Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've got a clucth of eggs(5) fom a wild black rat snake that are getting moldy but are fertile. I know, wrong forum, but I check this forum all the time anyway, and moldy eggs are moldy eggs. So, one is getting yellow, but its fertile, and that one, along with a couple others are moldy. Is there any way to stop the growth of the mold? Should I just leave them be? Separate the moldy ones? Could the mold suffocate the eggs of it spreads too much? Someone please respond!
Thanks,
Brandalyn
-----
www.freewebs.com/snakesandstuff
"Let us step out into the night and pursue that mighty temptress, adventure." (Albus Dumbledore)

My menagerie
1.2 Ball Pythons 1.1 Amazon Tree Boa 1.0 Corn Snake (and 9 eggs) 1.0 Dumeril's Boa 2.1.10 Bearded Dragons 2.1.2 Crested Geckos (and 2 eggs!) 1.1.4 Eastern Box Turtles 1.0 Northern Mockingbird 0.3 Chickens 2.0 Cats 1.1 Ferrets plus lots of mice and feeder insects and 5 Black Rat snake eggs

Try some desenex foot powder it works good on my ball eggs and also I have had great sucess with putting my eggs on the vented top of a critter keeper and the vermiculite mixture under it so they dont lay in the mix and the air flows around them. Since doing this I have had no mold problems.

When eggs are laid (fresh) they do not have mold spores on them. However, your equipment and substrate might (actually, they most likely do).

Here's a little preventive trick I use. I'm sure others have used it as a curative treatment, but for me prevention is always cheaper in time, money and energy.

Whenever you mix up your incubation medium (be it vermiculite, perlite or whatever else you find to use) mix in a little methylene blue. You can find it in the aquarium section of your local pet store. It's fairly cheap and common so you should have no difficulty obtaining some.

Just follow the dilution directions on the bottle. It will most likely give you directions for a minimum of 10 gallons. Just get an empty 1 gallon milk jug and cut the dilution by 1/10.

Whenever your medium is dry simply re-wet it with your leftover solution.

You can mix this up now to help prevent further mold growth if you'd like. Don't apply it directly to the eggs - pour it in your medium (in the appropriate amounts - you don't want your eggs to get too wet).

Since you already have moldy eggs, follow the other poster's advice and get some athlete's foot powder. Simply put some powder in your hand and sprinkle small amounts over the moldy areas on the eggs. If you'd like, you can gently rub the powder onto the mold.

I usually soak all of my incubation supplies in a methylene blue dilution before setting everything up for the season. I've had no problems so far. Before I started this regimen I would use the foot powder method as a curative measure with pretty good results.

I know my posts get long, but hopefully for those of you who trudge through them I've managed to help someone. I hope your eggs do well (even if they ARE from an inferior species )

thanks to both of you for responding so fast, you were very helpful. and I do agree that rat snakes are inferior. Boids beat Colubrids any day! (Did I spell that right?)
-----
www.freewebs.com/snakesandstuff
"Let us step out into the night and pursue that mighty temptress, adventure." (Albus Dumbledore)

My menagerie
1.2 Ball Pythons 1.1 Amazon Tree Boa 1.0 Corn Snake (and 9 eggs) 1.0 Dumeril's Boa 2.1.10 Bearded Dragons 2.1.2 Crested Geckos (and 2 eggs!) 1.1.4 Eastern Box Turtles 1.0 Northern Mockingbird 0.3 Chickens 2.0 Cats 1.1 Ferrets plus lots of mice and feeder insects and 5 Black Rat snake eggs