Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a question regarding the practice of cutting eggs open that do not pip in an acceptable timeframe. I have cut open eggs in the past and never really thought much about the positive and negative consequences. Seemingly all the consequences are positive. The neonate in most cases survives and the breeder is happy. I however have a question about the negative consequences. Has anyone ever sliced open an egg revealing a neonate that did not form an egg tooth? What are your ethical concerns about selling the animal knowing it could have faulty genetics? Would you knowingly breed the animal and replicate its potentially faulty genes into your own collection? At first I do not see it being as big a deal as a kink or missing eye and/or tongue. When I spend some time thinking I realize I do not want to have defective babies. What are your thoughts?

Brad Ratliff

I have been doing this a long time....
hundreds of baby balls
I don't know if I ever saw an egg tooth actually.....????...
guess I never cared to look....
therefore I wouldn't know if it was missing one......
would not matter if it had none.....probably not genetic anyways.....probably fell off early?.....

I have cut eggs and looked at babies and all.....just don't remember ever seeing a tooth.......hardly ever see sperm plugs either ,but I don't squeeze my balls all that much.......along with-- NO I do not palpate and feel follicles or ovum either......

guess I just breed them and they lay without interference......

I have had kinked tails in a clutch once and the following years there were kinks from the same girl.......small kinks in the end of the tail....curled up like Dairy Queen iced cream cone tops.....so it was a fluke......

....the no tongue thing bothers me....only ever saw one with a piece of the tongue missing.and it got stuck in the hole punched into a deli-cup....I was watching when it happened and half the fork ripped off.......it never ate and died.....(cornsnake)
-----
......wild balls suck ! BUY AMERICAN DAMNIT

Sounds to me like you are putting too much thought into this.The lack of an egg tooth could be genetic but do you really think so ? If you were hatching pieds or some other sought after morph would you want to not cut them ? Just my thoughts on this and by the way I cut all of my eggs.I also produced the first albino tricolors known to the hobby in 1987 and the het male, unknown at the time, was the runt of the litter and was tube fed for 6 months.They were the albino ruthveni.Terry