Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This year Ive been cutting eggs at 50 days cause my mentor cuts his...and it seems to be a very common practice....so far (2 clutches) have been fine. Ive got about 20 more to go though... Its seems to take about a week off hatch time, and you get an early peek.
My question has any one had problems doing this...how frequently do they die in the shell?... Mark Sisco

I cut at 52 last year with no problems. I am going to wait until one pips this season before cutting. If I HAVE to cut -- sometimes we MUST lol. I will cut at 54 days. I have cut as early as 47 and I know others have cut earlier than that.

I will say that many believe that a cut egg increases the hatch time by a day or two. I look forward to heads coming out this year. I did not have hardly any of that because of cutting last season. Good luck with the remainder of your season!!!
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Bill Buchman

You risk premature hatching. Why do you need them to hatch early? It is my opinion that people who know what they are doing only slit eggs when a clutch is hatching and an egg or some eggs are past term and not slit on their own.

Why? I cut only after the first one pips!

I cut after one or two in the clutch pip on their own. I've not yet had any problems with doing this, but I haven't been at it nearly as long as a lot of other people in here.

I have a good friend who was a cutter at day 50, a couple years ago, he had a clutch of Pieds he cut at day 50, 7 eggs and 6 pieds, they were fully formed and healthy at cut day, 6-7 days later, they had all died in the egg.

Guy works in a lab and had the egg fluid contents analysed, he discovered that all kinds of micro organism were living in this toxic soup.

What people do not realize is that as soon as you slice open an egg, the fluids start to rot around the hatchlings, when they go in and out of these fluids, they inevitably ingest these toxins.

I've asked him to do the same analysis with egg contents from an egg that piped and hatched on its own to compare with his previous analysis.

Granted, this could of been simply bad luck and thousands of hatchlings are produced from prematured cut eggs every year, those out there with horror stories are not always inclined to share, there are pros and cons BUT I am convinced the cons far outweight the pros in cutting early.

The general concensus here is to wait till one pips on its own and then manualy pip the rest of the clutch.

I like to wait until the first hatches then cut.
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http://ballmorphs.webs.com/

Hector

I NEVER cut unless it is an egg that has not pipped and several days have passed after the majority of the clutch has pipped.

In 15 years of hatching Balls, I have nearly 100% hatch rate.

Why mess with mother nature?

Susan
SSNAKES

I agree I think its better to let the little ones come out on their own time "when there ready". What's the longest you "like to wait" the majority hatches in say two days and one does not when do you start to worry and cut??
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1.0 Sunrise (sshhh)
1.0 Yellow Belly
1.0 Het pied
1.0 Green Hypo
1.0 Spider Het B Hypo
0.1 Green Hypo
0.5 Het nerd Orange Hypo
0.2 poss Het nerd Orange Hypo
0.1 poss Het albino
0.1 het pied
0.1 Bell Jungle
0.6 Breeder normals
0.1 black pastel (unproven)
0.1 Tiger ball (unproven)
0.1 genetic reduced pattern
0.1 black back
0.1 mojave (best looking one ever! thanks Jeff Luman)
0.1 Pastel Het ghost
1.0 salmon boa
0.1 BCI 8.5 ft x m
1.0 snow corn
0.1 amel corn (did not prove out of 14 eggs 2b het anery)
0.1 amel corn
0.1 amel corn
0.1 ghost motley corn
1.0 love line (creamcicle?) okatee
0.1 love line okatee
1.0 albino vanishing pattern nelsons
2.0 Het albino vanishing pattern nelsons
0.1 blue tail monitor (adult male wanted)
2.0 Reed frogs
2.2 felines aka boa food ;o
And I am not gonna count all those rats . . .

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Brian
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I have ALWAYS cut at day 52 just to see what the odds are on my clutches. I was the type of kid that would open my x-mas gifts early and rewrap them. But Ive done it this way for the last 4 years with no problems what so ever. To each their own
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Damian Macioce
www.strongholdreptiles.com