Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I was just scannning and I saw your post below. Sorry if this was covered elswhere and I missed it.

I noticed in your post that the eggs were cooking at 88 F. In my experience, that is too hot for kingsnake eggs. I've been cooking them at 80-83 F since 1990 and the ones that are vascular when dropped, will hatch if I don't screw them up, which I have been known to do.....more than I care to remember, actually.

But anyway, one of my screw ups was allowing a couple of early clutches of eggs to spike in the high 80s/low 90s for a couple of days. The ones at the top of the pile always died, seemingly because the air simply wasn't holding the moisture like the vermiculite was. The top eggs quickly dimpled, then began collapsing, and quickly grew that green mold - a sure sign of death. The lower eggs, still in the vermic (I now use perlite-exclusively) seemed to able adapt to the temp spike if I didn't drown them, while the top eggs quickly dehydrated and died.

Another decision that often resulted in me cutting into full term dead eggs was to overcompensate with moisture. This caused the lower eggs to balloon with water, look white and taut right to the end........ and leave beautiful corpes. I now try to correct moisure deficiencies on an egg by egg basis. If I have allowed the clutch to get too hot, or allowed too much ventilation and must deal with collapsing top eggs, I will correct the ventilation issue and soak a small clump of spagnum, or a squared paper towel and set it directly on the affected egg. If it is not too far gone, the egg will SLOWLY take on the moisture of its blanket and re-inflate.

These days, I slightly moisten perlite until it just falls apart when squeezed and released. I put the eggs in sealed containers, because they really don't require much air exchange, especially early on. They are cooked at 80-83 F, as higher temps are unnecessary and often down-right fatal. I cook ball python and jungle carpet python eggs at 88 F, but colubrid eggs just don't seem to function well at those temps, for me anyway. In the conditions that I described, eggs that show a white/cream color and a flat finish soon after laying, will hatch soon after the passage of day 50. I'm sure others have hatching strategies that work as well, and possibly better, but I'd be very cautious about high (above 84) incubation temps, you just don't need them. Good luck with your eggs.

Will

Will, thanks for the long response! It is very much appreciated.

To make things clear, I'm not incubating them at 88, they are between 78 and 82 and that is my planned temperature for their entire incubation. Alas, the AC died and they got up to 88 for up to 12 hours. I then moved them into the less pristine environment of my mouse building, as that AC was still functioning. And yes, it is the eggs on the top of the two piles of eggs that immediately started to deflate... the one still hasn't turned green, so I continue to have hope. I like your idea of placing a moist paper towel over the specific trouble egg rather than trying to increase the humidity in the entire egg box. I will try that as it is still deflated to a certain extent. I have moved them from the originally too-damp vermiculite that was over-moist due to a desire to re-hydrate the collapsing eggs. Luckily the remaining eggs seem to be doing well and are showing veins. It's just a real bummer that two years in a row I've had AC failure. Luckily last year it happened in day 51 of my snakes' incubation, and only hastened them out of the egg (very luckily, as it was 111 degrees OUTSIDE the house when we discovered the failure (9 pm at night) and HOTTER inside the house. Hopefully the 88 degrees for 12 hours will have no more permanent effect other than perhaps to hasten the end of the two dead eggs.

I do have one question.... I have two clumps with "dead eggs"... one is a clump of two eggs... the other egg still appears good. Would it be good if I were to snip away all but the connecting bit of shell of the dead egg to allow the good egg to remain unmolested by the bad egg... or should I just leave them be? The other dead egg is in a clump of four eggs, attached to the three lower eggs and seems as though there is nothing to do but allow it to sit there and smell awful.

Again thanks for your very informative and helpful post.
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~Sasheena

Hi Sasheena,

Yes, I would try to remove the dead egg as it may (or may not) harm the remaining good eggs. Slugs that get stuck in a pile don't seem to really bother healthy eggs. However, a rotting embryo can do some damage if it starts decomposing and leaking in a pile of good eggs early in incubation. There is also a good chance that the connected healthy eggs will go to term and hatch without incident, but I'd rather be safe than sorry and remove them if I can. Take care.

Will

>>These days [...] I put the eggs in sealed containers, because they really don't require much air exchange, especially early on.

Will, can you elaborate on this? Or i guess i mean, just convince me with your experience?

I keep my eggs in sealed containers to keep bugs out and humidity in. But I have been opening each container and fanning fresh air in every 2-3 days, presuming that was necessary. It's not a huge deal, but with about 20 pyro clutches and 35 hondo clutches it's about an hour's work each go-round. And it's an added chore to impose on the friends who care for my animals when i travel.

Are your boxes really airtight? How long have you let colubrid eggs go without ill effect? Make me comfortable with cutting back on this aspect of maintenance!

thanks
terry

When I first started incubating snake eggs, I used one gallon glass jars because I had them. They probably had around a dozen bullsnake eggs in each. Lids were screwed finger tight and were opened no more than once a week. Since then I've used plastic 5 qt ice cream buckets with the cover on tight, sweater boxes, and plastic mouse boxes with saran wrap taped across the top. Air holes in any of the boxes had cellophane tape over them. Maximum air exchange was from being opened twice a week, and I never worried if they went a full week. I never let them go longer than that. I've hatched milk snakes and several other species in this sort of set up.

You might take a couple of boxes of your least important and valuable eggs and put them on the 7 day opening schedule. See how they do compared to your other eggs.

Paul Hollander

Hey Terry,

I typically follow a routine similar to your's and Paul's. All of my snake, turtle and lizard eggs are/were cooked in sealed plastic storage containers (Glad, Tupperware, Sterilite, Rubbermaid, etc.) in very slightly damp perlite. Out of habit, I check all of my eggs every couple of days, like you guys. For the most part, that is all of the air exchange they get until about week six. Then, at the point where the embryos start maturing and generating significant heat, I give them access to more fresh air. This practice has been developed from extrapolated data originally relating to python incubation: Ross & Marzec {1990}, Barker and Barker {1994}, T. Barker, pers. comm. {1997}.

At this point, about 2 weeks from the expected hatching date, I break the seal and just set and stagger (just a bit) the top on the container so that a little constant air exchange occurs. Or, as often happens, I "borrow", and seal with tape a sterilite yearling grow out box (4 qt/12l) that has been pre-drilled. I pull the tape off of the air holes when the hatching date is near, so as to allow constant but minimal air exchange. The eggs are still in a sealed incubator, but I am still checking them every couple of days, so they continue to get consistant air exchange.

After this point, I expect to see all of the eggs dimpling after a few days. If not, I have screwed up and I consider the incubation medium to be too wet. To try to correct this, I allow for a bit more air exchange. I try to prevent my eggs from looking like smooth golf balls. These eggs often possess clear windows, so I can see the baby I'm crushing with water pressure. My greatest failures with fertile eggs have occurred when I allow them to get wet and swell too much. I know what to do these days, But in the past, I have chucked many perfect dead babies from translucent golf balls.

I'll bet experience (and instinct) has allowed our incubation methods to be really quite similar. I'd like to here more about yours. Take care Bud.

Will

>>Will, can you elaborate on this? Or i guess i mean, just convince me with your experience?

I've heard anecdotal evidence on another website of another breeder who incubated a good dozen or more clutches in an airtight container (he had not gotten around to drilling holes, so just put them in and closed the lids).... The next time he opened them was when he saw a bunch of snakes squirming around in the egg box. From what I have heard this year (and he expects more than 6000 hatchlings) he has ALL his egg boxes airtight with no intentions of checking them in the interim.

I'm too fussy myself, however, I have to check them, especially as I've had a few problems with my eggs...

And about my eggs... I checked them again this morning. The two dead eggs are... still dead. BUT the partially collapsed egg while still not any more plump than before has DEFINATE veins, so I can just hope that it will continue to thrive. The other kingsnake eggs are doing good. One of the three egg containers I'm using had eggs with some dimpling so I added a couple of drops of water and sealed it up again. Those are still relatively newly laid, so I don't expect them all to show veins clearly yet, but some are already showing nice veins.

Thanks guys for this great discussion. Next year I might try a no-substrate method!
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~Sasheena