Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Two look really caved in, but I'm not ruling anything out until they stink...The damned little guy's still sitting in his egg, soon it would have remained in there for 72 hours after slitting...crazy little guy...I am getting more and more anxious as the hour goes by... anyways, here's a pic of the clutch..
pic

Dead, dead, all dead, well actually the one in the lower left hand corner may not be dead yet, but it will be soon.

I do not know if you read varanus.net, but I believe I have mentioned many times, you cannot let odatria eggs cave in from dryness. Its a death sentence.(of course, exceptions do occur)

Again, odatria eggs specially kimberlys do not have room for error. Larger eggs have lots of room for error.

I know people are always saying this and that about this is harder and that is harder, when it comes to species and eggs. But the answer is plain and simple, the species with smaller eggs are harder. Heres why. There is less room for error. With kimberlys or other species with tiny eggs that large babies come out of. Take kimberly eggs, there is a baby kimberly and a couple drops of water in a egg thats ready to hatch. Now take any larger egg(varius, crocs, albigs, prasinus) With these, you have the babie and three spoonfuls of water. Now, which one is more sensitive? Its only common sense, you have to be more careful with the tiny eggs.

With larger monitor eggs, we commonly allow them to soften and cave in slightly, this is not a problem and indeed may be of some benefit, if only a bit safer due to our lack of understanding and incubation methods. Again with tiny eggs, you do not have that luxury.

Also remember this. Its really not all that important if some eggs die for you to learn. In reality, if you are keeping your monitors right, they will throw more eggs at you then you have the ability to handle. For instance a single Kimberly female can throw over 60 eggs per season, what if you have more then one female, what are you going to do with that? So you are not so good at it, your female may only give you 40 eggs. Get over it and learn how to hatch eggs. What are you going to do when you kill the bluetree eggs???????? First off, get larger containers to hatch the eggs in. Mass is safty, prevents your having the oppertunity to make errors.

Lastly, Hatching of the eggs is like touching home plate(baseball) You cannot score(it doesn't count) without touching home plate, but you do have to touch the other bases to get there. So not hatching is the same as if they never bred, the score is still zero. Which means, this last step is the most important, because without it, the other steps are meaningless. I hope this does not apply to you, but its common for people to invest tens of thousands of dollars into keeping and breeding monitors, yet do not want to pay over $50 for the final important step, incubation. We built a room for incubation, while that sounds extravigant, the room cost less then one Lacie or in your case, less then a pair of bluetrees. FR

Hey frank, thanks for the info, although I do know that the egg that slit is still good, for I felt the baby inside move around when I picked it up. FOr the others, you may be right, but I'm not ruling anything out..

I am regretting not setting the eggs up in larger containers with more perlite, for the whole mass thing makes total sense to me now, which is something that I did not even think about earlier on. I guess without mistakes, how are we supposed to learn?? Better luck next time... By the way Frank, you speak of 60 eggs from a single female glauerti...what was the largest clutch size(count) that you've ever recieved from them? Just curious...

Thanks again, I'll let you know if anything in fact does happen..

Hey Bob,

Hope you are lucky and that some may hatch for you. The two eggs I had looked great until the last two weeks and then turned yellow and grey. I cut them open to see two fully formed but tiny ackies. I'm certain I did not have enough humidity, probably should not have used vermiculite and should have used a bigger container. I asked a number of times but never got a response as to humidity levels, so I had to guess. Unfortunately I guessed wrong.
*Frank, how much humidity should the incubator have?*
I am hoping to have another batch of eggs in the future, so as you said in your previous post, I have learned something, so will apply it to a future clutch.

Good luck Bob.

Pam

I do not measure humidity, never have, so I have no idea.

The reason is, humidity has only a little to do with it. They can and do hatch from about 50% to 100%, depending on temperature, conditions, etc(actually way more then I understand)

I do not incubate water, I incubate eggs. That may sound weird, but its not. Worrying about humidity is incubatine water. I look at the eggs to see if the conditions are proper. If the eggs are full, thats fine. It they are hard, thats too much effective moisture. If they are soft, then its to little effective moisture. It actually do not matter what the humidity is, its the eggs that are important.

There are many reasons for this approach. But I will say, a box of eggs will act entirely in different incubators, even if set at the exact same conditions. For instance, I have a room and several large incubators. In one there is condensation on the lid, in the other there is condensation on the sides, in the room there is no condensation what so ever. All with the same box and same amount of water. FR

Hahahahahahahahahha surely if the baby slit the egg, it was alive, but it only takes a second to die. I will bet its dead now. Now don't be wanting me to buy you a thousand dollar foo foo girly drink. Is it a bet?

With kimberlys a dozen eggs a clutch was common. With young females, four to six was common. That is simply about age and support. Thanks FR

but, I agree to it...see you in daytona...

bigger container is needed. Remember the eggs are breathing. Small container is like a bunch of guy's at the bottom of the ocean in a submarine. Eventually the O2 is replaced by CO2.

So allow space so them egg's can breath next time.

My two Timor's eggs look like the top right and bottom center ones. They just started caving in over the past two days. What a heartbreaker. I added more moisture to the vermiculite as soon as the dimpling started, but it's getting worse. I'll still let them sit until they start to smell though.