Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well my troublesome clutch of eggs that started to die.... has been holding its own at 10 good eggs, and two blue eggs (attached to good eggs) .... now one of the two blue eggs is crawling with maggots... but it's attached to three good eggs.

Suggestions?

Reptile relief on the bad egg?

Sevin Dust on the bad egg?

Bug spray on all the eggs?

Ignore it and hope the bugs when they mature won't "get into" the good eggs?

Try to remove the bad egg from the good eggs by ... dismembering the top egg? (but wont the 'goo' seep down onto the bad eggs?... or coudl I turn them briefly while I did surgery to remove the bad stuff?)

My recently laid clutch of king eggs from sunday (in three egg boxes) has one of those three boxes that opened "smelly" and I believe it is the very first egg laid... looked viable, but I'm thinking it's bad... but not sure. Do I wait until it turns green?

Suggestions? Advice?
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~Sasheena

From what I understand of maggots is that they only eat dead or decaying organics . So your good eggs should not be bothered by them. They might be actually usefull in that they are eating all the bacteria ridden junk associated with those dead eggs. Now of course those things turn into flies then just get them out of their at that time.

Keith
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My, oh my, Sasheena. You are learning so much this year that you will be leaps and bounds past the rest of us who think this is so easy. I want to encourage you to keep on through all the discouraging setbacks and challenges. I'm cheering for you and your egg projects. I love reading all your posts and I am learning from you. You are a teacher on this forum too and some of your students are a lot older than you. I'll be watching for good things for you.

Experience is sure being a hard teacher on me!

This morning's endeavour.... I went ahead and got my spare never-used egg-box and put new vermiculite in it. I used BOTTLED water (I'm thinking my problem all along has been that I used the tap-water)... I prepared the vermiculite to the just-right ratio.

Then I took out my handy-dandy swiss army knife, which has a very small pair of scissors which were ideal for a situation requiring finesse. I started on the clump of two eggs, and as I was snipping into the bad egg, it un-adhered to the neighboring egg. That one turned out fairly simple! I very lightly bathed that egg, to make sure there were no squirmy maggots, and then I placed it in the new egg box. There is one slightly stressed section of the eggshell, but I think it will hold up.

Then I went on to the bigger task... bad egg on top of the three good eggs. I gave an experimental tug to see if it would un-adhere as easily... no such luck. I then started snipping into the bad egg just above where it stuck to the three eggs. When I was done, I used some tweezers and grabbed the top egg, and pulled, and happily the entire egg mass came off cleanly (inside it looked like a boiled egg).

Finally, after the majority of the top egg was removed, I then snipped around the adhered parts of the remaining semicircle of eggshell so that only the very littlest big would remain. I did have to pick out squirmy wormies from in between the eggs, and even had to tilt the egg mass to get a few of those, but only for a few moments. Finally, when I was satisfied I'd removed every last maggot, I lightly bathed those remaining eggs to make sure there wasn't a maggot lying against the surface of the egg camoflauged (sp) and then I placed that egg into the egg box.

**sigh of relief**

The "wrinkled" egg on top of the other pile is making a comeback, still has very strong veins. I've been placing a damp square of paper towel over just that one egg to help to rehydrate it.

Some of my plans for later this day.... Buy more vermiculite. Buy some foot fungus powder. Buy more egg boxes. With the new egg boxes, and the new vermiculite I'm going to prepare new incubation chambers using ONLY bottled water. The few eggs with a fungus problem will be treated. I'll also candle each and every egg, perhaps labeling each egg that is questionable and putting them in a "Questionable egg" container. (I can check that one more frequently and just leave the rest of those eggs the heck alone! I'm sure they would rather incubate in peace!

It's easy to feel that I'm learning and gaining my own reservoir of anecdotal experience, but it's hard when I think of the lost promise of those dead eggs... even though sometimes they never EVER had any promise to begin with. Still at this point in time I'm still counting 60 eggs. Last year I had 16.

Ah well, I can only go ahead. Learn from mistakes and from experience, and do better in the future.
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~Sasheena

sasheena....i have a clutch of king eggs that are having problems much like what you describe.you made referance to bottled water,have you traced the problem to your water supply? do you have city water or your own well?

I believe the problem is not the tap water or well water, but rather just infertility of the egg. I also do not think the eggs are dying. I think there was nothing in them to die in the first place. I have had many "bad" eggs get devoured by those "Damn Maggots" too. The maggots have never bothered the good viable eggs. Just as Keith said, if I see flies in the incubation container I simply just release them (Outside of course or the wife would have a fit) LOL!

I wish Sasheena and all the best of luck with all their breeding projects.

BTW, I do have a question. I have a caliking laying eggs right now. She started laying yesterday evening and has laid 5 eggs so far, but has stopped laying now. She has at least 4 eggs in her still and it has been 24 hours since she laid her first
egg(s). How long should I have to wait for her to lay her remaining eggs before I become more worried than I am now?
Any help would be appreciated,
-John Lassiter-

>>BTW, I do have a question. I have a caliking laying eggs right now. She started laying yesterday evening and has laid 5 eggs so far, but has stopped laying now. She has at least 4 eggs in her still and it has been 24 hours since she laid her first
>>egg(s). How long should I have to wait for her to lay her remaining eggs before I become more worried than I am now?
>>Any help would be appreciated,
>>-John Lassiter-

John, as noted here recently, it's always useful to include when the snake had its prelaying shed--it's hard to answer a question like yours not knowing whether she shed 5 days ago, or 15. Also useful info would be whether those first five eggs are good or not. Both these bits of info will help you get the best poss replies.

thanks
terry

Terry,
The female had her pre egg laying shed 15 days ago.
She has laid 5 eggs and one looks to be infertile.
She is 5 years old and has never been bred until now.
She is very healthy and close to 4 feet in length.
I have bred many Californiae and have never had to wait more than 24 hours for a female to lay an entire clutch.
She is roaming the cage with what it looks like 4 eggs in her.
The eggs were away from the cloaca and now seem to be near the cloaca. Maybe I am worrying too much and she is just moving them into position and will lay in a bit, but something like this has never happened with my california kings.
Thanks,
-John Lassiter-

John,

You're right to be concerned. 15 days is a long time. Sasheena's thread recently dealt with the same issue, i think hers went 16 before it laid. But usually they lay 8 to 10 days after and if they haven't laid in two weeks i'm concerned. Especially when part of the clutch is laid and part retained.

On the other hand, the good news is that the eggs are moving closer to the cloaca. That's progress, and i guess warrants being patient a little longer. The hard question with these situations always is: How long do you wait before you intervene?

Keep us posted.

Terry
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>>Terry,
>>The female had her pre egg laying shed 15 days ago.
>>She has laid 5 eggs and one looks to be infertile.
>>She is 5 years old and has never been bred until now.
>>She is very healthy and close to 4 feet in length.
>>I have bred many Californiae and have never had to wait more than 24 hours for a female to lay an entire clutch.
>>She is roaming the cage with what it looks like 4 eggs in her.
>>The eggs were away from the cloaca and now seem to be near the cloaca. Maybe I am worrying too much and she is just moving them into position and will lay in a bit, but something like this has never happened with my california kings.
>>Thanks,
>>-John Lassiter-

Sasheena,

fwiw, i am of the opinion that you can take a clutch of eggs and rinse it rather thoroughly under a faucet, not letting the water strike the eggs but rather hitting yolur haneds and then running thru the eggs, to flush any unwanted materials or critters from the eggs. It might be advisable to gently pat the eggs dry (you need not be thorough with that, i wouldn't think) afterwards. Remember to maintain the orientation of the eggs during the process and more especially afterwards, when you return them to position in the incubation box.

anybody else have insight into whether i'm right about this or preaching disaster? All I know is i've done it, and the eggs still hatch.

Terry

Terry, thanks again for the insights. You've been invaluable! And if nothing else... great Moral Support. I did have to "tilt" the eggs while I was removing all the little squigglers from the clump of eggs, but at most they were tilted for less than 60 seconds, and when replaced they were oriented the same as before.

Someone mentioned the tap water. Our tap water is salty to the taste. I remember once when we received a notice from the city (when we lived further towards Phoenix) about why THEIR water didn't meet code (too much fecal matter in the water) and how it was impossible to fix... and now we are further out with a small rural water company with water that tastes like it's been scooped from the San Francisco Bay. My thoughts are that the water probably has plenty of contaminants in it (it gives us immodium nightmares if we drink it) and thus is reacting poorly with the eggs.
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~Sasheena

Here's an idea I came up with a few years ago. At the first sign of knats, flies, whatever........get some large nylong stockings and slide the eggs boxes within and tie the end up. This will keep all flies off the eggs, but still allows for air exchange if needed.

I do the same thing with hatchlings when transporting them long distances for shows. It keeps the deli-cups stacked neatly and there are never and spills or escapees.....plus you never have to worry about dropping them if they're secured within the "sock".

Good luck with the eggs. I hope you end up with a healthy clutch of babies.

Brandon Osborne

I swear by this stuff. I use to get flies every year and now for the past 3 years I've used the moss and no flies. The eggs will sometimes get stained but to no ill effect. The moss has a natural acidity to it that keeps bugs away...even on dying eggs.
Good luck.

Russ