My first hognose clutch started hatching yesterday. That's the first litter of the year so It's always exciting.

About those brown spots...

I had five females lay eggs this year, all of them on sphagnum. The two largest and fattest females laid the eggs with those brown spots you describe. The other three females didn't lay eggs with those spots but they were a bit smaller and also had smaller clutches. Some of the spots were quite large (green pea size) and even leaked a small bit toward the end of incubation. This first clutch was one with several of those eggs with thin walled brown spots and they all hatched just fine. I think the egg shells simply never formed properly. My loosely formed theory is that it had something to do with these females being a touch on the heavy side or because it was their first go. I also had a near 40% slug/bad egg ratio from those two fat females. I acquired my group of breeders this year post brumation so I can blame their first year failures on the other guy for now!

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