Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I CAREFULLY removed the egg shell on a short-tail python egg about one week before it was due to hatch just to see how things were going. This is what I saw and the baby eventually hatched a runt at around 35g.

Very interesting Rich. Was that runt the only one you had hatch? I remember you posting pics of one awhile ago.. if not post some more, I wanna see!

jordan
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

I call him Stinker since he is a nippy little bugger!

He hatched 6/11/04 and has eaten two pinkies since. His skin is wrinkly but filling in fine otherwise.

Hey Rich,
Thanks for sharing that photo. Would you say that the babies weight was attributable to the premature pipping, although, it doesn't look to me as if any of the protective amniotic membrane was compromised by looking at the photo, and have you ever had runts in earlier clutches from the same pair, in the past?

-Angel
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"Until we lose our self, there is no way of finding our self."
-Henry Miller.

The runting is a result of other issues. Like many others, I had many infertile eggs this year and also many eggs die during various stages of incubation. I pipped this egg thinking it wasn't going to make it, but got much movement from him during handling the egg. The other egg I allowed to go and manually pipped on the date it was due, but it died exiting the egg. In both cases, the yolk was rock hard and only partially absorbed. My humidity was not low or so I thought so I am confused as to why this is happening.

Awesome photo, Rich! And thanks for the tour of your collection last week.
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Regards,
Bob Garby

It was a good time. Hey, thanks for the brews!