Eclipse Hognose Manchester - 2024 breeding projects

Dam - 'Beans' Albino het toffeebelly

Sire - 'Billy' Conda het toffeeglow

24 eggs laid on 7th May

6 lost during incubation :(

18 healthy babies hatched!

We have a mix of Normal, Albino, Toffeebelly and some Toffeeglow with about half the babies also having the reduced pattern conda gene also.

Dam - 'Biscuit' Normal het Mai Tai

Sire - 'Rooibos' Redline conda het stormcloud

11 eggs laid on 21st May, 2 slugs.

This clutch also had an egg that has started to grow mould, I added more springtails to this tub with great success. 

9 babies hatched with a mix of Normal and Toffeebelly (a surprise as I wasn't aware that Rooibos was het Toffee!) Sadly no sable so either bad luck or one of the parents isn't het.

Dam - 'Xanthi' Axanthic het toffeeglow

Sire - 'Pumbaa' Axanthic conda het albino

23 eggs laid on 18th May, 3 slugs.

We had some issues with mould growing on one of the eggs, I introduced springtails to the incubation tub and they cleared the mould! They did start making holes in the shell of one of the eggs but that didn't affect the baby inside who hatched out fine :) 

We lost 5 eggs from this clutch during incubation. 

15 babies hatched, all axanthic with half being conda also, most are doing great but we do have a runt hatching at just 2.5g - he is eating fish and growing well so I'm confident he will be ok :)

Dam - 'NME' Normal het snow

Sire - 'Twelve' Albino het axanthic

25 eggs were laid on 23rd May, and only 4 have survived. 

There were 22 good-looking eggs in this clutch but 18 of them stopped developing, I think she may have waited a bit too long to lay them - once the embryo reaches a certain size it needs to exchange oxygen at the shell membrane, if the eggs aren't laid in time they can suffocate :( 

4 very big healthy babies hatched, with 3 normal and 1 Axanthic - it was looking like NME wasn't het albino, but it was nice to prove Twelve was het Axanthic!

Dam - 'Arctic' Arctic het snow

Sire - 'Ernie' - Arctic het snow

15 eggs were laid on 24th May, all good! 

I'm *SO* excited for this clutch! 

100% hatch rate!! 

15 babies and what a rollercoaster this clutch has been! We have Super Arctic, Subzero (Super Arctic Albino), Arctic Albino, Arctic Axanthic, Arctic, Axanthic, and a few normal babies too. I was sad not to hit a snow, that would have been great with or without Arctic in the mix - maybe next year.

Dam - 'Beans' Albino het toffeebelly

Sire - 'Billy' Conda het toffeeglow

The second clutch from this pairing, 14 good eggs laid on 15th June. 

The photo above is of Billy, the sire of these clutches; I'm hoping for a few toffee-glow conda!

This second clutch hatched 11 healthy babies. I'm pretty sure we have a toffeeglow conda, but I'm not 100%, so it's going to be a couple of years to find out for sure! 

Dam - 'NME' Normal het snow

Sire - 'Twelve' Albino het axanthic

The second clutch from this pairing, 19 eggs were laid on 21st June, with 14 surviving. 

The photo above is the sire, Twelve - I'm looking forward to seeing what pops out of these eggs!

We lost a few more eggs during incubation but still ended up with 9 babies and finally, in the last clutch of the season WE GOT A SNOW! So NME *is* het albino, we just ended up with primarily normal babies in her first clutch because that's the way the cookie crumbles. 

There was a big drama with one of the albino babies unable to cut through the shell. When I saw the egg was in trouble, I made a cut, but the baby wasn't responding. I know snakes can survive long periods with high CO2, so I figured it was worth trying some variation of CPR, to my utter shock and delight, it worked!! The hatch-cam caught part of the initial phase and I took video later also so there may well be a hatchling-CPR video coming out over winter. Watch this space!