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How is everyone? I read back in the forum 3 pages and saw I was not the only one with egg problems this year. Both of my clutches went bad
Foot Hill Reptiles

>>How is everyone? I read back in the forum 3 pages and saw I was not the only one with egg problems this year. Both of my clutches went bad
>>Foot Hill Reptiles

sorry to hear about that.

My hatch rate hasn't been that good either.
I have some clutches where several eggs make it all the way to the end but just don't hatch.
I really started looking at what has been going on and I have a theory but I need a more experienced breeder to offer insight into my theory.

It seems that a lot of my eggs looked good and large but the hatchlings seemed small. Especially in comparison to egg size. Usually these were the clutches with more of the "non-hatch" eggs.
I am wondering if this is due to too much moisture.
Is it possible the eggs absorbed too much moisture which didn't allow as much room for the hatchlings to grow as large or even restricted growth enough to cause them to die?
I kept all the eggs in containers with no air holes and it seems there was quite a bit of condensation on the inside of the lids.
I would pop the tops every few days to "air out" the containers but I think I just kept them too moist.
I have a few clutches left to go and plan to leave the tops off of their containers until they hatch. Maybe this will help "dry" them out a little to help prevent absorbtion of too much moisture.
I will definitely try incubating towards the dry side next season and see what differences may result.

anyone have thoughts on this?
I would love to hear your thoughts, ideas and/or experiences.
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes

_____

Well, I will tell you in 5 weeks but my experience has been odd either way... I am using the fish tank 1/3 full of water incubation method. It seem the container I chose to incubate in is not air tight so the top is FULL of condensation. 4 eggs collapsed about 3 weeks into incubation but they may have just not been fertile....
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-David Harrison-
.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
.1 Ball Python "Rocky Ballboa" (Didn't name her!)

"Have you ever tried simply turning off the T.V., sitting down with your kids... and hitting them?"

sorry to hear that Jason.
It looks like some of the people with bad luck have started to perk up, but my bad luck continues.

I wish you the best of luck next year.

Nice to see you still lurk around here
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Life is Killing Me"