Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The last remaining egg out of 7 for my first ever honduran clutch was due to hatch the end of last week. I was patient and eventually made a small opening to check on the snake. It appeared fine and today being day 75 with no pipping my gut (and past experience with other colubrids) was telling me this was definitely bad...So I open the lil guy up and as feared, a badly kinked and malformed neonate...ahhhh! It was like a punch in the gut....enough to make a man not wanna breed snakes anymore

The chance of a temp flux is ruled out, I think I am just unlucky when it comes to first attempts with new species...

the only good news is that the other clutch of 7 from a Randy W. pos het hypo female x Paul W. hypo male is looking perfect...lets hope it makes up for this one...

Dont let it get you down brother. It happens to all of us. I have a clutch hatching now from a extreme male to a het female and a couple are dead in the egg. The male was only 18 months old when breeding so I am not especially suprised. Randy W.

I've had this sort of thing happen before (the last two years)...and when it does happen, you begin to question everything.

After taking sometime to think about all the possibilities...I believe it is mainly due to genetics...or as Randy stated younger animals.

-RG

After pairing up the parents,I found out the male was much older than expected (I have him and another adult female on breeding loan from a friend), sitting at around 12-15 years old....the female however was a 2004 and this was her first clutch...

I"m so sorry, that's rough. I hope your next clutch has better luck. Hang in there.

Julie

Sorry. It's always tough to deal with a severely malformed neonate. Especially if they actually hatch and have to be put down. Don't sweat it. You did nothing wrong.

Rob