Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How long should it take for all the eggs to start hatching? Its been about 18 hours and 2 out of 14 have started. Is there a time where I should consider helping? Sorry, first clutch questions
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Burm baby burm...

When that happens, I usually take a razor blade and VERY VERY carefully put a slit in the top of the eggs. That gives the baby snake O2 to breath. I may or may not be critiziced for telling you this but it HAS worked for me the past few seasons.
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I have come to the conclusion that there is no cure for snake addiction!

some people believe that you should never help a baby hatch. They think that only the strong survive, so if a baby can not open its own egg, it was not meant to survive.
I believe that we are the reason these snakes came about, so it is our responsibility to do all that we can to help.
Some people wait 24 hours after the first egg starts pipping to help the others.
hope this helps
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Life is Killing Me"

It is a bit of a debate, but I don't think there is anything wrong with helping neonates out of the egg, if that is what you choose to do. Me...I don't, unless it is unusual cicumstances.

It's not a moral position for me; nor do I struggle to emulate the Darwinian theories of others. For me, it is merely a matter of expediency. If a snake cannot extricate itself from its own egg, then it is less likely to thrive once it is out, and if you have a couple hundred (or more) hatchlings to feed, there is only so much time to spend on any one animal before the others (which are healthy) begin to suffer. Further, an animal that should have died in the egg, may very well die later, and will have suffered needlessly in the meantime.

Of couse, there are certain morphs I would cut out of the egg, hand feed, and even give mouth to mouth, if necessary. But, from a purely expedient position, that is rare.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

Funny thing is I wouldnt have ever done it except someone very respected in our hobby told me to do this one time when I was talking to him on the phone. It worked out great and most ate one the first try. I would say if they werent strong they wouldnt have took off eating like that.
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I have come to the conclusion that there is no cure for snake addiction!

Again, I don't think there is anything wrong with doing so, but would those "good eating" hatchlings you helped out have just hatched on thei own in a day or two, if you had left them on their own?

You can't ever really know.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

The first eggs I incubated were chicken eggs, and helping a chick hatch is likely to kill it from blood loss through broken bloodvessels in the shell membranes. When I started incubating snake eggs, I assumed the same was true for snakes. (This was before I got internet access.) So I never tried to open shells. Since I was getting up to 100% hatch rate, I never felt a need to open them. YMMV.

Paul Hollander

Pinch alittle of the egg an use the tip of finger nail clippers to make a small slit in the eggs....works well and won't hurt the baby snake...but most should hatch with 24-48 hours of the first...
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CD
Corns(Adults)
1.0 Snow ZigZag
1.0 Bloodred het Pewter
0.1 Banded Motley het Amel
0.1 Blizzard het Anery A
Corns(Sub-adult)
1.0 Anerythristic