Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I cut my last clutch of the year yesterday. All 5 eggs contained fully-formed, dead babies. This was from a Genetic Granite Yellow Belly to an awesome unproven female Granite. Why does this happen? Did my power go out while I was at work and I never knew it? Possibly the 2 Granite genes caused a lethal combination? (I don't think that's as likely.)

I know this happens a lot, but why? It's never happened to me until now with the WHOLE clutch not making it. Really sucks. There were some nice looking babies in there and I was really looking forward to seeing what this combo would do. Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.

These are the parents:

I'd be more inclined to suspect a temp spike than a temp drop, but I'm no expert by any means... so sorry you lost the clutch. The parents are beautiful.

What were you incubating the eggs on? 2 seasons ago I lost an entire clutch that was incubating on vermiculite in a small box. the eggs took up most of the box, and I didn't notice that, while the substrate around the eggs was moist, the substrate under it had dried out. The fully formed babies died from dessication. I've since switched to larger egg boxes and zero substrate incubation.
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www.jasonrbartolettreptiles.webs.com

we have no facts or pics...but I would have said too wet ,too dry ,or not enough air ,,to start with???....

....it happens but no, not alot....or often.....

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........JY

Well, the substrate was perlite with plastic eggcrate on top. Been using that method for a few years. I didn't think they could get too wet that way since some people just use water and eggcrate without anything else. I noticed about a week ago that a few of them were starting to mold and was wiping it off every other day.

Could be possible that I didn't open the egg box often enough to let new air in. Probably only opened it about every 2 to 3 weeks throughout incubation. Looks like most of them didn't stop developing until about a week or 2 ago though. The very good (and lucky) news is that 1 is still alive and it's the best looking one. Definitely some nice Granite-ness going on in there. Hope it makes it out of the egg now.

can you post a photo of your eggbox set up? As long as the eggs, weren't touching the perlite, I would think too wet is out of the question. as long as the perlite had water in it, I would think too dry is out of the question. If the egg box is too small, you may not have had sufficient air exchange in the box. or, as someone else suggested, a temp spike may have been at play.
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www.jasonrbartolettreptiles.webs.com

are there any holes at all in your egg boxes?....
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........JY

I have heard of this happening twice locally so I'll just tell you what happened.

The first clutch was full term and had not pipped, my friend elected to leave them over the weekend before cutting them the following monday. All the babies were dead in shell and he called me about it. I asked him to feel the noses of the babies because I had a hunch. As I suspected, NONE of the babies had an egg tooth, so they were unable to slit the shells on their own and drowned in the egg.

Second clutch, we were incubating a clutch for a friend. He was coming over to check on his eggs as that was day 55. I told him they had not pipped and he asked me to cut them. In that clutch all the babies were "shark faced" which is where the lower jaw is 1/3 or 1/2 the length its supposed to be. Thus there was another issue with egg teeth, this time with them being exposed in the wrong spot, pointing down. If you've never seen this the shark face changes the upper lip and jaw area as well.

If you still have the bodies, rub your finger against the nose, you should be able to rough, sharp tooth sorta thing.

The only other guess I'd have would be a temp spike towards the last week of incubation. Color is the last thing to develope in the babies, if they are colored up and the yolk mostly absorbed then, it may have been a spike. We've had them hit over 95 degrees in brief spikes and be fine. These eggs are designed to handle a fair range of temps. The mom snakes in Africa can't control the weather and its never ALWAYS 90 degrees.

What day of incubation were they on? I cut everything at 55 days, regardless...or whenever the first one pips on its own. Whichever comes first.

They were on day 57 when I cut them yesterday, cause I just had a bad feeling about the 3 that were molding. I'm thinking now that it must have had something to do with my maintenance. Not enough fresh air/possibly too much moisture underneath the eggs. Sucks, been working on this project for 2 years...Learned to be more attentive to opening the box regularly. Think I'm gonna switch to larger egg boxes next season too.

Just curious, I don't know much about snakes but I am learning more each day, but do you think the malformations in the egg tooth might be more of a problem as time goes on as breeders seem to have a habit of cutting the egg making them (the egg tooth) unnecessary and therefor helping snakes who would have normally died due to this malformation live?

I think it would take an extraordinarily long time for such a thing to take place. You are talking about the snake evolving to not need an egg tooth. How long have we been really heavily breeding ball pythons? 10-15 years is my answer. There are breeders that have been doing it longer, sure but...now we have 10's of thousands of breeders, amature herpetaculturists, and up and coming "big breeders"...this problem is encountered very infrequently.