water. Different males next year, older females, hopefuly new substrate, hopefully no heat spikes.

[Glenn Bartley]

Sasheena,

I would be a bit surprised if a 12 hour temp s[pike to 88 degrees caused these problems. I have had temp spikes to 90 with corn snake eggs that did not mess them up like that - but I guess it could depend on the stage of development at the time.

The pesticide thing causes me great concern. No pest strips are nasty if not used correctly. When applied, there should be no food or water available to the animals which are being treated. By exposing your feeder mice to no pest strips continuously for months, and then feeding your exposed mice to the snakes you exposed the snakes to any residual chemicals from the strips. The stuff is a known carcinogen, and could potentially have other nasty effects and cause big problems for animals that have ingested it. It may have been responsible for the deformities and dead eggs.
Good luck with the rest,
GlennB

[Sybella]

I think it was the pesticides too because it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

I've used a styrofoam ice chest as incubator, as well as my Little Giant. In the ice chest version, I had some temperature fluctuation but still had 100 percent hatch rate.

I set up the eggs in moist vermiculite and for the most part, just leave them alone. I don't use any pesticides around my house. (The only exception has been Provent a Mite...because it's either that or have dead snakes.)

So, in comparison to your situation, Sasheena...I doubt there is much difference, except for the pesticide use.

[Soderberg]

1. Sometimes commercially harvested and/or packaged moss has a "petroleum" smell to it. I don't know why a moss farmer would be concerned about insecticides, but if they did, they would surely consider that a bonus to their target customer, plant lovers. Always smell before using. If it doesn't have an "Earthy" smell, don't use it.

2. Before I bought vermiculite and perlite in the "giant economy" sized bags, I'd buy it at the garden departments of the big discount stores or at the Home Depot type stores. Having the habit of smelling these things before using them, I noticed a few bags that reaked of petroleum odor. I found out they "mine"/harvest this mineral with hydraulic equipment. Anyone that's been around such machines know the pressure hoses usually have leaks here and there. Again, this smell would not be considered a problem since it's primary customer mixes it with potting soil for moisture retention. Since eggs respire through pores, they are absorbing anything they come into contact with. Even trace amounts of toxins could be enough to cause death or deformity to developing embryos.

3. Water! I preach water quality to my customers. Except for temperature, it is likely one of the most common causes of problems in captive snakes. Most municipal water supplies are strictly regulated for bacteria, but not for other things. I've been in some cities at a hotel where just taking a shower reminded me of my childhood summers at the swimming pool. Adult corns drinking this are not as negatively affected as neonates or embryos. I'm certain that high chlorine or floride contents in this water is enough to deform or kill embryos or neonates. Hence, I'm glad you're using bottled water now.

As Rich implied, your problem is rare in that it affected so many clutches. Genetic? Maybe, but my vote is environmental. For every 1,000 corns hatched here, I see approximately three deformed nenoates or embryos that are not attributed to environmental stimuli. In any of the other (few) cases of deformities, I can attribute the problem to environment. Usually these animals hatched from eggs that were dehydrated at early stages of development. I've seen malformed/deformed corns come from eggs attacked by fungi. Those micropores in the shells have to remain open. Things like water directly on the egg shell can kill or deform them. Fungus or molds growing on the shells can also clog these vital pores that take in oxygen and expel CO2.

Q: Were any of these eggs dehydrated at ANY time during incubation or when you first found them?

Q: Was there anything growing on the eggs or were there dark spots on them?

I think Rich and Kathy will agree that the only deformities we see are random and rare. The only time I remember having deformed babies that I could not attribute to environment and/or a lethal trait was when I bred some lavenders I got from an irresponsible corn breeder that used to have a business in Las Vegas. In one year, out of over 2,500 corns hatched, there were about 12 snakes deformed. ALL were from two clutches produced by these Las Vegas animals. Just so nobody thinks I'm blaming anyone that currently breeds corns in LV, I'm not. I'm hearing rumors that he's back in the snake breeding business and I pray he leaves our corns alone this time around.

[Sasheena]

Q: Were any of these eggs dehydrated at ANY time during incubation or when you first found them?

All three clutches had plenty of moisture. One seemed to have super dry substrate, but those are the eggs that had several ruptured eggs during incubation, and NONE of them deflated except for right before hatching. TWO of the eggs from the first clutch were around 40% deflated, covered in mold, but moisture didn't change things.

Q: Was there anything growing on the eggs or were there dark spots on them?

I need to develop the rest of my photos. The first clutch looked HORRIBLE. I had times when I was certain that they weren't going to hatch at ALL! Over-hydrated with windows, I did my best to cut back on moisture, putting them on almost dry vermiculite several times, adding dry vermiculite a couple of times even, to pull out excess moisture. They were all spotty, and two were more than 1/2 covered in a black mold and dehydrated. This was the "oldest" clutch of eggs, laid first. Also this clutch, and the other two, were all laid while I watched so they spent ZERO time dehydrated before being placed in the vermiculite.

The second clutch was 6 eggs, one started molding about 15 days in, and the remaining 5 eggs looked absolutely PERFECT for the entire incubation, growing quite a bit too. At least one of the two babies I thought to be perfect, that I have looked at more closely now, also has a few minor kinks. Slithers like a sidewinder. I haven't closely checked the other one yet. (That one doesn't WANT to be closely inspected, he's a little FURY). The two that slit on visual inspection seemed fine, the three that didn't slit, though the eggs wriggled quite a lot, had dead-in-egg babies. No mold on this clutch.

The third clutch was 21 eggs to begin with, 1 ruptured early, 1 ruptured later (deformed... I had hoped it was just a sign of not being ready to hatch), another was ruptured but I put a bandaide on it, and it hatched before dying just out of the egg. Of the remaining eggs most looked pretty good.... not absolutely perfect, a few were slightly questionable.... tiny little eggs that didn't seem to grow... one long thin egg I thought was infertile, some thick shells, but the majority of the eggs looked pretty good. This clutch did get "scrambled" in that the egg box was knocked pretty hard.... put the eggs back in original position as best I can, but that was at 45 to 50 days of incubation. No mold on this clutch.

It was a lot of bad luck this year. I've already decided to keep all the corns that survived (8 babies). I might give a few away in a year or so as pets once they've proven they can eat.

Hubby has already been heard to wonder "Have people told you that corns are a lot more difficult to breed than kingsnakes?"

When I find pics of the eggs just before they hatched I'll post them.

[Sand&SunReptile]

Wow. Very interesting thread.
That is a very odd occurance.
A lot of possible theories floating around in here, and I would say that a lot could be plausible.

[Sasheena]

Well I thought I would update some of the details of my summer breeding.

Of the 8 babies I kept, I only have 3 left. There were four that actually ate, but one didn't eat beyond her first meal. Eventually the non-feeders were offered up to some of my non-feeding king snake hatchlings, and that solved both problems at once.

The three that I still have (voracious eaters) have a few very mild kinks.

1.0 "lookeetee" .... mothered by my reverse okeetee and my striped male. He must have some strong okeetee background (which would account for his bold coloration).

0.1 reverse okeetee, sibling to the first.

0.1 normal stripe het anery (poss. het amel)

The one second clutch that was laid ended up having 1 egg die early (the baby inside was only two or three inches long), 1 died full term with a deformed head, and 1 was alive but horribly deformed and euthanized. These three eggs had no heat spikes, were in half as moist vermiculite, exposed to no pesticides, (though I can't speak to the level of residual pesticides from the spring) so I don't think the problem is heat related. Definately environmental though.

Next year my plans are as follows:

Zeus - never bred- is a male hurricane snow motley. I'm going to cross him to the female who had two clutches but no viable offspring. She's Normal het amel, motley, and anery, so it should be a nice clutch, if the babies turn out okay.

Hermes - Father of all the bad clutches will be bred to Athena, who had the small clutch of 5 eggs. These babies should be all normal stripes het for anery, or anery stripe.

Cornelius - Proven breeder - He and his mate Cleo are recent acquisitions and also proven breeders, so if I get bad eggs from breeding them, I'll KNOW it's environmental. He's a normal-sicle het amel, she's a creamsicle.

I have one other female I might breed to one of these males, but I'm not sure exactly which male I would breed her to. She's unproven and a sibling to zeus.

[Sand&SunReptile]

Sounds like you're ready for the next season,
I hope you get some better clutches next season!