Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I guess no one has any reasons to use such a device.

My views on this are very simple. An egg is a living thing. Its either dead or alive. IF its alive, candling, weighting, measuring, messing with or detecting its heartrate, with not increase its chances of hatching. Any of the above only increases the chances of it dying. On the otherhand, a dead egg is dead and as far as I know, there is nothing you can do to make it become viable again.

Now if there was something about the way the heart beats that could detect errors in incubation, and further, there were known ways to fix those errors, that relate to those heartbeats, then it would be of benefit. As far as I know, that does not exsist.

Cutting eggs open, is very foolish and naive, as that only decreases the chance of survival as well. And please don't go taking that personal, as I know this from being foolish and naive. If an egg is obviously dead, you can do whatever you please with it. If its marginal, you really should not be playing around with it in the first place.

Of course aside from hatching eggs, I see lots of uses for this tool. It would be very interesting to me, to see if mucking with eggs, decreases or increases the heartrate. And if it does, as what stage of development would the embryo become aware of outside stimulis.

Again if someone could help me out here, I would would be thankful. F

With regard to the usefulness of the Avian Egg "Buddy", it seems to me that this is for people, not the eggs or the developing embryos.
This device seems to do little more than provide peace of mind to the user that there is some life sign indicator. This may fall in line with the question of making something "ideal" or creating the illusion of "perfect".
As humans we surround ourselves with such devices and tools, which for our purposes are well suited, but if we look at its application toward monitor husbandry, creating environments for breeding, getting eggs, and finally getting offspring, then the tool becomes suspect.
Again, this is about humans and not monitors.

These are merely my thoughts on the subject, I hope it contributes to the discussion.

-Kit

A person could use it to sell to other people so so they could take thier money.

A wonderful product to empty the wallets of the hopeful and nieve.

I guess I'll write to you here cause I know youre the delete man on varaFRanus.net. Why is it that all of the persons on VaraFRanus.net are having trouble with their eggs hatchling?????
Yet you have no trouble on your own. Like I told you maybe youre a crappy teacher, mediocre at best, and please dont come with the picture to prove trip, cause I'll know that much more about you.
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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ " If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh1t"

I was asking Bloodbat about pregnant women who are all enthusiastic about seeing their babies on the ultrasound, and wanting to hear its heart beat, and all that wierd stuff. I guess they do it out of a sort of motherly love. They are totally enamoured by this little creature that they have helped make.
Are humans rare? Ummmm ove 6 billion of em on the planet today, right? Not too rare. But for some reason, hearing a babies heartbeat is such a priceless memory that parents never tire of it.
Is breeding monitors rare? I am pretty sure that there are a whole lot less than 6 billion captive bred monitors in the world. I think I would pay 300. to hear the heartbeat of someone elses baby monitor in the egg! People spend more on skydiveing and bungee jumping! To me that little heart beat would excite me more than either of those two things combined!
I guess some people just dont understand.

Ask those same mothers if they would listen to the heartbeat knowing it could jeopardize the life of their unborn child.
You could also ask them if they would jeopardize the life of their unborn child knowing that hearing the heart beat wouldn't change the eventual outcome.
Love is being patient and allowing the animals and their eggs the best chance of survival.

I really think it would be useful to newbies who can't tell if an egg is good or not. I've seen pics of misshapen and discolored eggs that ended up hatching, and it takes experience to tell the difference between such eggs and genuinely dead eggs. It would be better for newbies to have a safer method than candling to test such eggs as opposed to throwing them out. But it's a moot point, because newbies aren't going to spend $250 on an egg monitor, and it STILL would be better for them to just have patience. And to do some research to find out what dead eggs look like.
Also I'm sure it would be great for someone breeding chickens commercially or something, but that's off topic.
I've only had one viable egg laid in my whole reptile career. I candled it when it was laid (I had to move it anyway) because I didn't know if it was fertile. I should have had more patience right there. I didn't touch it after that. It went past hatching date so I picked it up, and the maggots were pretty much my tip off.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

put your nose down to the egg, breathe in, and all of a sudden it will be very clear if its dead, if there is any doubt, leave it alone.

You know If even less important with monitors then some other reptiles, because their eggs do not stick to eachother. So you can let any questionable eggs become raisens(sultanas) without harming others. F

That's very useful information, thank you. My next eggs will probably be gecko or boa eggs but I'll definately remember this thread.
(yep, boa eggs)
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Nice, you have some of those odd sand boas? I wish you luck. F

Yep, got a pair a few months back. The problem is that the only person I know of who knows how to incubate the eggs for this species isn't talking, so there will be trial and error involved. Thanks!
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

?

in keeping monitors? What have you added? Sorry, if there is any question on whether an egg is good I incubate it, while the device is interesting it is useless to me and I am the most naive of the keepers there.

If you would listen, the whole point is to learn from the monitors (their behaviors), not from people. Breeding is not a goal, keeping monitors well is a goal, and it is constantly being modified. The problem with listening to people is they have all sorts of agendas, they give advice, talk as if they know it all, yet their one monitor sits in a box, with 3" of mulch and some bookshelf like structure. They recommend medications without having any long term evidence to support it, or having any real training or knowledge to support their claims.

Sure, I've never hatched a monitor, but most of my monitors are young and I have barely gotten started. I've lost one, my favorite by far, and one that may have produced. That is the way things go sometimes, but she at least had a life worth living. This is going to go way over your head, but some of us actually care enough to give them that chance, that there are things worse than death.

--Robert

Hey correct me if my advice on panacur was wrong. I'm not a vet, dont plan on being one and I am clueless in most cases but I do know a bit about deworming. I have been deworming all my reptiles for the last several years. Its not too difficult. Get yourself a decent microscope, read up, ask around, DEWORM.

Heres a pic of my "bookshelf like structure mulch box" haha
It's crap but its great for hardy laugh. Enjoy

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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ " If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh1t"

Since you know so much about deworming.

At the 'safe' dosing levels, how often can deworming be repeated before it has long term consequences... on male, female and reproductive female monitors. How do you draw that conclusion?

--Robert

"Since you know so much about deworming" I never said I "knew so much" Since its hypothetical. What are you treating? What are you using?
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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ " If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh1t"

I'm not saying they are unsafe, I am saying that they are not proven to not have long term consequences. There would need to be studies with reproducing monitors in order to show either.

hahahahahaha, yes I have a microscope, but I hardly ever do fecals anymore, and only as a litmus test for a later vet trip. You see I am not too cheap to pay for a professional opinion, sometimes multiple ones, even with the several monitors I own.

--Robert

Great, Richie Rich! Lets compare bank account statements now.Hahaha
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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ " If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh1t"

varanus.net is a privately owned site, the owners are, Jeff and I. So yes, you are right.

About being a teacher, I never claimed to be any kind of teacher. Althought, I have helped several people do well with their monitors, and thats plenty good for me.

You must understand, I am not here to teach. If people want to learn, that is their responsibility to do so. Its not anyones responsibility to teach them. Please understand, these sites are not Monitor U.

Really I think I could be a good/nice teacher, but like other teachers, I would like to be compensated for my efforts. In other words, what do you want for nothing?

Again, you really should understand, this site as well as most others are private. The owners have the right to delete/kick/ban, anyone for any reason.

Also, You should try and understand, If you do not like me, or not agree with anything I say, thats perfectly acceptable. You do understand, you do not have to make that effort to go to my site or read my posts here.

You should also understand, I could be wrong, just like you. In fact, theres no grades being posted reflecting, if we are right or wrong. I could be telling the truth or totally frabricating, it is not important on the internet. People here do both and they are allowed to. In my case, I try to base it on what my monitors did, but I do understand, I am not totally right at all times, and way way off at others.

In your case, what is the base of your thoughts and aggression? Is it about monitors? do you have something better to offer? any pics of something interesting?? no, then whats YOUR dealeeooo? F

It's all done in fun.
Don't bother, I'm jumping off the hamster wheel.
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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ " If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh1t"

When and egg goes bad it becomes obvious.
If I couldn't get a heart rate from an egg that appeared healthy, would I throw it away? Heck no.
It would be kinda cool to hear the heartbeat, but not useful to me.

Theythoughts of this product may have good meaning but personally I would never use it. I'm in a perfect situation right now. I have an argus egg that has been incubating for 11 months now. (obviously over due) Is it going to hatch? I don't know. But I can tell you this if I had the heart-detector I wouldn't dare disrupt that egg to put it in a machine. It still looks good, so in the incubator it remains until it tells me somthing different. The egg will tell me, not a machine.

R_Hilo

Would be to detect viable eggs from un-viable eggs. Thus with pythons, colubrids etc... you could remove dead eggs from your box in the incubator before the dead eggs began to rot, creating bad bacteria from transferring to your viable eggs. Potentially saving maybe an egg or two a season from large breeders? But hey... that's just my $0.02

hasta,
Jordan

I do not see too many initial practical uses for the egg device.
However, over time I think its use could increase. I would not rely on it the first few (many) times to tell me when to toss an egg away. If used consistently and it consistently shows live eggs to be live and dead ones to be dead, then maybe (but still hesitantly) it could be used to identify dead eggs. However, as you stated, there are other indications that an egg has gone bad so the egg device would be unnecessary - though perhaps interesting for live eggs.

Beyond that though, there are many things that this device might be able to show us. Different heart rates for males and females? Perhaps sex can be identified while still in the egg. More importantly it may identify problems early on. A change in heart rates may provide an indication that something in the incubator is bad and it could be corrected before good eggs go bad (sounds like a tv program). It might also allow a means to measure environmental changes in the incubator. Maybe we can influence the eggs (play an even bigger "god" role than we already do) and tell what the influence is through heart rate. Of course most of this is speculation and hypothetical, and beyond what most people need to worry about. However, the potential to identify incubation problems in their early stages appeals to me on a personal level. If the standard level of medical care at the time of my birth had been to use a fetal heart monitor (or some such device the name of which I forget), I probably would not have a disability now (it is now a standard level of care to use that device). So that appeals to me, but it is not necessary for hatching eggs.

On the personal level that bengalensis mentioned, that is entirely a personal thing. I think it would be neat to hear the beating of a monitor's heart while still in the egg. Others do not think it would be such a great thing. As for the risks... My first salvator clutch was handled a lot. All 10 eggs hatched. This last clutch all three were handled when they were laid and not again - until Jalepeño hatched and Habañero and Poblano died in the egg. Not a very large sample size, but it is what I have. Although my nephew abused lots of eggs right after they were laid and only 2 or 3 of those have died.

In the end, the device is probably not all that useful for most people, but it is neat.
salvators

Hey 250-500 .Well worth the investment if your so gung-ho about huevos. Im gonna get one,just to see how dead the eggs I eat are. Hey I eat a good dozen for breakfast
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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ " If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh1t"

Hmmm... this heart-rate thing has brought up quite the discussion. Well I got one and it works like a charm.

How's my egg?

Oh yea the egg forgot about that thing.

I got one, put my finger in the thing, and left the egg alone. Yea!!! I can hear my heart beat. And as long as it's still beating you bet your butt I would never put an egg in this thing.

Just to save the rest of you the heart-beat...im mean heart-break.

R_Hilo