I have a clutch of six eggs that a female dropped on me last week. I had given up hope of her laying this year as she bred back in mid March and hadn't shown any real signs of being gravid other than refusing to eat for the past few weeks.
Anyway, I didn't have an incubator set up or anything, so I was kind of freaking out. This is my first clutch of eggs ever, so I was doubly freaking out. In an attempt to set up the eggs as best I could while I waited for the incubator I ordered, I put the eggs into a tupperware container with perlite for a medium in a stable temp area of the female's cage.
The perlite I used was too wet at first, but I fixed that problem pretty quickly. However, I wasn't aware until today that the perlite I was using had trace amounts of ammonium based fertilizers in it. The percentages are less than .02% according to the product info.
Does anyone know if these kinds of chemicals are harmful/fatal to eggs? Is it okay to rinse the eggs to get any traces of the fertilizers off?
Thanks.
