Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, my bp eggs are in there 2nd week of incubation and they are starting to have brown spots on them and caving in...I know they cave in around 2 weeks prior to hatching but what about the brown...I have it set to 89...any suggestions...have I already lost those brown ones? is it fungus and if so what do I use to combat this problem...

thanks in advance
mgl

Did you happen to candle them to see if they where fertile to start with? I had the same thing happen last year and I think that the ones that went bad like that may not have been fertile but unfortunately I didn't candle so don't know for sure. Mine where not adhered so I also wish I had moved the bad ones to a new box before trying to treat them (lost cause of course if infertile) with foot fungus powder. My "good" eggs from that clutch ended up having deformed babies. I suspect the damage was done before the possibly infertile ones started going bad but next time I'll either separate to treat bad eggs before treating them or not treat them at all figuring rotting eggs are less a risk than excessive handling and treating of the entire clutch. And of course candling to know which ones not to even try with would have saved a lot of anxiety.

I candled one and saw veins...that is the one that doesn't have any problems...the other ones were already adhered together and I didn't bother to candle them...I guess I will..she did lay 3 slugs along w/ the eggs so infertility may very well be accurate....I'll try the foot powder and separating them....thanks and good luck
mgl

...that fungal foot powders or creams can be teratogenic (embryo-toxic) so a dilute povidone iodine (Betadine) or even Clorox solution would be safer topically on the RARE fertile egg that gets fungal spots. In the vast majority of cases where a fertile egg is affected by fungus it is usually adjacent to an attached infertile egg.
Scott J. Michaels DVM