Reptile & Amphibian Forums

5 Out of 7 eggs turned out well but with 4 of the 5 hatched on Mothers day, 2 are hunchbacked.
Damn.
One actually has a 1/2" long knob about an inch back from its head but is ok otherwise while the other has a pronounced crick in its neck. These are twice the size ( 10-11" )of the other 2 babies that hatched with them and the smaller ones are normal.
I have one johnny come lately still piping. it had a tiny start of a slit in the egg shell around 8pm tonight and should be out by morning. I hope that ones ok.
I'm not going to put the cripples down and will do what I can to raise them into healthy animals but I would have prefered them to be something somebody would want for a pet. Maybe somebody will want them anyway and name them Quasimoto or Igore or something to that effect.
Mike.

Wow, Mike,
That's an early hatch for NA Rats!!??!!
.
.
Probably not going to like this, but Igore, et al, might make a nice calcium treat for any Kings you may have....
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Regards, Bill McGighan

Bill ya, I brumated and warmed them early.
The fifth didn't break out as it was kinked up too. What do you suppose caused that? Being the first clutch from this female?
Oh and ya, I thought about the kingsnake bit too.
Mike.

Mike, no telling what could have caused it. I have had deformed babies hatch out with normal hatchlings. I had a clutch of greybands hatch out with some of the hatchlings having swollen heads, neck kinks, deformed jaws, and pop-eyes. I suspect it may have been moisture related and I think I added too much moisture to the hatch medium too close to hatchling. Could have been temp related too. Shrug??

Kevin, two out of five were normal, two had neck kinks and one has a pronouned knob on its back like a hunchback.
You've got me thinking about the moisture but I can't see where this clutch was hatched differently from many others that were fine. Now I'm worried about the lucy black rats and the mandarins. They were transfered to the incubator by the person watching my collection while I was on vacation and I fear they spent too much time unnoticed before they were transfered.
Out of the 7 mandys it looks now like the best I can hope for is two and out of nine lucy rats I may get six and they have a month to go. My initial plan was to time the laying to be early on so that they would be already in the incubator when I went on vaction but as plans often change I ended having to take vacation early and that screwed things up.
Got to get my timing down better.
Mike.

Kevin's right... There are several possibilities, including:
eggs too wet,
eggs to dry,
eggs too cool,
eggs too warm,
not enough oxygen at the termination of incubation,
age of the mother,
bacterial infection,
and, of course, even though these animals do seem incredibly tolerant if "inbreeding", there can be a limit.
.
If you'd like to discuss your batch husbandry and snake's lineage, here in open forum, or in email, we can try to troubleshoot.
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Regards, Bill McGighan

Wow Bill, you've got my head spinning with that response. Lot of variables there. I never had this kind of problem before but I'm going to have to step up to more of a pro setup if I'm going to hatching more than a clutch or two a year.
I notice most folks use vermiculite as a medium when I used "forest floor" shreded coconut. I've seen it on the classified page for sale but can I get it locally do you think?
May also pick up a hovabator(???)are they any good?
Mike.