Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why the need to cut eggs! impatience perhaps!

A good friend of mine cut his clutch of pied eggs last year, 7 eggs from het to het, of those 7 eggs, only one was a pied, he told me he cut at day 50, the sole pied stayed in its egg for 8 more days, the putrification smell that came from this clutch of rotting liquid with live babies swimming in this toxic soup ended up being lethal.

Of those 7 eggs, 5 babies died sitting in their egg, the two that finaly emerged including the pied ended up dying within a few days !?!

Could it of been a rookie mistake, could some of the blood vessels have been severed, could the embryonic liquid have rotted and consequently poisoned the hatchlings? could this have been prevented, perhaps had he waited for them to naturaly pip and emerge on their own would of prevented this mess.

He was so devastated and wanted to give up the hobby, I convinced him to continue and to just chalk it up as a learning curve!

He just naturaly hatched another 7 egg clutch from this same pairing and this time was rewarded with 4 perfect little pieds

I feel there are lots of nightmarish experiences out there from cutting eggs and wanted to share this story, most will never come out and share their negative experiences, lesson learned, let mother nature take its course, they will hatch when ready

Good story... lesson to be learned is if you are going to cut your eggs, wait until one pips or don't cut at all!
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globalreptiles.ca

To each his own,I cut 94 eggss last year with no losses.If you dont have clean conditions then dont cut them.

congrats to your friend. I would pass out if I saw four pieds lol.

I think day 50 is way too early. I cut every year on day 55-56 (if none has already pipped), and have never had a loss or even a minor problem. A big danger of too-early cutting is that it may allow flesh flies to gain access and lay their eggs in the embryonic fluid. This could well lead to disaster.

But I think the vast majority of experience supports that properly timed cutting is a safe practice.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....