Stumpy, Our Tail-Less Albino

Additional Information

Stumpy, he was born or pipped on Nov. 4, 2021 and fully emerged from his egg the following day, no assistance was required from me. I generally do not cut or manipulate the eggs of any of my hatchlings. I thought it was really a lucky day because Stumpy was one of one egg so the odds of getting a T- from the pairing that produced three types of albinos months earlier was amazing. I could not see any problems while Stumpy was in the egg, in fact I mistook a thin cut piece of his egg shell (done with his egg tooth) as his tail sticking out at first.

The pairing Picasso x Anak Igor that produced Stumpy had given me a clutch of twelve eggs all of which hatched and all were perfect. They were separated for egg deposition and when I tried to re-introduce them after nesting she wanted nothing to do with him and was very aggressive towards him thus no further copulations occurred after this initial clutch of eggs. To my disappointment she went straight into another cycle along with another female in my breeding group. I am not really sure why they do this, I would speculate good food source is at least one trigger but not the only one as they always have a good food source here.

This two month cycle is very dangerous to the female in my opinion as I think the risk is much greater of something going wrong as I don't think the female has fully recovered from the last clutch and in my experience most of the eggs laid in this second clutch are infertile. This is of course not always the case but I think the risk outweighs the reward in these cases and I try to prevent this happening. The female, Anak Igor laid this second clutch on April 15, 2021 exactly two months to the day from her last clutch of all fertile eggs and both were clutches of twelve eggs. However this second clutch only two eggs looked fertile and went into the incubator with one failing a short time later so only Stumpy made it to hatching.

So, I believe this result (Stumpy) is from the two month cycle with NO copulations in-between clutches. I did also have some incubator related issues with lower than normal temps. due to failing heat tape and that was exaggerated with a failing laser temp gun giving in-correct readings as well. I don't believe this had anything to do with Stumpy not getting a tail as I do believe, in fact I am very sure the tail develops pretty early in the incubation period and the incubation issues where later in the incubation. I do however feel that the lower temps did cause an extended incubation period with most of my clutches of eggs hatching at or near the 185 day range this egg incubated for 203 days but even that falls into a normal incubation period for V. salvators.

Stumpy so far is doing very well, he eats great! has fed on insects, pinkies and chicken bits and defecates normally but the only issue I see that may cause a problem is that he seems unable to retract his hemipenes because of the shortened tail so the space is not provided. I continue to use an antibiotic ointment on his hemipenes to try keeping any infections away. maybe with some growth he will be able retract, but ya this is my biggest worry about Stumpy. I will also add Stumpy even without his tail was quite a big hatchling and was full of that V. salvator attitude they all seem to have and that will or drive to survive. Please keep good thoughts about Stumpy. I will keep you updated via my Instagram page, good or bad news. Thank you..