Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My eggs have continued to mold and when I got home last night I found one of the egg contaiers had small magots crawling on the eggs. I think I have pretty much given up on thios years offspring.
Foot Hill Reptiles

Maggots generally mean they are dead. The flies lay on the rotting eggs.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 16 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - 14 eggs (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

I kinda disagree with that, in a way.
Are they worms or maggots? Fly maggots are larger, do lay on decomposing items. So, I agree with that part of the statement

I have been dealing with a tiny worm , that I can only assume are knat larvae. These worms are extremely small, kinda whitish/yellow to clearish in color. What I noticed first were the heads because they are black. I was wondering what the black dot on a couple of my eggs were until I noticed they were moving and looked closer.
These worms/larvae are on my good eggs. They have actually eaten through, damaged at least two good eggs. After killing the worms, one egg in question "healed itself", stopped leaking.

So, this said, does anyone know what I am talking about and know how to prevent the knats, larvae from getting to my eggs?
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Life is Killing Me"

I know exactly what you are talking about.I have had the same problem that you are experiencing.If you find the larvae on the eggs carefully pick the gnat maggots off the eggs and change the vermiculite or what ever you are using.Make sure you have checked and cleaned every container of eggs in your incubator and then I spray a little bedding spray on a paper towel and put it in the incubator.You can buy the bedding spray at wal-mart beside the nix lice treatment for $4.00 .This seems to have taken care of my problem with the gnats. Now as far as mold problems I usually just wipe the mold off the eggs and change the vermiculite and make it just a little dryer ,since I was once told that they develop mold when they are to wet.Hope this helps .John

last year it was little tiny black and white gnat like flies that laid in my eggs - and the only did so on the dead eggs. Good eggs attached to dead ones were not laid on, no maggots, hatched.

The flies were really small, not house flies. looked black and white.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 16 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - 14 eggs (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

I was just thinking about my post and realized i spelled gnat with a silent k instead of G. LMAo. Its been a long day. Excuse my spelling.
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Life is Killing Me"

Are you sure that they're not carrion fly maggots? Carrion flies are the same size as fruit flies, and therefore have tiny larvae. The fies are initially attracted to the smell of "dead" eggs, but the maggots can kill live eggs too.

Tim

Third Eye

About 4-5 years ago, I had a terrible break out of the little fecal flies/knats and obviously hated them. A friend of mine owns a Feed and Seed store so I asked him if he had any thing to stop knats and flies and he recommended "Golden Malyrin" (I think spelling is ok.

It is in a blue crystal form and comes in a tin can with red and yellow on the lable. I pour a small amount into a container and place it in the snake and rodent rooms and with the product and regular cage cleaning, I rarely have any house flies or other flies or knats. It has a very strong odor when first placed out, but this quickly disapates. My snake room is small, only 8 x 10 and I use about 4-5 table spoon fulls and replace it every 3-4 weeks.

BTW, we place a conatiner in non conspicuous locations on the front and back porches of our house and it drastically reduces the number of flies in these areas during the summer. Hope this helps anyone who trys it.

dc

I said no message!

The actual name is "Golden Malrin".

Thanks for mentioning the stuff I'm gonna try it hear as the fly's get so bad this time of year that they damage the dogs ears.

Sean.

thats called fly stryke or strike.
You can put cream on the dogs ears for that. Call your vet, or go to a feed store. You can use the same stuff that is used for horses.

do you think that stuff could be used IN the incubators? Or would it damages the eggs, hatchlings? Where do you get it?
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Life is Killing Me"

Thanks for the idea Misty, unfortunately it doesn't work for the two dogs we have here.

The two dogs are my dog Tilly and here daughter Cayenne and not thirty seconds after we aply the horse anti fly stuff to the ears the other dog is liking it off. The only respite we've been able to get them so far is when we bring em inside the house.

Unfortunately this is not always an option as they are both very high energy decent sized dogs. This is why I was excited to see the post about the Golden Malrin. It sounds much more effective then the attractant boxes I've been using so far which help but only a little.

Sean.

Unfortunately I found out that Golden Malrin is not sellable in CA so I'll have to find another alternative.

Sean.

I did a quick search. I found fungus gnat.
I noticed I only have the problem when I use moss. But, I am sure fungus can grow on other things, such as bad eggs, as well. Here is the pic

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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Life is Killing Me"

Make absolutely certain that you don't use anything with vapona in it, as it causes nerve damage in snakes. Just a heads up if you didn't know....

However, it's great as a barrier between 2 doors that don't get opened, entryways, between windows that don't get opened, etc.
Just not in a snake room for more than a day, or the tremors will start.....