Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all. I have had some perfect looking and feeling eggs just start to rot for no apparent reason. How often do you guys have "perfect" looking eggs go bad? I'm just wondering how much of this is normal, as I had one clutch in particular that I thought just about all were fertile, but now all but 3 have started to rot. I have a few others rotting in other clutches as well.

Thanks!

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Aubrey Ross

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www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

All the eggs I had with that darker looking soft spot ( I can it in some of those eggs pictured and looks kind of like a bubble on the egg)went bad in a couple of days. Whew did they stink!!

Outta all the eggs coming outta my ears and more on the way... I have afew that went bad... you can candle them to find the bad ones. Some look fine but just didnt get fertilzed

A couple of things you must understand. There are many types of eggs your snake can lay. It can drop squibbers, were are unfertilized ovum. These are often laid one a day, a few days after shedding.

There are fertile eggs that died in the female. Which looks to me what you have. These eggs are often held to long and die within the female. Or, the conditions available to the female will not support the eggs. If a female has an impacted or surpressed imune system, bacteria often grows in the oviducts. If you look at your eggs, you can see greenish areas, these appear to be areas taken over by bacteria.

You can also have non viable sperm. This will show up as eggs, that get shelled, but never inflate. These are normally nested

Of course these are only a couple of basic areas you can look, there are more.

What I hope to offer you is, eggs do not have to hatch if fertile. They are indeed a living animal that can die at any minute. Your task is to support your snakes so they can succeed. When allowed, their eggs always hatch. If they don't, its something we keepers did not provide. Its that simple. Good luck

Frank I have a lot of questions for you about this one...

You said "If a female has an impacted or surpressed imune system, bacteria often grows in the oviducts."

I am curious how you know this. Have you ever cultured bacteria from the oviducts? I have not, but I would suspect that a snake with a pathogenic fungus in the oviducts would be so sick that this conversation would be about keeping her alive not about the condition of her eggs.

You also said "You can also have non viable sperm. This will show up as eggs, that get shelled, but never inflate. These are normally nested"

Again just curious how you know this. I would not think that the act of sperm reaching the ovum was the cue to continue development. I would think that shelling would be controlled in one of two ways... either hormonally from a successfully fertilized egg...or independently of fertilization like a chicken. What you said is not impossible, but I am just curious why you believe this happens as to my knowledge it does not work this way in any other species.

Lastly you said...

"What I hope to offer you is, eggs do not have to hatch if fertile. They are indeed a living animal that can die at any minute. Your task is to support your snakes so they can succeed. When allowed, their eggs always hatch. If they don't, its something we keepers did not provide."

This I do not agree with at all. Eggs are a living thing that can die at any moment. And just like living things they can be affected by diseases. In fact an eggs immune system is very rudimentary and it is quite easy to infect them with all sorts of things that a true immune system can handle. Not every sick snake is sick from bad husbandry, and not every egg dies from improper conditions.

This year I had a clutch of anthill python eggs go bad on me. They started off looking great and all of them were candled and showed excellent blood vessel growth. Then one of them grew a small round patch of fuzzy green mold. This egg died almost immediately. Over the next month adjacent eggs became affected and they to slowly died. When the eggs reached the end of their incubation period I cut them open, starting with the only egg that showed no mold growth. I found embryos of various stages of developement. The fungus had not penetrated the shells of any of the eggs. I believe that the eggs died as a result of a toxin produced by the fungus. The eggs died while the majority of the shell still looked good, so I don't think that it was respiration that was affected.

This is something that I am very interested in and I am going to be researching next summer. I was talking with a microbiologist down at the vet hospital about helping me culture and identify fungus from eggs. What I would like to do is isolate the fungus found on some eggs and then work backwards to see where it came from. Can I culture it from the skin of the female? or the cage bedding? or my own hands?

First off, this took a long time to get a handle on this, many many years. I like you folks, had various reproductive problems. Early on, I would take them to my Vet, Dr. Jarchow. He cultured "bacteria growth" in the oviducts and on the eggs, but he did not know why!

I found over time that the sooner the eggs were dropped from the time of the shed, the healthier the eggs were. Conversely, the longer it took, the more unhealthy the eggs were. Again, we are not talking 100% this or that.

Then as the years went by, I found with Blackheadeds and Womas, that if they are nested well, the eggs were very easy to hatch and could be abused in all manner of ways and still hatch. Again conversely, the longer it took, the eggs simply would not hatch. No matter what method we tried. Again, there was middle ground. We are talking about fertile eggs with embryos.

Then move on to varanids. They are expert at this. Give them good nests and they lay eggs like pez despensers and they are easy to hatch. If not, you have all manner of problems. Only with varanids, the females die if they fail to many times and on occassion, on the first failure.

Its very simple, the females have a difinite window when they are suppose to be laid. If they are held past that window, then the eggs will start to die in the female. Sometimes, this causes the females to drop all eggs immediately. Other females will wait until all the eggs are dead.

We are talking about fertile eggs. Not slugs or infertiles. All these eggs will have a developed embryo.

Mind you, turtles seem to be an exception to this. They have the ability to hold eggs for long periods. Got me?

Over the years, we found reptiles are better thought of as birds. Reptiles all make nests of one type or another. Its best to understand what they do, then the rest is easy.

I did not finish your response as it would take forever, so ask away if I did not cover what you are interested in. Cheers

Thanks everyone!
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com