Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My okeetee eggs have been cooking for 64 days now, laid on May 19 and they've been cooking along at about 83 degrees, give or take a few days lower. The anxiety is killing me!!!!!
Of the 12 that were dropped, one has become a chestnut brown color, and I'm assuming it's useless but it's in the middle of a cluster, so I'll leave it alone.

*sigh*

I figured at that temperature, I could expect a 60 day cook time or less, but I guess not. Maybe just having this post online will motivate the babies to pip out LOL

Mom and dad (Lichtenhan siblings)

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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

Yeah, you should have had some pipping by now. It seems that this year most of my eggs are taking slightly LESS than 60 days when incubated in the low 80s. Do you have any recent pictures of the clutch?

Tim

Third Eye

I can get some pix tonite. The eggs aren't quite as firm as they used to be, however, I'd also say they dont look at all deflated either.

Would lower humidity also stretch the bake time out a little?

Thanx
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

Here's a quick egg pic. The speckling on the eggs is from when they were partially and lightly covered by the Bed-A-Beast. Only in the last few days has the center one died off. Otherwise the other 11 are still firm. You can see the one on top didnt get covered up much.
Those thin areas at the tip of the two closest eggs, I'm concerned those are failed attempts at pipping out, maybe due to thick shells. Is my concern warranted?

This probably looks pretty funny to a lot of you, what with the lack of sphagnum and all, but I decided to rock my own style on this to see how it works out. Most wild snakes dont have shoeboxes full of sphagnum to lay in or some other clinical looking experiment. I mixed around equal portions of vermiculite and Bed A Beast and kept the bottom wet and the room this sat in stays about 82 degrees all the time.
Anyway, enough rambling....hoping for babies anytime soon. Going on 65 days now. Thanks in advance for any tips

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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

Patience -

This year I had a king clutch that I was sure was overdo. I sliced one egg and saw a perfectly formed and coloured snake inside. The very next morning, two other eggs pipped on their own.

The one I sliced did hatch just fine (in fact it was the last one out, interestingly) - the hatch date can vary from expected.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Give it few more days if u dont have any pipping then cut lil slice in egg and see if anything moves inside. should be really close to them hatching out if they syill alive.

I have pipping right at about 72 days at 82 degrees. Just patience they will come.
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I have come to the conclusion that there is no cure for snake addiction!

most of my corn eggs were late this year for hatching... up to 9 days late... but i kept them softened by spritzing them with water once a day. just a lil not alot
~kin
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~Sober Serpents~
www.freewebs.com/soberserpents
Corns, Creamsicles, A Black Rat, A pair of Leucistic Black Rat X Leucistic Texas Rat Intergrades, Thayeri, Cal Kings, A Jungle Corn, Ball Pythons, A reverse Trio of Candoia, Leopard Geckos, Green Anoles, a Snapping Turtle, a White Cheeked Mud Turtle, an Adult Rescue Iguana, and A Baby Iguana

The eggs are still quite plump.
I just cut one open a bit, peeled back some of the shell. Wow, that shell's a bit tough, I dont know how they do it.
I was able to expose a good bit of healthy looking little baby corn snake, bit didnt see any signs of life at all the entire time I was working with the egg. It wasnt until I tapped the actual snake with the tip of the Exacto knife that it flinched a tiny bit and shied away from it. So, there's life in them thar eggs, but there still seems to be a lot of clear albumin around the snake. I dont know how much is normal. It still mostly seems to be encased in it's inner sac, so I'll give them a few more days before I go cutting into anything else. I dont wanna prematurely kill them if they need a few more days.

*sigh*

The patience is killing me, and I'm KNOWN for a patient kinda guy too. It's the unknown part that scares me.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

Did the snake have full color?
If it had full color, the clutch is very close to hatching.

The one I cut (king clutch) also had quite a bit of clear stuff around it - and it hatched just fine (in fact last one out).

I suppose it could be hard to determine if it had full color if it was a light morph.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Just a plain old Okeetee. The coloration I can see looks like just black and light grey, I cant discern any red, but my lightings kinda bad and I cant see any dorsal area anyway, it's all side view stuff.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

If you see dark they are probably close to hatching.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

There's one wee little head poking out!!!!! YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY

The wife has the camera on the other side of the continent. Dammit!!!!!
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

n/p
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I decided my old sig was too big.

About 6 of the 10 babies are out now, still waiting on the biggest of the eggs to crack. I didnt realize they'd be spread out over so many days.
One thing I've learned about using 5 inches of the soil mixture is that when the babies leave the egg, they burrow down into the soil, so now I have to go dig them out carefully.

I really wish I had a camera to shoot some pipping pix.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"