Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is my third year breeding Hondurans...and the third year I've had deformed neonates.

First year, two fertile eggs, 1st clutch produced by both male and female (nice looking tang. Pair), 1 good neonate, one deformed semi-alive in egg.

Second year, 3 fertile eggs, 1st clutch produced by both male and female, tang hypos poss. het Anery pair. 1 good neonate, two deformed semi-alive in egg. (pic below)

This year, (my first clutch to hatch) 5 fertile eggs, 2nd clutch produced by Hypo female 1st clutch by the male Ghost, male Ghost with same tang. Hypo (now definitely Het Anery) from the previous year. 3 good neonates (1 tang. Het Anery, 2 Ghosts), 1 semi-alive ghost in egg (pic below)….the last egg with very weird material inside with blood vessels but no neonate.

Now my question; is deformities common with Hondurans, or maybe with Honduran first clutches?

I've bread Cal Kings and Arizona Mt. Kings for many many years and I've never had any of these issues occur. I’ve used the same breeding techniques for years now.

The only commonality for all these deformities listed above is they are all 1st clutch animals from the male. Does this mean the male has under developed sperm?

Am I just unlucky or should I start looking at other possible causes?

-RG

Is it possible that the Hondo eggs are exposed to temps above 80-84 at some point during incubation? My tropicals never had problems but my NA milks were plagued by high temps until I got serious with a thermostat. That said, I found a couple deformed dead in egg nates this year and assume that a small percentage is simply not meant to be....the temps never went above 79-80.
I think I would be tempted to test breed a different pair next year (switch out with different mates).
Maybe somebody with more Hondo history can contribute better info.
Good luck, Jeff

It's always a guess to know the cause for sure.
There are a lot of possible causes but to have consistant problems, different years and from different breeders I would first look at your incubating temps. Severe change in temps during incubation and especially to high a temps cause deformaties. Randy

This is just something I do that you might want to try to be sure of your temps.
Each year I check the temp right beside clutches, at the same level as eggs in several different places in the incubator. I always check right beside clutches, about a half inch to the side. No matter what you hatch your eggs in just check right beside several clutches in different areas and do it several times during different parts of incubation. Randy

Jeff and Randy both got it right. Heat kills! ( at least after the baby hits the freezer) I went through some problems especially with Cal Kings with fully forms babies with all kinds of nasty kinks and deformaties of all sorts. It turned out that my room was getting way to warm. Your pictures gave me flashbacks that I would justas soon forget. I keep my eggs around 78 and even a little cooler. It may be my imagination but my sex ratios are more balanced.

best of luck

Scott Sweeney
Sweeney's Serpents

That really sucks. I wonder, if its not incubation temps, if some bad genes got together. Were the parents of these deformed hatchlings related? Is one parent always throwing deformed offspring? Also, the clutch size seems pretty small, maybe a nutrition thing (or could be a sign of bad genes as well)???

Best,
Vinny
-----
“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

I hear you guys about the temperature...after my first deformed Honduran a few years back, I decided to drop my incubation temps, thanks to this forum!

I've been holding my temps since to 78 to 82 F, but as Randy pointed out, I did not have my external temp sensor next to the eggs, I had it in the ambient air. Therefore the eggs at the bottom, near the water, were warmer or had the potential to be warmer than those at the top.(see figure below)

This morning the temp was reading 81.0 F for the ambient air. Then I moved the temp sensor right next to my remaining Hondo clutch and the temperature rose to 84.5 F. Three and a half degrees higher may not sound like much, but when you factor in the ambient temp of 82 I was seeing, that results in an egg temp of at least 85.5 F, which is too hot in my opinion. It seems the egg container was in direct contact with the water, and this conduction elevated the temperature in the egg container.

Now, is high temperature the main cause of the deformities...who knows, all I can do is take the good advice given and try and do the right thing!

Hopefully, my next clutch will not be plagued by the same misfortune.

-RG

Next year if you have several clutches and incubate at the same temperature and you see the same deformities only in this pair, I would say it is genetic. I had a female that for three years had deformed neonates. One had no eyes, others were kinked. I retired her from breeding after that.

I don't even use an incubator anymore because the Hovabators I had been using would get too hot. I said the hell with it and set the egg boxes out in the room, where temps vary from 70F to 84F or thereabouts during the summer. I used to use pearlite for a medium but now just use the same sphagnum moss that the female laid on. For two years in a row I had deformed Hondurans because temps in the Hovabators spiked when I was out of state. Now hatch time comes a little later but the eggs stay white and healthy and the neonates are flawless.