Hi all,
a few people have asked for updates on this snake and there has been a bit of action over the last few hours, so I thought I'd post an update.
After oviposition eight days ago, it appeared that one egg was stuck inside the female. When I measured, I found it was 5 inches (sorry to those too young to understand archaic measurements
) from the cloaca and when I inspected it closely and felt the lump, it seemed there were either two or three eggs remaining, one about normal size, the other one or two much smaller. I fed the snake two days after oviposition, the meal was taken very enthusiastically. Not much changed until about six days after oviposition, at that point the egg(s) started to move and after another 48 hours or so were about an inch closer to the vent. On day eight after oviposition (today), the snake defecated in the morning and the egg mass was right at the cloaca, the snake has spent the last three or four hours trying to pass the egg(s) and I expect she will succeed by the end of the day. I'll post again when things progress further.
As for the eggs laid normally, there are nine, all are fertile, and at about 15% of the way through incubation, all look like they'll hatch. I'm actually very excited about them as they're from my favourite female childreni
Thanks again to everyone who has offered advice, including those who contacted me via email. It's surprising how much I learned in the three days after starting this thread!
Incidentally, most of the people I spoke to recommended oxytocin, a few told me this would do nothing or even cause harm. Those who recommended it had all used it with good results. While surfing the 'net, I read all about oxytocin working on smooth muscle and not working on snakes etc etc, which made it interesting to read all the possitive first hand accounts of it! A few people recommended manually pushing the eggs out, two said this would likely cause damage because the oviducts were probably twisted or similar. Some said I should feed the snake, others said this could be disastrous and should be avoided. Most veterinary advice leaned towards surgery (I suppose you can't charge someone as much, or at least justify it as easily if you tell them not to disturb their snake by bagging it up and taking it for a drive etc etc, but instead to just leave it alone and sit and wait). Clearly there are many different schools of thought on how to deal with egg binding, I am very greatful to everyone who offered me advice based on their own experience, I obviously didn't follow everyones' as it was all mutually exclusive with other peoples', but it was still great to learn about the range of potentially viable options which exist.
I should point out that I'm not for a moment trying to tell anyone else how to deal with egg binding, just following on from my request for help with an account of what is happening.
I'll be contacting a few people privately once everything is finished - don't worry, I haven't forgotten
Thanks again.
