Things I never thought I'd be able to say

[pecunium]

Tonight, I milked a snake.

It's the best way I can think of to descibe it. This is the season when they lay eggs. Sometimes the eggs don't all come out.

The general practice is to let them be for a while.

Give them a warm bath.

Gently press the retained egg(s) until they are out.

Which is what I did for the last two eggs this snake was holding onto. It's nerve-wracking (Maia usually does this, but she wasn't home). The snake is weak (because she's usually not eaten for at least two weeks... they stop eating as the eggs move from the oviduct, into the lower cloaca), and she's usually straining, both against being held, and to get the eggs (which are wider than her lower body) out.

But the muscles resist the egg being pushed past them.

And then the anus opens, and it comes oozing out, soft, slick and slightly wrinkled. In a few moments the surface will inflate, dry; to a yielding, and leathery, surface. It gets placed in with all the rest, and they go into the incubator.

I think both of them were good (often eggs which don't want to come out are slugs).

She's in with a mouse right now.

Comments

[webzombi.livejournal.com]

you "milked" a snake?

Horrifying!

:-/

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

What kind of snake do you have?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Kind?

Lessee, ranked by numbers, most to least.

Corn Snake (40ish)

Western Hognose (7)

East African Sand Boa (6)

Ball Python (2)

And one ea. of

African House Snake

King Snake (the "classic" red, black and yellow/white)

Yellow Rat Snake

California Gopher Snake

TK

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

Holy cow! That's a lot of snake.

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

Is retention of eggs a fatal problem for snakes in the wild, or do the eggs get absorbed eventually?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

egg-binding is fatal.

We had a snake egg-bind, seriously, once. It didn't, quite, take surgery, but she was at the vet for a couple of days.

Now we know what to do (and more to the point, when) and are much more attentive to when they are expected to lay, so they don't have time for the eggs to really lock up.

Which also saves the eggs, usually.

TK

[ourika.livejournal.com]

I think of milking snakes as getting their venom, not their eggs.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after I posted I recalled collecting venom, but having milked cows and goats, this is more like that (in sensation and technique), than venom collecting.

There's no way I'm going to milk venom. Nope. Momma may have raised me foolish, but she didn't raise me stupid.

TK

[ourika.livejournal.com]

*laughs* The whole concept of milking snake venom always freaks me out.