First off, I'm in complete shock over this. This is about a clutch of 5 South American Tri-Color Hognose eggs that were laid all the way back on December 18. I was really anticipating them to hatch by mid-February and around that time, the eggs even started to dimple which caused me to believe they were ready to hatch. But after a week, nothing happened, so I carefully made a small incision into one of the eggs to see what was going on inside. Upon inspection, there was nothing but yolk. So, I kind of figured at that point that the eggs were either infertile or something else, but I would have thought that after 2 months, there were have been at least a partially developed baby. However, the eggs appeared every bit as healthy and white despite having started to cave in. So, I remoistened the vermiculite they were in and decided to just let them sit until they went bad. What did I have to lose at that point? I pretty much checked on the eggs every other day or so, but when I checked on them tonight, I only saw one egg on top of the vermiculite. All the other eggs were almost completely buried. This stumped me as I know I had not covered them like that and the last thing I really expected were any hatchlings. The first buried egg I pulled out of the vermiculite was empty, so I excitedly looked underneath the container and there was a little baby buried all the way at the bottom. So, after 3 long months, I finally received vindication for my patient waiting...

http://rextiles.net/available/tri-color_hatchling.jpg

The little guy only weighs in at 4 grams, but appears healthy and alert. Hopefully after a week or two, I can get it to eat. This is my first year of actually producing a South American Hognose. Last year we suffered a tragic loss when our original female laid some dud eggs and then mysteriously died a few months later. We thought that perhaps the male we bred her to was infertile since all of those eggs were infertile, but I decided to try him again with a different female this year. This is the first year that the mother of these eggs was bred. So far so good. I even have a second clutch she laid for me last month incubating. So, if all goes well, we'll have quite a few babies by this summer!

By the way, this clutch is a genetic experiment to try and prove out whether the genetics of both parents are inheritable since both parents are completely Bi-Color (only black and white). From what I've been told, all babies from Bi-Color parents start out as Tri-Colors but lose most, if not all their red after a few sheds. It will be interesting to see if this actually happens as the few people that told me this were not entirely sure what the long term outcome of all hatchlings were. I imagine they probably sold them before really seeing any developmental changes in coloration.

Like I said on an other place:
Congrarulation and all the best for you!

It will be interesting to see a "picturestorry" from the Bicolor-hatchlings in the future.
Can you post pics from the breedingpair please?

Stefan

COngrats on your patience!!!

Congrats on waiting it out

COngrats

Congrats on the hatchling. We look forward to seeing what happens too, keep us updated.

Thanks for the comments everybody! :)

Like I said on an other place:
Congrarulation and all the best for you!

It will be interesting to see a "picturestorry" from the Bicolor-hatchlings in the future.
Can you post pics from the breedingpair please?

Stefan

Hi Stefan :) Here's pics of the pair:

Male Bi-Color South American Hognose:
http://rextiles.net/collection/hognose_s.american/twister-01.jpg

Female Bi-Color South American Hognose:
http://rextiles.net/collection/hognose_s.american/noodles-01.jpg

The male is pretty much completely devoid of red. But the female does have a little here and there, especially around her neck, that's the largest concentration she has left although it's hard, if not impossible, to see from the picture.

Now to wait and see if any of the other 4 eggs will hatch or not!

Congrats on the little hatchling! The parents are beautiful!

Tricolors hatch anywhere from 78 to 104 days. 4g is an average weight for those guys. Goodluck with your theory on the genetics, but my experience says no. If any babies turn, you probably will not see it until they are a year. I had a normal pair that produced about 100 babies for me. Out of that hundred, one turned bicolor. This leads me to think that it is not really a genetic thing. Hope you have some extra small pinks ready! :lol: Let me know if you need any feeding tips. :D Now the fun and frustration really begins :devil:

Tricolors hatch anywhere from 78 to 104 days. 4g is an average weight for those guys. Goodluck with your theory on the genetics, but my experience says no. If any babies turn, you probably will not see it until they are a year. I had a normal pair that produced about 100 babies for me. Out of that hundred, one turned bicolor. This leads me to think that it is not really a genetic thing. Hope you have some extra small pinks ready! :lol: Let me know if you need any feeding tips. :D Now the fun and frustration really begins :devil:

Hi Jenea :)

Thanks for the info! I did not realize that South American Hognose had such a lengthy incubation period, and here I thought I was being extremely patient. ;)

You and I talked in the past about your mystery Bi-Color. While he was the product of 2 Tri-Colors, I'm not sure if that alone would prove whether or not the Bi-Color trait is heritable or not. Obviously, you have many years of experience in breeding South American Hognose and I totally respect your opinion about them. :) I'm merely going off information from a breeder that I got some of my Bi-Colors from. Whether or not any of it is true or proven, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I really just have no opinion on the matter since I'm just getting into breeding snakes and information especially regarding South American Hognose is still lacking a bit. It would be cool though if it was a heritable trait though, that would just add one more spectrum to this beautiful species!

As far as the mice go, fortunately I have my own breeding colonies, so I'm usually good to go for whatever sizes I might need. I just hope they start off on pinkies. What has been your general experience with starting off babies on food? Do the majority of them take pinkies initially or do you have to wean them onto them?

1/3 start on pinks, 1/3 need scenting, and 1/3 just never eat. I have a theory about that. Most animals in the wild that produce large amounts of young have a high mortality rate in those young. I hypothisis that tricolors lay multiple clutches for this reason. I do not offer anything other than pinks and tuna scented pinks. I do not offer any live prey scenting because those animals are hard to wean off.

Congrats :cheers:

congrats and good luck

Wow congrats... I bet a few people would have thrown those eggs away if they were in your situation.

Here's baby #2 weighing in at ~4.5 grams that just hatched this morning:
http://rextiles.net/available/tri-color_hatchling-02.jpg

There's still 3 eggs left and 2 have already started slitting their eggs, so hopefully within the next day or two we'll see a couple of more beautiful hoggie faces! :D

Tri-color Hognoses are awesome. I always get bugged out when I see one. Congrats BTW:cheers:

congrats on #2

Congratulations!! Beautiful little babies! :D

WOw man those tricolors look freaking wicked right out of the egg. Congrats on the hatchlings and nice job remaining calm...

:wamma:CONGRATS!!!!!!!:wamma:

It's always sooo nice after all the waiting to have something GREAT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!

I am happy for you .

Thanks everybody for the wonderful support!

As it stands, 4 out of the 5 eggs hatched out. The fifth just didn't make it despite my best efforts. But the other four appear healthy and active. So with any luck, they'll start eating before long and hopefully we'll get them established. :)

Congrats on the babies!.....:rockon:
Hope all goes well with them.....:yessir:

Congratulations the babies look great!

Did you cut the 5th egg? Or did it go bad? I have had the last egg hatch out almost 20 days after its clutchmates before.

Did you cut the 5th egg? Or did it go bad? I have had the last egg hatch out almost 20 days after its clutchmates before.
Yeah, this was the egg I originally cut open to inspect back in February.

When I determined it was dead the other day, it did have a fully developed neonate in it but there was still a little bit of yolk which had dried up around it which I imagine suffocated it. Prior to it's death, I was checking on it daily and helping to keep the yolk moist, but then I had to go to the ER a few days ago and spend the night for testing, so the egg was left unattended and when I got home, I found it dead. I do believe that had I not originally incised it to inspect it back in February, it would have hatched normally. So basically, this was my fault due to ignorance of incubation duration. I just knew that if the other eggs hatched, the chances of this one particular egg were minimal at best and had I not had to go to the hospital, it might have survived.

I'm just glad that I decided to wait and see what would happen with this clutch as I really did not expect this long of an incubation period. I'm glad I know now though as I have another clutch of 7 incubating right now. :)

Congrats on the hatching.:cheers: That's a cool lookin tri-color.

Congrats on the new babies! Great job of hangin' in there. http://photos.imageevent.com/cornerstonereptiles/private/good%20job.gif

I would love to see pics of the whole gang when you get a chance.

thats an awesome story nothing like some patience and faith being rewarded by some sweet looking tri colors