Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We can not figure out what happened. We had 5 come out fine and 5 also going full term but were dead in the egg.
I have to post these pics. to show the potential of the adult pair. I never saw babies this nice and I am sick over loosing them.

Hey still want to see pics of the parents. Also what type of incubator were you using and how where your incubation temps?
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

I'm with Jordan on this one. I would be very interested in your incubator design, and also the temps, humidity, and substrate used. It is very unusual to have that percentage of full term pythons die in the egg.

Kelly

Ok Kelly & Jordan or anyone else that cares, it wasn't the incubator,temp or substrate. These never would have made it this far if that was the problem.
Mike

I would not say that is true. Especially with the striping. Striping like that has been known to have been caused by temperature fluctuations during incubation.
Rick

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I agree with Kelly, temperature fluctuations can cause abnormalities that still cause fatal results after hatching. I have seen this before years ago with using a hovabator with Python breitensteini. I suspect this caused some of the abnormalities I witnessed, which subsequent breedings proved to be anomolous. See the attached photo for an example.

Even though other unusual offspring come from the parents nothing like this nor like the bulk of the dead hatchlings from that season have since appeared.

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I nor anyone else ever said it was. We were just asking for information and pictures of the parents. No need to get defensive ..still no info though?
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

I'm sorry you find that defensive Jordan, it wasn't meant to be. Here's the info, it's is a homemade incubator that we have been using for years with a 99% hatch rate, with viable eggs of course. Temperature fluctuation is 1 degree 88-89, 89. I use pearlite as a substrate. Here's a pic. of the incubator.

I will post a pic. of the parents when I take some new ones. There not normals.

The problem was a tripped breaker that one of my kids reset and I didn't know until last night. It was cold related, not heat related. I'm just glad I took the 5 hatchlings out the night before.

Mike

With a high percentage loss like you had, it most definitely pointed to an incubator failure of some type. Probably 95% of high rate failures at the end of normal embryo development are caused by incubation temps being too low. Temps in the high range, slightly above optimum or short term spikes, usually result in deformed embryos.

Kelly

N/P Thanks Ryan The Blood Cell

I'll post pics. of the parents when I take some.
Mike

of pythons and boas by Ross.

on page 86. it talks about tempature extremems and also says that gravid females that are exposed to supoptimal can cause all kinds of crazy stuff....pattern and physical wise....
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The New Redpython.net

I appreciate all the opinions that have been expressed about why the hatchlings look the way they do, but truthfully, I fully expected this outcome when I bred the parents. I will post pics of the parents soon. I will be working with NERD as this is definantly an ongoing project and we need to realize full potential. I will post pics of the hatchlings as soon as they shed. Email me if there are any questions.
Michael Ball