Breeding Q's

[ConcinusMan]

Egg whites and night crawlers? Do you just roll them around in the egg whites? And slightly cooking them? You'll have to tell me more about this process.

I was thinking of buying a few live fish (and mixing it with something (not sure yet what)) that's how I had to get mine started after I got them.. It seemed to rile them up enough to get them to realize they were hungry.

You can find more info here: http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/show...=whites&page=4

If were feeding egg whites to concinnus or other fish eater, I would use fish instead night crawlers for mixing with the eggs.

[bkhuff1s]

Did you use a microwave or oven to sap the eggs? How long did you use either or?

[ConcinusMan]

I would put the whites in a glass microwave safe bowl for just a few seconds at a time, until you see it beginning to cloud, scrambling in between, then a few more seconds, etc. you just want them to sort of clump up a bit without being totally cooked. This night-crawler/eggs mixture is good to give the female during after mating as well as newborns since it contains about 40 different water-soluble proteins that are easy to process (digest), can help the female to quickly replace what she has sacrificed to egg production.

I've never made it a policy to feed eggs as a routine though since they do contain a substantial amount of sodium and are not a garter snake's natural food. Earthworms/night crawlers and fish have higher protein percentage without all the sodium but fewer types of proteins. Egg whites with the worms or fish fillet pieces are a suggested way to help with conserving your worm supply or for providing fatty acids/proteins not found in fish fillet pieces, but not a good permanent replacement for whole fish or worms.

Yolks are generally considered too high in fat and cholesterol for garters.

Basically you want the whites to clump up enough that the snakes can grab and swallow them. cook them as little as possible, on the lowest heat setting, to achieve that clumping since that clumping is the result of the proteins denaturing (losing solubility).

You can also just coat their normal food in egg white slime so you don't lose protein solubility but they will get more of it if you cook it slightly. Too much raw egg white on their food and you could impair breathing during feeding (bubbles out the nose, etc.) and possibly induce an unwanted immune reaction or respiratory infection.

Bottom line however, is that if you have small fish and worms in good supply, the egg whites can be skipped. Fish and worms are mostly water but have plenty of protein and nutrition and are easily digested making small meals of fish and worms, often, is a good policy for gravid garters. Fat stored in whole or live fish (silversides have a considerable fat glob stored in them) has a lot of the same fatty acids (good fat) and good protein found in eggs solid fish meat pieces have much less so whole fish are better.

[bkhuff1s]

I will have to try the night crawlers again then. When I got them almost two years ago they wouldn't touch them, but maybe if I mix them in with the fish mixture it will be different this time around. Thanks for all the help

[ConcinusMan]

If they love fish and go into a frenzy even if they've only eaten live fish, they will swallow ANYTHING that smells like fish. Bottom line is you don't really have to feed your snakes any differently while they are gravid but it's a good idea to NOT give them large meals beyond 60 days from mating. But it is a good idea to feed them more often and feed them foods that they like but are easy to digest and high in water content.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks feed her a pinky or two and smother it with fish smell if she likes fish. Best to get those good pinkies in her before she starts to swell. Pinky mice are the best food ever for carnivorous or omnivorous reptiles. If your snake only goes for fish, it's easy to get them to eat worms and pinkies. Heck, one of my concinnus tried and tried to eat a plastic dish today just because it smelled like fish.

Try all day to bite a wall in your house. It was like that.

[bkhuff1s]

I do feed them pinky's, and that's exactly how I do it.