Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just had my first set of successful twins hatch and I am not so happy. I always thought it would be cool to hatch twins, and maybe in a bigger hatchling like a python or bull it would be, but a rat snake twin is tiny. It was out of my glades clutch and I saw two little babies out of the egg that are a third smaller than the rest. I was a little upset at having tiny hatchlings until I realized that I have 6 empty eggs so far and 7 babies. Then I was happy for a second until I realized that I am going to have all sorts of issues getting these little beast to feed.

So yeah for the first set of twins and boo little tiny babies.

I think I have gotten all the common birth defects now. Not that twins are a defect, I just mean with these twins and the 2 headed corn I hatched (it died quick) 6-7 years ago, one hondo twin out of a half dead egg last year (it was half as big as it's clutch mates and there was a dead egg mass in half it's egg), a hondo two years ago that was just a perfect head and a weird bulb shaped body (body was all fused to itself), kinked babies, dead in egg babies, undeveloped babies, colorless fully formed babies, cone headed babies and now the twins I think I have had all the different weird hatchlings that I have heard of. It took 10 years and a couple thousand hatchlings but I finally got twins.

I think I have messed up in all the ways I can with eggs over the years at least once. Well actually I have never cooked my eggs in an incubator that was off, but then again I have never used an incubator. I have had them too wet and too dry, too cool and too hot, moved them to much, tried to take bad eggs off good eggs and managed to kill the other eggs around the bad one, missed second clutches and had them dry out, and probably a few more ways that I screwed up too. But all in all it has been a great deal of fun and even when I mess up I learn from it and try not to do it again. it is nice to be able to learn new things all the time and see new things when they happen.

That is why i love snakes

Jason

Wowsers, dude.

Only if you took notes:

Did you notice what incorrect aspect of incubation caused what problem? For example, did a too wet condition result in a sepcific defect as opposed to, say, too cold or too dry?

Too wet can cause dead in egg babies. To dry early on can cause the egg to die completely. I strongly believe that the eggs need fluctuations in both temp and humidity.

Jason

I found a second set of twin in the last egg. This is the 6th to 7th clutch out of this pair and theses are the first twins I have seen from them. Weird!!!

Jason