Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, I came home last night to find that one of my soon to be IJs had slit his shell a number of times and was poking just the tip of his little nose out of one of the openings. As of this morning, about 14 hours later he still had not emerged any further, and infact I could not even see his nose protruding from the shell (although there appeared to be a couple of new slits). How common is it for a baby to pip, then tuck back into the eggs for a period of time? I know with may balls, once they pip they sit with their little heads out of their shell for a day or so before they leave, but I've never seen one slit his shell and remain entirely inside for a while. Should I be worried?

Secondly, one of the others has been looking a little more collapsed than the others, so I decided to help it out, so to speak. I gently pipped the egg manually with a very small opening on top. Inside, I saw what appears to be a perfectly formed baby, but I'm not sure if its alive. I gently touched the baby and got no reaction or movement at all. I'm about 55-57 days in to this incubation. Would you expect to see some movement out of a bay at this stage or do you think this baby may be a full term dead in egg?

Finally, do you think I should manually pip the third egg, or let it go for a few more days? I'm concerned because these eggs seem a little "tougher" to me than the snake eggs I've previously hatched.

Thanks in advance for the input! Joe Pociask
Joe Pociask

"How common is it for a baby to pip, then tuck back into the eggs for a period of time? Should I be worried?"

It is quite common for babies to hang out in the egg for sometimes more than 24 hours. Perhaps offer a couple of sticks for perches to see if that will aid them in coaxing them out of the eggs. Chances are, the little buggers ill pull themselves back into their egg as you approach the egg box, before you even open it. They are just more reactive snakes than Balls I think. I wouldn't worry about it....there's not much you can do at this point anyway.

"Secondly, one of the others has been looking a little more collapsed than the others, so I decided to help it out, so to speak. I gently pipped the egg manually with a very small opening on top. Inside, I saw what appears to be a perfectly formed baby, but I'm not sure if its alive. I gently touched the baby and got no reaction or movement at all. I'm about 55-57 days in to this incubation. Would you expect to see some movement out of a baby at this stage or do you think this baby may be a full term dead in egg?"

Manually pipping the egg is a good idea. We usually do it to all of the eggs once about 25% of them have pipped on their own. But try to make a trangluar cut to make a sort of flap in the egg. Just leave that egg alone and see what climbs out. Occasionally poorly formed or malformed babies will stay in the egg and die. But they'll probably do the same if taken out of the egg early. You can use a sexing probe (a big blunt one) to poke the snake and see if it twitches if you feel the need to know right away.

"Finally, do you think I should manually pip the third egg, or let it go for a few more days? I'm concerned because these eggs seem a little "tougher" to me than the snake eggs I've previously hatched."

Pip the third egg like I mentioned above. They may seem a little thicker shelled but there is seemingly some variabvility in the shell thickness of all python eggs.

How many eggs are you hatching altogether? Only three? If so, what happened? Lots of infertiles or did you lose some in incubation?
Hope I helped. Good Luck with 'em!

-Yasser
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Yep, just three. 10 eggs were laid on or just after New Years Day. Unfortunately, I wasn't expecting these eggs. I had witnessed a couple of copulations, but I never witnessed an ovulation. This female has the ability to work herself under the substrate and stay hidden sometimes for days. Anyway, the eggs were laid under far less than ideal conditions, and left there until I discovered them a few days later. I actually only new to look for eggs because the mom (still hidden) was twitching to generate some heat. I had seen this on the discovery channel but never in person. Anyway, I took up the eggs, which was suprisingly easy. This female has a bit of a nasty streak, but came off the eggs without too much fuss. I'm speculating that about 7 of the eggs were fertile, and incubated those. Over the first few days, several eggs were vary obviously dead and began to stink big time, and were discarded. After about three days, I was down to three...all of which seem to have made it this far. I'm guessing that where the eggs were laid the may have gotten too warm during those first few days, and way too cool at night. I was still in "cool down" mode in my snake room, and the carpet enclosure was still getting down in the very high 60s at night with no supplemental heat. I'm guessing that the eggs were there undiscovered for about 2 days. Anyway, thanks for the response. I can't wait to get home tonight and check them out. I'll let you guys no here if and when they all hatch out. I've already rigged up shoeboxes in my baby rack with perches.

Now to that last question. would you go ahead and take the remaining eggs from the incubator and place them in their individual shoeboxes? This is what I've always done with my BPs. Obviously I'd keep them on moist paper towel substrate. The back of my baby racks stay about 85-86 F...ok right?

That's too bad you weren't expecting them. We basically begin closely watching any female that has been introduced to a male especially during her shed cycles, even if out of season (but we don't do that very often).

But you can elect to put them in their boxes (don't put them on the heat tape though!) or just leave them in the incubator and turn the temp down a degree or two.
If it is meant to be, you will have three little babies!

-Yasser
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Yeah...normally I'm much more observent. I really didn't expect this pair to breed. I mad a much greater effort to breed them last year and got nothing, so I kind of wrote them off. You better believe I'll be watching them more closely next year if I still have them. Thanks for you help. I'll post an update tonight when I get home. Hopefully I'll have some pics I can share! Take care....JP