As I said before, there is very little in the way of development that is going on so late in the incubation. And I do not believe it is genetic since I can see no patterns and all females have had full healthy clutches. Which leaves me to keep coming back to the shell as the problem. Two possible options, an infectious culprit or a husbandry error, either one of which does something to change the shell. Most likely something fungal that maybe somehow changes the properties of the shell?

The other thing that I was thinking is that the eggs are naturally surrounded by the mother and maybe the clingy contact of her skin prevents the shells from becoming as dry and thick as the shells in the incubator which are exposed to a small amount of air moving around them. If I ever have to incubate another clutch I have thought about taking some plastic wrap and poking a ton of tiny holes in it and wrapping it very loosely over the eggs? Thoughts? Is this a bad experiment with a very expensive clutch of eggs???

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