OK. I have been breeding anthill pythons for several years. The first year I incubated all clutches artificially(2 clutches). One clutch of 6 hatched perfectly and one clutch had 2 dead in the egg and 5 live. The second year I incubated 2 clutches and let the females maternally incubate 2 more. The maternally incubated clutches both hatched beautifully. Again out of two incubated clutches, one was perfect, and the other was half healthy hatchlings and half dead in egg. So the past two years I have been using maternal incubation but have had to incubate one clutch when the female layed it in a bad spot. This clutch just hatched out 2 healthy hatchlings and the entire rest of the clutch (7 eggs) were completely perfect looking, fully pigmented, but very dead babies.

I incubate eggs at 89-90F, in a large rubbermaid container half full with damp spag. This is the same temp and the same substrates that my females use if given free choice. I place a small piece of styrofoam down to stop the eggs from laying on the substrate and maybe getting too wet. I place the eggs on the foam and cover it with a lid with a few small hole in it. I open the incubator (a large styrofoam box) every few days and occasionally open the containers briefly to let in some fresh air. I have tried several variations including straight perlite.

Does anyone have any insight into what causes this phenomenon? I have bred colubrids and geckos for many years and this is a very unusual occurance with them. I have never seen perfectly good egs just die like this.

I thought it might be pipping issues if the shells were somehow too thick/dehydrated/whatever. So with this last clutch I slit each egg as soon as I saw the first heads poking out. No luck, they were already gone.

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