Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My snake layed yesterday and I will candle tonight but I notice brown in most of the eggs. They are mostly white, not yellow, good size and firm. Is the brown common in fertile eggs?

A good photo will help.

What type of substrate did she lay the eggs in?

-Rusty

I'll try to post pics.Some do have veins. Sphagnum moss.

My guess is, it's the moss...

you can see small spots on these pics:

Hope this helps ease your mind.

BIG WARNING: Hog eggs don't do well with moist sphagnum moss (or any thing too moist), I would go on the dry side, 85% humidity and keep the eggs from touching anything moist directly. I use moist spag on the bottom of the container and then cover with dry perlite in a sealed container...it works well for me.

My female laid in sphagnum moss and there were brown blotches all over the white eggs. One was even half brown. They all hatched out and are very healthy and chubby.

I had a female lay in vermiculite last year and one that laid in her water dish this year (it was filled with damp aspen bedding) and the only eggs with brown were the ones laid in the sphagnum.

So I blame it on the moss. Still, no harm as they all hatched.
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4.4.4 Western Hognose
1.1 Ball Pythons
1.0 Everglades Rat Snake

My first hognose clutch started hatching yesterday. That's the first litter of the year so It's always exciting.

About those brown spots...

I had five females lay eggs this year, all of them on sphagnum. The two largest and fattest females laid the eggs with those brown spots you describe. The other three females didn't lay eggs with those spots but they were a bit smaller and also had smaller clutches. Some of the spots were quite large (green pea size) and even leaked a small bit toward the end of incubation. This first clutch was one with several of those eggs with thin walled brown spots and they all hatched just fine. I think the egg shells simply never formed properly. My loosely formed theory is that it had something to do with these females being a touch on the heavy side or because it was their first go. I also had a near 40% slug/bad egg ratio from those two fat females. I acquired my group of breeders this year post brumation so I can blame their first year failures on the other guy for now!