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allygrace

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Hi all,
I've recently gotten (about 4 weeks ago) a Children's Python (my first snake). We thought it was male but yesterday 'he' laid a clutch of eggs!
I've got no idea how old she is or if she's laid any before.
So now I'm really after all the info I can get about the whole journey with her and the eggies from here.
She's pushed away 4 tiny brown eggs from the clutch now and is curled up doing her thing on the rest and seems like all is well there.
What should I expect from here and advice on what I should keep an eye on/do so that mama and eggies thrive?
(Pic of mama and eggs this morning)
 

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She wasn't just sold as the wrong sex, she's also a different species. She's a nice blonde Spotted Python. Given she was sold as a male Children's Python it's difficult to guess what the father was.

The eggs she pushed aside are infertile and she has deliberately rejected them.

If conditions are favourable the eggs will hatch in a little under two months. She may or may not be able to care for them where she is now, it's difficult to say, but you might get some hatchlings.
Personally, in a situation like this I'd put them in an incubator, but alternatively you might like to get a plastic box (a washed out ice-cream tub will do) and put some sphagnum moss in it and a tiny amount of water (a common mistake is to make them too moist), and pick her and her eggs up and put them in there. You might find the eggs are now adhered to the floor, which given your level of experience may make just leaving them where they are your best bet.

Whatever the result, it'll be an interesting experience, and hopefully you'll see some babies in late February! She's a lovely looking snake.
 
She wasn't just sold as the wrong sex, she's also a different species. She's a nice blonde Spotted Python. Given she was sold as a male Children's Python it's difficult to guess what the father was.

The eggs she pushed aside are infertile and she has deliberately rejected them.

If conditions are favourable the eggs will hatch in a little under two months. She may or may not be able to care for them where she is now, it's difficult to say, but you might get some hatchlings.
Personally, in a situation like this I'd put them in an incubator, but alternatively you might like to get a plastic box (a washed out ice-cream tub will do) and put some sphagnum moss in it and a tiny amount of water (a common mistake is to make them too moist), and pick her and her eggs up and put them in there. You might find the eggs are now adhered to the floor, which given your level of experience may make just leaving them where they are your best bet.

Whatever the result, it'll be an interesting experience, and hopefully you'll see some babies in late February! She's a lovely looking snake.
Hi John, speaking of "species" it seems most people these days refer to all Antaresia as childrens or just given the wrong names altogether. My first Pygmy Banded pythons were sold to me as Pygmy which I thought meant A.perthensis. Then my first blonde spotted was sold as a childrens.
Now the powers that be have declared all ants are A.childreni, and to further complicate things, A.stimsoni are referred to as Liasis in some but not all states.
I am of the opinion there are 5 species (or subspecies ) of Antaresia
 
Hi John, speaking of "species" it seems most people these days refer to all Antaresia as childrens or just given the wrong names altogether. My first Pygmy Banded pythons were sold to me as Pygmy which I thought meant A.perthensis. Then my first blonde spotted was sold as a childrens.
Now the powers that be have declared all ants are A.childreni, and to further complicate things, A.stimsoni are referred to as Liasis in some but not all states.
I am of the opinion there are 5 species (or subspecies ) of Antaresia

It's over 20 years since all Antaresia (at the time in Liasis) were considered childreni. Recently the stupid specific split between childreni childreni and childreni stimsoni was finally removed, but perthensis and maculosa are still more or less universally recognised. The only amalgamation which has ever taken place in the group was the recent merging of Stimson's with the rest of the Children's.

You'll get idiots getting all sorts of things wrong, but that says nothing about the validity of things. I have no idea who you are referring to by 'the powers that be', but the official taxonomy authority is the ICZN, the international commission of zoological nomenclature.

I am of the opinion that there are three species of Antaresia, but it is entirely subjective. You can reasonably make the case that they are all the same species, you can reasonably make a case for three, but you can't make any sensible case for splitting childreni and stimsoni at the specific level. If you've travelled and observed hundreds of Antaresia all over Australia and you try to make a cladogram of the Antaresia populations to justify this assertion I guarantee you will fail. Cladistically, childreni is a clade within the clade of stimsoni (not that such a clade exists in the taxonomical nomenclature). I'm guessing you're including Pygmy Banded Pythons as one of your five, but if you travel Australia extensively you'll find multiple populations of Antaresia which would just as validly be put into their own species, so to include them you would need to accept many more species.

A fun thought experiment is to consider that if we consider splits like childreni/stimsoni to be valid at the specific level, by the same standards we would have dozens of different species in what we currently consider to be living humans (comically, they had to change the rules on taxonomy for this reason, I was very amused as a university student 20 years ago in my genetics lectures looking at the definitions which clearly showed it was not possible to classify some populations as human... they changed the rules a couple of years later).

Either way, your snake is clearly an eastern Cape York Antaresia, which pretty much anyone worth talking to including yourself considers to be Antaresia maculosa, not A. childreni. Very few people these days still consider all Antaresia to be 'Children's'.
 
Oh wow okay, thank you for your replies! Shes now rejected the majority of the eggs and I'm getting worried that none of them will make it šŸ˜”

This is her and the eggs this evening
 

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I don't know if any of the eggs have made it? She seemed to have abandoned them so I've removed them from the tank and have them in a plastic tub keeping warm but I don't know whether theyre ok
 
if they're still white and haven't collapsed they are still viable. keep them warm (around 30C ) if possible and in around 60 days you might have some little noodles. Find somebody to help you raise them or give to a breeder as getting hatchies to feed is not easy
 
Im not sure if this is a silly question but... what do healthy viable eggs vs collapsed eggs look like?
 
Anterasia Females can lay eggs, even if they haven't been with a male, none have ever survived. Other species have had viable eggs without a male. One of my Children's Pythons has done this for the last 3 years, recently she presented me with 17 beautiful eggs. It is a worry because she firstly presented with an RSI, I gave her injections of Antibiotics, and she still wouldn't eat. One day she was upside down inside her hide, which indicated she was gravid. A month later she laid the eggs. This is just my suspicious mind, but...... it is possible the person you got your lovely blond spotted from, wanted to move her on because they tought she was sick. Nobody has a definitive answer to why they lay eggs without a male introduction. It is thought that the diet of the Snake, could stimulate the Egg folicals with protines. Don't be surprised that in 12 months time, she will do it again. Keep in mind, the eggs are not viable. In saying that, you never know, because it is possible. I was thinking of putting her with a male and hatching the eggs, I just don't want to have all the extra mouths to feed. It is possible this will break the cycle.
 
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