Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had these in an aquarium style incubator for 30 days, temp. from 85 to 90 F. Sometimes I will open the top to let them breathe for approximately 30 minutes or less. Then their temperature drops some, but the room is 80 F so I didn't think it was a major problem.

Now one has died, I think, and smells pretty bad...my question is, should I try to remove it from the others or just leave it? I already tried to pull it away from the others and so far it seems stuck...I have read before that if an egg goes bad it will become unstuck from the others...any info on this?

They should hatch in 3 more weeks according to my info...is there any problem with my setup that anyones sees? They are in a tupperware with a few holes that I keep a lid on, and it's resting on bricks in a ten gallon aquarium, the aquarium has a loose fitting styro top on it. Thanks for your help. Robert

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This is a common occurance. I wouldn't worry too much about it. You can separate the bad egg out if it makes you feel better, but healthy eggs will not be affected. I have had moldy eggs attached to clutches through the incubation and the others hatch no problem. If it is convienient I will remove the bad egg, but if it is difficult to remove, I won't mess with it. The eggs look great and you should have some nice baby spotteds in a month or so. Good luck,
Justin J

Australian Addiction Reptiles

Thanks for the reply Justin. Yeah so far I have left it alone...I may try to remove it again if it releases some from the other two eggs. The smell is pretty bad, and I hope that will lessen, if not I guess I can deal with it. So far the "rot" doesn't seem to be spreading so that's good. Robert

Hi Robert – congratulations on those nice-looking eggs and keep doing what you’re doing. It’s usually never clear why one or two go bad when the rest proceed uneventfully to hatching. I did a lot more candling of eggs this year, not just one or two per clutch. I was surprised to see some which looked perfectly good to my experienced eye when they were deposited , but when I candled them they were clearly not developed properly and were never destined to hatch. So I wasn't alarmed about my setup when they later went bad.

Sometimes they do lose their adherence when they go bad, but not always. If you can’t easily remove it, just leave it alone. The malodorous mess should shrink and dry up some as the days pass.

I don’t think you need to “air out” the eggs for 30 minute stretches (I’ve never done it for more than a minute or two at a time), but, again, your other eggs do look fine. If you don’t mind one more suggestion - those eggs look plenty turgid. So resist the temptation to add any more water to your setup when they start to collapse later.

Post pictures of the hatchlings which you will be getting soon.

-Joan

Thanks for the info Joan. So far I have left it alone, I may keep trying to remove it if I can do it without hurting the other eggs. Yeah I know what you mean about the humidity. Too much humidity is my main concern with this setup...I have hatched them out before in a different homemade incubator using a styro box and letting the mother incubate them. The other incubator worked well, the electronics broke though so I no longer have it. Letting the mother incubate did not work out so well, I only had 50% hatch rate.

Anyways the humidity is steady at 94% in this setup, the perlite is still relatively dry though...I can't squeeze water out so that's good. We will see how well this setup works...thanks. robert

I wouldn't call myself a pro, but I've hatched enough eggs over the years to know to leave them alone, especially at that stage. I've also seen some perfectly healthy snakes and lizards hatch out of eggs that I swore were bad. My spotteds took a 58-62 days to hatch. There were two bad eggs in the incubator that were visibly bad from the get go. Just my non professional opinion.

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