Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of my eggs died...
so I cut it open and it looks like the egg literally cooked. It was in the same box with the other 4 eggs, all of which have strong veins, live baby snakes are doing fine.

This one though...dead underdeveloped baby and what I can only describe as hard boiled yolk. Incubator rarely waivers but has never gone above 88.9...so I have no idea what happened.

Once it started molding I put it in a separate box...

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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

It just died. I don't think it was anything you did wrong. Things happen.

Yeah, I asked a friend and apparently the hardened "hard boiled" thing is normal when they die. I didn't know that.

I've had two eggs die before, but it was in the 1st week, so I didn't even bother opening them...
they just molded and rotted and I tossed them.
-----
"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

this is like the third time it has been mentioned in the last few days / weeks...."it turned moldy".....when eggs turn green ,yellow and blue they aren't actually moldy they are just riddled with bacteria and rotting yolk material....the mold would grow on the outside of the eggs....IF we left them in that long , stinking and all....NOT what we do....

....anyways...not picking on you....it is usually refered to as Molding and green but I just wanted to point out to us all that it isn't mold....
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........JY

You can't see in the pic, but it did have white fuzzy mold on the outside of it.
-----
"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

I think it died early on. You can see it did not advance much in development and the yolk would harden the longer it was dead.

yes...it died...the yolks get hard like that after they die....it didn't hard boil....

....the more you get the more you lose....you'll get used to it.....and get better at preventing it....(you cannot prevent them all from dying)...

...good luck
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........JY

I have seen a lot of snakes die around that point in development. It's probably just some error in the genetic code that resulted in something not functioning quite like it should. I guess you could compare it to humans and first trimester miscarriages. They are also usually predetermined to happen and nothing could have been done to stop it.

Thanks for posting the pictures. Always better to see someone investigate a little as opposed to just tossing the eggs away. Now you know what they typically look like around the 2-3 week mark.

I have seen this before with snakes and geckos. In my opinion they are the result of various genetic errors. The babies just can't develop any further and they die...

John

I had similar issues last year but the eggs went full term. I decided to cut on day 56 because lack of movement when candled. I had 3 mojaves and 1 pastel that were fully developed that had yolk that was hardened. I couldn't understand why or how they developed so far along when half the egg was full of hardened yolk. Does this happen alot???? Chris Hall