You guys it's so exciting! Our bullsnakes are breeding. We have one clutch and I think the next clutch that's coming is
Brad's
She is in shed and she is looking
massive. I believe this is her pre-lay shed. Let's see
Hi chunky. Oh, you're so big Wow. Okay, hang on
This is her the lay box
it's basically a box that she is going to lay her eggs in and she knows to lay them in here because it's nice and
humid, there's a, uh,
Combination of eco earth and sphagnum Moss in here. Hi fatty, you look uncomfortable
All of this is eggs
How many will you have this year? So she, actually her eyes are not cloudy anymore
so she has passed the blue phase which means she will be shedding her skin in the next, ah, three- two, three days or so and
After that, since this is I believe the pre-lay shed
She should lay her eggs about ten days give or take after this shed is complete. So we're getting really close!
Let's check back when she gets a little bit closer to laying her eggs.
Let's see how she looks
We have a shed, ah, you pooped in there really? But she shed so she's about ten days out.
Okay, I'm gonna clean that up and then we'll check back
Okay Brad, how are you doing today? Do we have any eggies yet?
Nope, no eggs, we have food for you. You are huge. Oh my goodness
How many eggs are in there? Will you still eat? Let's find out. Oh, yeah, she's totally still gonna eat.
Oh! Brad never refuses a meal. Ed: It means she's close, yeah.
Yeah, you didn't want-? Okay. Those eggs are coming.
Okay
She is out. It's time for our daily check. Nope
You still look fat I can tell right now you haven't laid your eggs yet.
Okay, we think Brad is really close. Last night
She was looking very uncomfortable and I felt bad.
But I think last night might have been the night. So let's take a peek
I see her face. She's in her lay box, okay
Let's see if we've got eggs yet. Look at this. She made a mess of all her dirt too.
Ed: Oh yeah. She's been in and out for quite a while
Yeah, so I'll see her like halfway in, all the way out, all the way in. She just is anxious Ed: Super uncomfortable.
Oh my gosh
Last night was the night. Oh, but she's not done yet. Okay, we're gonna- that's adorable I don't wanna bother her
I don't want to bother her. There's a lot of eggs in there guys.
Oh my gosh, I think last year she had 19?
I can't quite remember you guys will have to check the last year's video because I can't remember off the top of my head.
But we'll see how many she has. But we have to give her a few hours to push him out because we don't want to bug her. But that's so exciting!
Ed: Alright, so Brad, just laid her eggs
Ed: And Emily's trying to sneak down here without getting her reaction because she wants to see how many Brad had.
And then Ed grabbed the camera and he's filming anyway, she's done? She got them all out? Ed: She got them all out. How many did Brad have last year?
Ed: We just looked it up Emily: She had about 21 eggs last- 21 good eggs last year not including any slugs. I don't think she had slugs. Anyway.
Oh my gosh, there's so many eggs in there!
You must feel so good to get those out. Oh my gosh, okay
We got 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14
16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25. Is that what you counted?
Ed: Yup.
25. Oh my gosh, they all look good. There's not a single slug in there
I'm going to have to get everything ready and then we'll pull them out and set them up for incubation
That's her biggest clutch she's ever had. That's crazy
How is moving Brad going? Ed: Uh
Ed: Amazing. Emily: Oh.
She likes her box. She's comfy. Ed: I'm not- I'm not gonna- I'm just gonna move all the eggs onto the lid and leave her in there
Ed: She uh, Emily: Since she's so comfy? Ed: Yeah
Ed: I don't mess with her too much. Emily: Well reach on in there grab those eggs.
Ha-ha, she's pushing you away Ed: push me, here, push that way. Thank you
Ed: Don't bite me please Brad you're- you should be really tired after all this work
Holy cow, oh there were almost all in one big chunk
So for those of you who are concerned bullsnakes in the wild will lay their eggs, and then they leave them forever
So, she is not going to miss this big old pile of eggs
She was just acting up because she's comfy in there and doesn't want to come out
So that's why we're yeah, look she's, like, pushing Ed away with her body
That's why we took the eggs up now so we can just leave her be that is the biggest clutch of bull snake eggs
That is the biggest clutch of bullsnake eggs I have ever seen.
I have ever seen so now we're going to prep these eggs for incubation. And, uh, it's a bit of a process
I'll explain it to you, but briefly because we've done this many times on the channel.
First, we are going to ready the substrate for the eggs, and we like to use perlite
It's an organic perlite from I think Bachmann's? It works really well for snake eggs. You can also use vermiculite or HatchRite.
There's many different mediums that you can use for snake and other reptile eggs
We just like to use perlite and sometimes vermiculite because they're both the cheapest options and they work just as well as, like, HatchRite
But this stuff is like six bucks, I think, for the bag and you don't need a ton of it
So it lasts a long time
So what we did was we took perlite and we put it in this bowl and then we simply added water to it
to the point where
When you take a scoop full or a handful and you squeeze it water does not drip from below
Because if it does then it's too saturated and it can cause mold issues with the eggs
Now what most likely happened was a lot of the water drain to the bottom of this bowl
So once we get down there, I bet we'll have to squeeze out some of that extra water
But now that we know this is all the right consistency or the right ratio
We're gonna take this perlite and put it in these incubation bins, essentially.
They have a few holes on the side. I think this is gonna have too many holes
You don't want much ventilation for snake eggs because it can dry out the medium very quickly
so I think I'll probably end up taking some tape to cover up some of these. But let's put the perlite in. You want a
Pretty thick layer of perlite just to make sure that the eggs aren't resting on the bottom of the bin.
You want them elevated up slightly so that if there is water that drains to the bottom
It doesn't come into contact with the eggs directly
Next we're going to make little divots in the perlite to make little resting spots for each egg.
Now we have to take these eggs
And as you can see here
all of these eggs - these two are connected together with mom's natural adhesive and this allows eggs to, if
Some are too warm it'll transfer the heat to the others to kind of balance the overall temperature out throughout the entire clutch
But in captivity we can provide a consistent temperature level in incubation
so there's really no need for these to attach and we do decide to
separate the eggs because if one goes bad and it's connected to others it can cause those to go bad as well and then it
Just spreads. So we like to separate them just in case something happens to an egg.
It's also important that we maintain the exact same orientation
For these eggs if they roll then the baby or the embryo can drown in its own fluid right now
It's not as important like they could turn a little bit because they are such
Freshly laid that the baby has not attached to the side of the eggshell yet, but just to be safe
We are going to try to maintain that same orientation as they had.
Next I'm going to just push a little bit of the perlite up along the size of the eggs to give them a little
extra support.
That way they'll be less likely to roll around in incubation and in case they do roll we are going to mark the topmost part
Of each egg with a little X beccause that'll tell us what side faces up
Okay, the first 12 are done and now we do the same thing for the other half
Well here are the eggs! They're all separated, marked, and ready for incubation
I can't believe that every single one of these 25 eggs is
Fertile. I can tell because they're bright and pearly white if they were
Infertile, or what we call a slug, then they would be kind of a yellow color that may be smaller and they kind of have pointed
Ends to the shells, but these all look perfect. But now the question is
Who's the dad ? So we know that these came from Brad,
Who is the mom, which I know her name is kind of confusing
But that is the mom but the dad could either be Peanut who is this huge bull snake
We paired with Brad this year, or they could be Janet from when we paired her with our male Janet last year
It's possible for snakes to retain sperm and use that in the following breeding season
We really hope these babies are Brad and Peanut's because I just want to see how big of babies those would be with both
Huge parents and Ed brought up a really good point actually, since every single egg is fertile
There's a good chance that they are Brad and Peanut's because if she had retained sperm from Janet from last year's breeding season
There's more than likely be several if not many slugs in her clutch
But since they all look good, things are looking good for Peanut
It'll take about 55 to 60 days for these eggs to incubate in the low to mid 80s and boy
Is it gonna be a long two months because I can't wait to see these guys hatch but now I'm just going to put them
in incubator and mark the day that they were laid and I'll be checking on them frequently and
Eventually, the time will come where these guys will hatch
Thank you everyone for watching today's exciting video. And what will be even more exciting is the day that these eggs hatch and
At which time I will film it
We'll make another video so we can all learn once and for all who's the daddy.
I'd also like to thank all the wonderful
Patreon backers for your amazing support on this channel and we will check back with these eggs in 55 to 60 days.