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Here's a series of photos of an egg that went bad a few weeks into incubation. We decided to cut it open, thinking that it might be interesting to those of you who may have never seen a ball python embryo in mid-development. Enjoy!
Look at those colors!
Cutting the egg...
Embryo in egg
Embryo close-up
And yes, it smelled lovely. Thanks for looking!
Aaron and Bob
Guys, that is kinda neat. Sad, but interesting just the same.
Quig
That's sad. Any idea what went wrong causing the egg to die?
It is sad when these sorts of things happen and, luckily, it is rare. In this particular case there were 3 eggs in a clutch of 7 that all began to go bad. The other two eggs did not contain embryos and were infertile from the beginning. (Some of those infertile eggs come out looking bright white and healthy and can trick you unless they are candled.) It is hard to say why this third, viable egg died. It could be that, since it was adjacent to the two "duds", the mold that began to grow on them affected the healthy egg. This seems unlikely though, as other eggs that were also touching the moldy eggs are still healthy and incubating normally. I guess we can only speculate. Luckily, the rest of the clutch is doing great. Thanks a lot for your interest!
Aaron and Bob
aww the poor little thing!! those eyes start out so big!
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