Reptile & Amphibian Forums

These eggs have been incubating for 5 weeks. They look good but these spots at the tips are starting to concern me.

In the past few years I have had a nearly 100% hatch rate. This year I have had 2 clutches go down. All eggs showed good developement when candled, and they all looked fine for about a month. Then a few would collapse a little and these windows and discolorations apeared at the tips. More moisture did not correct the collapsing. One by one the eggs would get sticky and go down. Only 4 out of 14 hatchlings made it from these 2 clutches combined!

This clutch is starting to show the same signs. You can see one egg has wrinkled. What could cause this?

I have experimented with different media this year and have some clutches on spag moss, some on vermiculite, and one on perlite. One bad clutch was on the moss and the other was the perlite. The eggs are incubated in a drawer in my rack. They maintain 80F continuously. I separate the bad clutches to different drawers and I have cleaned the whole incubator as well.

????

I have hatched out healthy babies from eggs with all kinds of wierd spots and deformities on them. I really don't do anything if I think the temps and humidity are OK. It looks a little dry in that container but you have to be the judge of that yourself...can't really tell from a pic. I set up eggs no matter what they look like, and most of the time they hatch. Some that look god awful from the get go usually perish in the first week, but eggs 5 weeks old in my expeirience usually hatch.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Those eggs are fine. The wrinkled one is just in a position that it gets like that. It will hatch out fine as well. No worries.

Yeah, I agree with Rainer --- the eggs look fine.

I have had eggs that were totally molded over and oozing -- and they still hatched.

I have noticed something about bad eggs in my limited experience -- once the mold takes hold of an egg it is almost like a race to hatch date: who will win? the mold or the baby snake. I have seen babies hatch from crusted over eggs and then I have also had babies that appeared to have died less than a week from hatching (these are fully formed snakes in the eggs that appear to not have all of their pigment yet).

All you can do is set the eggs up properly and try to maintain the proper environment.
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Peter Jolles
East Coast Colubrids
www.eastcoastcolubrids.com

All eggs darken as they age, since the developing young inside blocks more ambient light as it grows.
I agree - they will likely do fine.
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...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

The ends are uncalicified, I call them windows. You can actually watch the development of the embryo. You can see that now, on yours.

Your method in my opinion sucks. Not enough substrate. Also you comments on 100% hatchrate is funny. To us old timers, it only means you have hatched many eggs yet. 50 out of 50 is nice, but thats not like 2579 out of 2600. It simply meant, you got lucky. Eggs do go bad for lots of reasons. Of which your experiening now.

What sucks about your method is, not a big enough container and not enough substrate. Consider the size and amount of substrate as a buffer for your errors. With a tiny little thing you have, you have to "get it right" Use a large container and you have room for all sorts of errors.

That works for temps, a large mass takes much longer to change. A small mass(yours) changes quickly and eggs do not like quick changes.

For humidity, a large mass takes a very long period to dry out. A small mass does not. It appears your eggs are drying out.

Another example, if you keep opening the lid, you keep allowing moisture to be lost. With a large amount of substrate, you can open it to your hearts content. No so with your tiny little boxes.

All in all, your eggs looked great(i like windows and never had problems with them) your method sucks. It will work if your lucky and stay on it, but man, you can do it another way and not have to worry or work so much. Cheers

Well two things.

1st in my defense the container has much more moss covering all of the eggs up to the top. I uncovered them to take the pic. I will try larger containers next year.

As far as my history... I have always used smallish containers and I have lost only 8 good eggs in the past 6 years. I didn't used to keep acurate records so I can't remember exactly how many eggs have been laid overall but I would say I've had between 30-50 per year. Not bad odds to me but your right its not 100% I should have said I have a 94.23% hatch rate. haha

cheers and thanks for the advice

In the old days, Dallas zoo had a formula for substrate, a egg weight to substrate ratio. It was a little out of hand, like a thirty gallon tank half full for a clutch of blairs. It may have been overkill, but it allowed eggs to be hatched in a wide varity of temps and conditions.

I do not go that far, sort of a happy medium. But the lesson is learned. The greater the mass of substrate, the better it is.

Heres something to think about. You seem to be new. that is, when your new, your very interested and constantly messing with this and that(tinkering). Consider, after a while, all you want to do is set them up and come back after they hatch. This is normal. You will find that methods you use early on will fail later. Not because the methods do not work, but because you have changed. You will constantly change. So its not a bad idea to keep the methods changing with you. Cheers

FR (or anyone) -

I've heard that they found asbestos in vermiculite and that many are recommending perlite instead. Have you heard of this? What's your opoinion on it?

I know vermiculite - 2:1 verm:water by weight is what most people suggest for kings. Is perlite going to use the same ratio?

I buy the huge bags of vermiculite from Home Depot here in Arizona and it has a big sticker on the bag that says "asbestos free"

Kerby...

I used vermic for about 30 years then decided to switch to perlite. I have use perlite for the last 18 years and I like it. I hatch turtles, torts, snakes, and lizards without problem.

I just don't like the way vermic works. It holds moisture. Perlite does not, it allows humidity to pass around eggs, which I believe what reptile nests are designed to do(dry and humid).

The reason I changed in the first place is, each batch can have different properties. As in, it can be inconsistant. I ran into a bunch of inconsistant batches. As perlite does not hold water, it is constant.

With snakes its not a big deal, snake eggs are way easy. With varanids its another story. We have eggs incubate over a year. So consistancy is important. Cheers

asbestos is only dangerous if inhaled as a dust so you the keeper would have to be concerned when first mixing the batch with water . we all know it can fly every where before their is any water added. but once water is added it does not get air born so you cant breath it in. as long as the medium stays moist enough not to get air borne you and the hatchlings will be safe.
also but im not 100% sure of this but i believe you need to be exposed for long periods of time breathing it in inorder for it to cause perminent problems but like i said im not 100% on this last fact
adam
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hybrid breeders association
0.1. normal corn het hypo,anery
1.0. snow corn het hypo,anery,amel
1.0. amel corn unknown hets(4ft 8inch long)
1.0 sinacorn
1.1 kenyan sand boas
0.1 mbk
0.1 albino nelsons
0.2 normal leo geckos
1.0 blizzard leo gecko
0.0.1 snapping turtles
0.0.1 3 lined mud turtle

> also but im not 100% sure of this but i believe you need to be
> exposed for long periods of time breathing it in inorder for it
> to cause perminent problems but like i said im not 100% on this
> last fact

My unscientific concern is that it could affect the eggs, since they are porous and sitting in the stuff. But it doesn't matter if asbestos free vermiculite is available, I'll just use that (unless I find perlite at a good price).

I don't use weed killer or pesticides in my yard for the same reason - they say it decomposes quickly, but I don't know that it is safe for the fence lizards that breed there.

Since I moved here about 4 years ago, I see more fence lizards in my yard than when I first moved here. Is it because of increased insects from no pesticides or increased hatch rate from no weed killer / pesticides? Is it because I do not have a car? I have no clue. I like the increase though - it's fun to sit out there sipping a beer watching the males chase each other, and occasionally watch the males courting and mating with the females.

You don't kill the lizards and the previous owner did, or they had a cat, or a kid with a bb gun.

I live on five acres, when I first moved in, we found 3 snakes a year(the previous owners warned us about snakes and they said they killed all they saw) Now we average over 15 diamondbacks alone and often see three snakes a day. In the early years we had a few cats. Now no cats, no killing and lots of snakes. Cheers

They had a kid who looked like maybe he was 9th grade.
The wide was really into gardening - it's possible she chased some of them off or killed them.

I live on a very small lot, but there's a hill behind me that is full of things - including occasionally coyotes. I saw a grey fox this morning, occasionally wild turkey come through (they all disapear though towards end of november ...)

It could be anything. I do have cats, but I keep them inside because of the wild quail they would constantly be hunting. I haven't seen them ever, but supposedly occasionally rattlesnakes come down off of the hill - so that's another reason to keep the cats inside. Only snakes I've seen here are sharp-tailed, california king, and w. terrestrial garter snakes.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (gravid)

So you live somewhere near Mt. diablo Calif? Cheers

I use to live in the view of Mt Diablo (Antioch) - now I live in Redding (view of the beautiful Mt Shasta).

Most of the _common_ wild herps are the same, but of course with regional differences. The Pacific Treefrogs seem to get just a tad bit bigger up here, and red color phase are everywhere - I never found a red one in the bay area, and had only previously seen them when visiting Jenner by the Sea. But they are extremely common here (probably due to iron oxide in our soil). The California Kingsnales look the same, the fence lizards look the same (to me anyway), Southern Alligator Lizards are more likely to be a reddish color - though I found em just as red in the Bay Area.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (gravid)

Oh - the western terrestrial garter snakes I see up here are a different subspecies (I believe mountain).
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (gravid)

Your probobly right. As I get more confident with incubating I'm probobly not as neurotic about maintianance and the results are starting to show

That is absolutely normal. The solution is simple, change your method to one that does not require you to be neurotic. Cheers