Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know whether maintenance of orientation of eggs is critical from the moment they're laid, or becomes important at some interval thereafter?

I have a female laying eggs now for example and it's one of those clutches that are not all grouped together together. There's the odd single egg. I always try to gently encourage the females to crawl away from their clutches at their leisure after laying, rather than trying to wrestle them away from the clutch and perhaps disturbing the eggs during that wrestling match--the females often contract around a clutch if you try to pick them up to remove them, i've found.

So the occasional "loose" eggs concern me: Should i remove them at once and put them in place in the incubation box? Or does it not matter if they're moved some, partly rolled, re-oriented, by the female's movements as the finishes laying the rest of the eggs, so long as their orientation is maintained thereafter?

anyone got opinions? or better yet, facts?

terry

Terry, years ago I was curious about all the myths concerning touching eggs, misting them, turning them etc so I did a little experiment which follows. My intention wasn't to start turning eggs but just to see as in your case and others if eggs got rolled over during incubation if it would hurt them.

I decided to started an experiment using 4 good snake eggs(veins when candled). I wanted to know if turning snake eggs would hurt them. I know there is no reason to turn snake eggs and I don't recommend it but I was curious if all the talk about turning snakes eggs making them go bad was just as incorrect as most other don'ts such as (don't touch them with your bare hands, keep them at 100% humidity, don't let moldy eggs stay attached to good ones, keep at a constant temperature, etc). Most of these don'ts have proven to be false and are used as excuses when eggs go bad. Some just go bad and some were never fertilized even though they looked good. Things happen.

I started with 4 eggs from a Leucistic Texas Rat Snake that were layed on 6-28-99. I waited until I could candle all 4 eggs and see great veins in them. I decided to turn the eggs at different stages to see if it would hurt them. All were turned and none were to be at their original layed postion when hatching. Following is the turning schedule.

EGG ONE-- On 7-7-99 I turned it one half turn to the right and never bothered it again.

EGG TWO-- On 7-7-99 I turned it one quarter turn to the right and I turned it one quarter turn to the right every week until 8-21-99 with it being turned one and three quarters turns total.

EGG THREE--I turned this egg one half turn to the right on 8-4-99 about one half the way through incubation and never bothered it again.

EGG FOUR-- On 7-7-99 I turned this egg one half turn to the right and on 8-4-99 one half turn to the right again and on 8-21-99 one half turn to the right again for a total of one and one half total times.

All four eggs hatched on 9-4-99 with 4 perfect males.

Even though this grouping is too small for any real scientific findings it does show that in this case using Luecistic Texas Rat Snake eggs that turning them at these times did no harm.

"All four eggs hatched on 9-4-99 with 4 perfect males.

Even though this grouping is too small for any real scientific findings it does show that in this case using Luecistic Texas Rat Snake eggs that turning them at these times did no harm."

What do you mean did no harm? It is obvious that turning snake eggs makes them male!!

You can turn them to the left if you want females! LOL

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Chris Harrison

Last year I did turn my albino nelson¡¦s eggs. All four eggs hatch with one male and 3 females. And I remember I turn them many times before they hatch. I really don¡¦t think turn those eggs will effect anything.
Eric