People often ask if they should manually pip or not and there is a considerable amount of (clean) debate for one over the other. Normally, I let nature take its course - remember that. I recently had a clutch of eggs begin to pip this past Wednesday. By Saturday all but two where out of their eggs. One hadn't even pipped yet. This is when I slit a tiny hole in the egg. By Sunday, this one still hadn't even attempted to leave the egg - no slits. So I cut the egg out and found a severely kinked Ball Python. His head was folded back almost completely to his neck - no wonder he didn't pip. Well, this one would have died in the egg as it could not get out - nature would have surely taken its course. Manually piping did not save this animal, only prolonged the inevitable.
This is just one reason when I would pip.
-----
Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles
