Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I WAS WONDERING HOW SOON BEFORE THE EGGS HATCH, DO THE SHELLS START GETTING SOFTER AND SOMEWHAT CAVING IN? MINE ARE ONLY 1 AND 1/2 MONTHS OLD, IS IT NORMAL TO START THIS EARLY?

Hello,
My name is Jeff, I've seen your post over the last few weeks about your eggs, and how you accidentally cracked one-(i never read any follow up post to how that happend,) but it seems almost impossible to me that a snake egg cracked. But seriously man, just chill for a couple weeks and dont think about them much and they will hatch, I promise they will, unless they are no good, but it seems like they are, so just relax for a little bit and dont stress on it and you'll have babys in no time, and that one that crakced, just think, thats 1 baby snake you wont have now, cause i bet you slit it in an anxious attempt to see whats inside, but again, I'm in no way trying to be rude at all, or sarcastic, I hate when people start getting thast way on the forums, this place is for fun and enjoyment-(except when hybrids are the topic,opps, I didnt mean to say that out loud) well anyaways man, good luck with those eggs and post some pics of those babys when you get them, and you will get them with time. Later man,
Jeff Teel

As Jeff said, calm down. Yes, they will sort of "cave in" a little just before they pip. Don't mess with them, just keep the temps and humidity within range and if they are good (by now they would be yellow looking and funky if they weren't)they will hatch in their own good time. It is possible that they could be ready to hatch at 50 days or so if the incubation temps were in the upper range. You run a risk with trying to accellerate the process by elevating temps, for things like spinal kinks and dead-in-egg. I'd rather use temps a little on the low end (78 deg F., or so) and err on the dry side a little for humidity and just let them take their time developing. I've had Milk Snake eggs run 75 days to hatching before, but I got 100% hatch rate and perfect babies.

OK, I just went back a looked at some of your previous posts. First off, I've never seen a snake egg "crack" open, or "burst" from too much moisture. I've hatched hundreds of snake eggs in my time and have never seen anything like that happen. If it opens early, either it pipped early or the keeper manually opened the egg. When this one opened, what was in it? Was there a live, developing embryo? You said this happened about 2 weeks ago, which would put your eggs right at 30 days at that time. You should have been able to see an embryo at that stage if the egg was viable. At 84 degrees and 30 days, I seriously doubt this one was developed enough to pip. 84 degrees is, in my opinion, at the upper range of incubation temps for colubrids, so they may well be ready to pip in the next few days.

In breeding snakes, patience is the key. In your posts, I detect a distinct lack of patience. Patience is even more important in the last couple of weeks before pipping. You have to resist the temptation to mess with the eggs. They will pip when THEY are ready, not when YOU are. Just leave them alone..don't be taking them out and handling them and constantly messing with them. What I would suggest you do is to put your incubation container inside a large plastic sweater box with some damp paper towels covering the bottom of the sweater box. Leave the eggs in the container you are using now and just set the whole thing on top of the paper towels. Open the sweater box once a day and check on them (without touching them), and just let them be the rest of the time. That way, when the babies pip and eventually crawl out of the eggs, they can just crawl out onto the damp paper towels. DO NOT manually remove them from the eggs after they pip and stick their heads out. Let them come out on their own. This is important because part of what they do when they stick their heads out is to clear their lungs of fluid in preparation for breathing air. If you take them out of the eggs before they are ready, sometimes they don't get all that fluid out of their lungs and they will develop a pneumonia and die within a few days.

If you keep removing the eggs from the incubation medium and putting them back, you increase the chances of damaging the developing baby snake or interfering with the gas/liquid exchange through the shell. The bottom surface of a developing snake egg is softer and has more moisture than the exposed top surface. That is where fluid exchange occurs. The top part of the shell is dryer and a little "stiffer". That is where gas exchange occurs. Those pores on the top surface have to be open. If that surface stays too moist, water will be in the pores and gas exchange is inhibited. A little moisture occasionally won't hurt anything as long as it can sort of dry out fairly quickly. Oils and debris from your hands can clog the pores if you handle the eggs too much and that will interfere with gas exchange.

Once the babies hatch, just put them in a plastic shoebox with holes drilled in it for ventilation, paper towels for substrate, a small hiding box and a small water bowl and leave them alone for a few days. Within about 10 days or so, they will absorb the yolk they hatch with (the big belly), shed their skin for the first time and THEN they will be ready for their first meal.

Yea I probably am a little over excited and anxious and careless but thats becuase i caught this wild milksnake with a friend and it was such a pain becuase it never ate over a period of one month and wouldnt let me pick it up without biting, where as my friends milksnake that he caught (laying side by side with mine) turned out to be a great pet, eating weekly, great health, and perfectly tempered. I was so fustrated and since mine was eating for a month, i let it go, and when i go back in the cage i find some eggs under his log and this was the first time i have ever seen snake eggs in my life so i was a little over excited. I must have read 50 pages of snake egg info that night. It seems like i've had the eggs forever and when i found out that only 2 out of the 9 eggs were fertile and i ended up cracking open of the the 2 good eggs was very depressing. ( i was trying to clean the mold off the connecting duds, and when i cracked open the egg, a 5 inch long pink snake fell out. You can imagine how angry i was. So hopfully i will develope enough will power to just leave the other alone and i will hatch a healthy ranched eastern milk. Also me being 15 doesnt really help my patience.

Live and learn!

The reason it didn't eat was because it was gravid and ready to lay it's eggs. They go off feed for a while just before they lay. But, you'll know that next time.....just work at being patient and observing everything you can. You'll get there.