Green Tree Python Egg Care Information

So you've gotten them to breed and the amazing day comes when you look in the nest box and see the female sitting on her eggs.

There is no doubt about it - hatching GTP eggs is a bitch. Folks used to say that you'll never succeed on the first attempt, this is less true than it used to be but the sentiment is still valid.

The first decision to make is artificial or maternal - female Green Tree Pythons brood their eggs and most animals in captivity will do this very well.

There are a few downsides to maternal incubation - the female stays with the eggs while they incubate and during that time she doesn't feed. This means the "breeding recovery" will take much longer and be more serious, on average you'll be breeding every third year instead of every other. While the female does a great job of keeping the eggs at the correct temperature she is only able to manipulate the environment a little bit - very stable cage conditions are necessary. Stable cage conditions are easier than stable incubator conditions but you need a cage that will maintain a constant level of humidity (which is different than the flood/dry you normally want) and cage temps must be kept on a tight leash.

If you are satisfied with the health of the female and your cage is reasonably capable - maternal incubation is a great way to go. It is easy compared to using an artificial incubator and it will let you see a really cool part of the natural process of Green Tree Pythons. There are some management decisions to be aware of (like if some eggs start to go bad moving the rest to an incubator) but generally speaking this is the "all natural" method and it just looks darn cool.

If you choose to incubate artificially you need to remove the mother from the eggs - this is best done by throwing a bath towel over the snake and carefully and slowly unwrapping it from the eggs. Make sure to have good control of her head. It helps to have two people when doing this so one can go work with the eggs and the other can go work with the mama.

Mama needs a bath and a good drink, a warm water soak in a plastic tub is a good idea. You need to clean her cage to within an inch of it's life to remove all egg smell, same deal with her - if you don't she'll continue to stay coiled and "incubate" eggs that aren't there while continuing to not feed for you.

The eggs themselves need to be treated very carefully - make sure the mother is slowly and carefully removed from them as she can damage eggs or hold them in her coils and drop them. Try to not rotate the eggs vertically and keep them as still as you can.

You'll then candle (shine a bright light through) the eggs to make sure they are fertile and viable. Look for good vein development and the embryo itself. The embryo must be placed on top (the "liquid" side of the egg down) when moving the eggs to your incubator. The eggs themselves may be in small clumps or separated, you can seperate any clumps very carefully. If they seem stubborn or stuck gently roll them back and forth to separate each one. Eggs that don't look viable on candling should be segregated so they don't have any chance of spoiling the good ones.

The Jar

In the long long ago there was only one way to incubate GTP eggs that had any chance of success - the jar method developed by Walsh and Bessette. Basically a layer of damp gravel is placed in the bottom of a large glass jar with a screw on lid, dry moss is placed on top, and the eggs sit on top of that. Humidity is controlled by the tightness of the jar lid - this method requires very precise control of temperatures. So the problem with the jar basically is that most folks just couldn't get it to work, this was usually blamed on the inability to manage temps precisely. The reality is that while it worked great for Trooper and Eugene no one else was able to consistently succeed.

The Damp Vermiculite

So after hating the jar for about a decade there was a breakthrough - a small group of folks started incubating Green Tree Python eggs on damp vermiculite. This was viewed as "totally crazy" by proponents of the jar method that were sure any contact with humidity would always kill the egg. Well - the thing about the vermiculite method is that it worked. In fact it worked pretty well for most folks that tried it and it had a much higher rate of success than the old jar method. Many folks still incubate this way and it can work well. One part vermiculite and one part water (by weight) and the usual temperatures. One word of caution, eggs incubated on vermiculite must be moved to a hatch tub before anyone emerges as a coating of vermiculite can kill neonates. (this is more of an issue with the fine stuff).

Vermiculite works better than the jar but using it requires lots of observation and adjustment on humidity issues. If you've incubated lots of reptile eggs but never GTP's this will be very familiar and in that case it is often the best choice.

Substrate Free

So the method most folks use today is substrate free - that's because it clearly has the best hatch rate and the best chance of success. This has been a popular way of incubating all sorts of reptile eggs in Europe for many years.

The eggs sit in a deli cup which is inside of a box with water in the bottom. There are oodles of homemade ways of doing this that work well but getting your system to work "right" is one of the challenges of this system. Once you do get it figured it is very reliable but until then you can have some problems.

The albino Green Tree Python guy, Damon Salceies. has a great description of his home built incubator here and he talks a bit about some of his initial problems and design issues. Reading this carefully is likely to save you lots of engineering headaches.

The folks over at Avey Incubator - which is mostly focused on units for parrots - sell the only incubator specifically designed for Green Tree Python eggs. They even bought the domain name http://www.HatchChondro.com - they have two units which are basically a small and a large size. There is lots of debate as to who "invented" this design or where it comes from - and like most debates like this in the reptile world everyone is correct. There is lots of simultaneous invention and all new techniques are based upon old ones, this is just nature's law. Some folks also feel that the Avey units are overpriced - and in comparison to an igloo cooler with crappy electronics they are - but they are a really good value and fairly priced for what you get.

What isn't a matter of debate though is that these folks sell the only incubator (and zero substrate egg boxes) that will allow you to have a working unit right out of the box with no modifications. Here at Spruce Nubble Farm we have a Rept-100 and we find it to be a fine piece of equipment. We'd advise that if you buy one you get the additional egg box when you order it initially (it comes with one but holds two).

Temperatures

Ok - so the first thing about incubation temps you need to understand is that a really good thermometer is required. We don't mean a more expensive electronic one or a fancier one but one that has been calibrated. Every year or two you'll need to send your unit back to a lab that can calibrate it again - this is the only way to know that the temperature is what you think it is. In addition a calibrated thermometer can be used to find a the "variance" on all of your other thermometers. We have many electronic thermostats here that say "+1.2" or "-2.4" on the front.

Since a calibrated thermometer is really a piece of lab equipment it isn't cheap. You get what you pay for in this gear and you do need a unit that is at least decent, expect to spend some cash. The unit we use here at Spruce Nubble Farm is from All QA and is the AQA1417 High Accuracy Thermometer - it costs about $300 delivered. The options in this universe are bottomless, just make sure your unit conforms to NIST or ITS-90 Standards. Yes you really do need to send it out for calibration on a regular basis.

So once you have your calibrated laboratory thermometer you can ignore all the crap about accuracy of incubators and forget about buying a very high dollar super fancy unit. Remember that what you need is an incubator that has little or no variance (drifting temps) , accuracy like they need when growing mold in a lab is not what you are going for. Not like you can't hatch Green Tree Python eggs in Forma Scientific but it is hardly the only way to do it.

The most important thing that impacts variance of an incubator is where you put it - if the temps in the room swing fifteen or twenty degrees each day no unit will be able to help you no matter what it costs. Here we keep our incubators in the "basement basement" area of our house, which is a room that has a 24" thick concrete slab and 18" thick concrete walls and is about 10 feet below ground - it is about sixty two degrees in this room all the year round. The temps never move more than a degree or so on any given day no matter how cold or hot it gets outside. Place your incubator in the most thermally stable area you can find and be aware that house heating or cooling systems can and will mess you up.

So now you've got your incubator placed , let it run and stabilize for a few weeks before any eggs are laid. Now it is time to lovingly place your eggs inside - but first you need to site the probe. Thermometer probes should be placed right in the midst of the eggs themselves - make sure the path of the wire is secure and won't cause problems later. The Avey unit is made from a cooler, so it has a drain plug which is a great place to have your thermometer probe wire exit the incubator.

As was shown by the work of Van Mierop, Walsh, and Bessette the Green Tree Python does not incubate her eggs at a consistent temperature. The first and last weeks are a bit cooler. People use different temps and lots of different "formulas" seem to work - you need to find what works for you and your equipment.

We use this system here:

Week one = 30.5 degrees
Week two through six = 31.5 degrees
Week seven = 30.0 degrees

As you can see the first week is a bit warmer than the seventh while the in between weeks are about a degree warmer than the first week - this is what tends to work best no matter what exact temps you use.

Like all things Green Tree Python anything is possible and people have hatched eggs incubated at one consistent temperature in the past.

Keeping Eggs Happy

Eggs can and do have a wide variety of problems. All of the usual reptile egg tricks have been tried and many of them work well. Some eggs that seem perfect go rotten and some that look like crap from day one hatch just fine. If the eggs get wet you are probably screwed, much of what Damon discusses in his incubator design page is how to avoid this problem.

About a month into the incubation the eggs will begin to emit moisture and you need to adjust your vents /air exchange to compensate for this. As you'll see many of the eggs will then begin to dent in - this is totally normal and not a problem. Watch for rotten eggs or eggs with humidity problems - difficulties tend to spread and this is one of the things that is nice about only having a few eggs in each deli cup.

Pipping, aka cutting the eggs open.

So good old day 49 has arrived and you are about jumping out of your skin. You may have had an animal cut through the egg on it's own already and if you have move your schedule accordingly.

Some folks don't agree that pipping eggs is a good idea and everyone is entitled to their opinion but we think it is a mistake to not cut the eggs on day 49. Neonates can and do die in the shell that would have made it if the egg was cut. Much of the point "anti-pippers" make is that successfully getting out of the egg is part of the natural process and those that can't are weak animals - but with Green Tree Pythons that hatched neonate is so many miles from a healthy adult that we don't think this is a valid concern for this species.

Using a pair of sharp tipped sterile cuticle scissors make a small triangle shaped incision along the long axis of the egg. Obviously you need to be very careful to not cut the neonate or any of the veins but some liquid seepage (and blood) is totally normal. Once you have made this little flap take a peek inside - some folks very lightly poke the baby with the scissor to see if it moves. This takes practice and isn't worth doing - there is no problem with having eggs that will never produce a live neonate in your hatch tub as long as you keep it clean.

Moving to the Hatch Tub

So of course hatching Green Tree Pythons is a little bit weird when compared to other snakes. The little ones are generally in no hurry to exit the egg and often take their sweet time emerging. They'll peek their heads up and watch you for a day or so and different critters emerge at different rates.

Place pipped eggs on deli cup lids. Line the bottom of a small plastic shoebox with wet paper towels and keep it at 85 degrees. You want to have a small perch above the eggs for the newly emerged babies to climb up to and rest on. Remember that it is common to lose a few seemingly healthy hatchlings for no apparent reason, this does not indicate that you have made any errors. You will almost alwasy have some animals that never emerge and are dead int he egg, same deal - this is normal.

The key with a hatch tub is keeping it clean - as each baby emerges it will smear fluids all over the place - it'll smell pretty ripe pretty fast if you don't keep things clean. Cleanliness also helps reduce the chance of any bacterial problems.

As soon as you have the baby perch up you want to - start it's record !
Each animal should be kept individually , remember to never forcibly remove an animal from the perch or you will injure it, let them crawl off under their own power. Weigh the critter and move it to it's new home, you can learn about neonate care on this page.