Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a question. My burmese laid her first clutch of eggs on June 1st with complications. Eggs were placed in a homeade incubator at time of delivery. After one week they started turning blue in spots and slightly collapsing. I added a small amount of water to vermiculite. Any suggestions?
Thanks Kevin

Those that are turning colors and or dimpling are very likely dead or were never fertile to begin with. When you first get your eggs it's best to get them from your females one by one and candle them with a flashlight. Those that show veins and are reddish inside are viable and those that are just yellowish with no veins are not viable. Only place those that show vein networks inside into your incubation boxes and into your incubators. This way not even a non-fertilized egg can endanger good eggs by being adjacent for 60 days and fermenting and emiting chemicals and bacteria.
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David Beauchemin
High End Herps.Inc
http://HighEndHerps.com

thanks for the reply. i did flashlight the egs and seperate all were viable with red vains and pink but 2. ive seen one egg were a snake movved or something in it is this possable after such short time? also i didnt know she was gravid. i always was told i had 2 females the male an albino burm the female an albino green berm.to find out the male is def a male had um rechecked. she could not deliver the eggs on her own per vet. looking at pic of others these eggs are larger than normal.they are 5in long and 31/2 .to 4in round.

link to a pic.

http://groups.msn.com/ANursesLoungeToo/locssnakeandkids.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=3388

go ahead and place them in the incubator. A dead, decomposing egg that is not in direct contact with another egg, is no threat at all to any of the other viable eggs in the same incubator. Actually, I have never seen a viable egg die that was in direct contact with one that was decomposing. So if you are not 100% sure it is infertile, go ahead and incubate the questionable ones.

Kelly

Actually, I HAVE seen perfectly good eggs die when adjacent to bad, decomposing eggs. Whether it was from bacterial cross-contamination via the egg walls or perhaps alcohol or some other chemical byproduct cultivated by fermentation, there is no doubt in my mind that these good eggs were compromised and killed by the decomposing eggs adjacent to them. This is NOT to say that every adjacent egg would be killed. I have also seen good eggs remain good when adjacent to a bad egg, but why even take a small chance? In my experience if there are no veins the eggs are NOT good. But as a solution one can always put the dubious eggs into a seperate section or seperate box so they can easily be removed and thrown away when they turn green in 2 or 3 weeks.

The few times I was forced to allow bad eggs to incubate next to good eggs was when a female layed off-schedule and I found her wrapped around a large clump of eggs that had already dried together. I was forced to place the clump of eggs into the incubator intact with bad eggs in the middle. It's never adviseable to try to seperate the eggs once they are "glued" together.

While I do not like to publicly disagree with fellow breeders/keepers with your many years of experience I felt it was my responsibility to the other up and coming breeders to put in my thoughts on this matter. I hope you take no direct offense. I do respect your experience and knowledge gleaned from decades of keeping these guys.
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David Beauchemin
High End Herps.Inc
http://HighEndHerps.com

plus years keeping and breeding reptiles and amphibians and also is in line with countless other breeders and documented literature, I thought your post was "bad advice" actually. Don't take any offence but what you wrote in my opinion was all bad advice to be honest, and if followed, many a "viable egg" would never get the chance to develop.
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Frank Roberts
R&R Herpetological Frank Roberts & John Rodriguez
Roberts'Realm of Reptile Research