A 277 female slugged out for me in the spring. Not sure why, but it happened. I had no desire to double-clutch her, so she never saw the male again.
Well of course, she laid a second clutch of 5 eggs, so she retained the sperm. 4 of the 5 were fertile.
I've used a no substrate incubation this year with great success. So these eggs went in the same set up. About day 30 they started to swell. And continued to swell. It was very odd, they were not in any contact with substrate, so this shouldn't have happened. Finally, they were starting to look ridiculous, so I decided to move them to a container with less humidity, which still didn't seem like a move that would matter. So they still went no substrate, but used a less damp layer of vermiculite under the eggs.
Well, I barely, and I mean, BARELY, touched the egg pile, and 3 of them instantly leaked fluid. 2 of the 3 made an audible noise, and the fluid ran out generously. Enough that it pooled on the plastic.
I'm a BIG fan of "leave them alone" as much as possible. I think eggs are much tougher than most people give them credit. I ran several ideas around in my head, including making a "patch" of sorts out of calcium powder, but in the end, decided to put a small piece of scotch tape over the crack, and let the fluid harden around it.
It stayed visibly wet for about a week, then hardened and turned brown. The eggs continued to candle good, but I wasn't sure if that meant anything. Other spots on the eggs continued to swell, and slightly split, but didn't actually leak at those points. I still have no explanation for the swelling.
A few days back, the eggs began to cave in. And as of today, one has pipped and already came out on his own. A perfect male. The other eggs have yet to pip, so I'm not sure what will happen, but they are sinking in as if they will hatch. If nothing else, I know one is just fine.
So, what seemed like a terrible turn of events, worked out just fine with hardly any intervention from me. Mother Nature is flat out tough.
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Brian Suter
