Reptile & Amphibian Forums

just thought I would post some interesting information about a clutch of seven eggs that just hatched out a couple of days ago from my eastern indigos. This particular clutch, nine eggs - two were infertile right from the get go - incubated at temps ranging from 76 deg F to approx. 79.5 deg F, hatched out between day 81 and 82....very short considering most of my previous clutches hatched out at the 100 day interval. Anyone else experiencing rapid egg development and subsequent hatching? The babies are BIG, robust and in perfect condition. If I can ever figure out how to post pics, I will! Rob

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
City of Lake Forest Parks & Recreation (IL)

Hi Rob! Glad to hear that all are out & doing well!
I'll be glad to post them if you e-mail them to me.

Eric

Dean had a clutch of Texans and I think a clutch of Easterns hatch this year in record time, too.

One thing that Dean changed was lowering the incubation humidity for those clutches. What sort of humidity level did you use for your Easterns?
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We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

There seems to be a lot of this going around. Rob…seriously, you just beat me to a similar post I was going to make!

My Texans hatched after only 77 days, and were all out by 80 days! That’s the fastest I’ve ever heard of.
My eastern clutch started pipping at 84 days and had all emerged by day 87.

These were all incubated between 76-79 F.

I have NEVER had ANY Drymarchon clutch start pipping faster than 90 days !! This stuff is incredible!
As Oldherper mentioned, I incubated much less humid this year.

As many of you know, I use the damp cloth method. Biggest change was that in the past, the bottom cloth was actually damp, this year, it was still very humid in the egg containers from misting, but the substrate itself was relatively dry.

I did this on the Texans first as an experiment…my thought was that if they started to “dent” that would mean it was too dry…but they never did, and looked great.

End result: All the babies are BIG, FAT and PERFECT. Not a single, tiny imperfection of any kind on any of them…and they hatched faster. Also…it was not uncommon in the past for my babies to take a week or more before an entire clutch had emerged. This time, from first pip to all of the babies completely out…was less than 72 hours.

Is it possible that all this “kinking” is a result of too high humidity rather than temp. related ??

Something to ponder…
Rob: did you incubate yours drier than usual?

PS: I noticed Virgil’s Texans hatched in very short time as well…I think like 84-86 days.

For comparison, I am incubating my black and Louisiana pine eggs in sphagnum moss this year as oppposed to vermiculite in past years. It is much drier in there, yet all these huge eggs are doing very well, no eggs lost and no dimples. I suggested in the kingsnake forum a while ago about using 0.7 :1 or lower water to substrate ratio (by weight) for incubating medium. I think getting air (Not too much to dry the eggs out) into the tiny pore spaces of the medium is more important than water.
I think I have seen articles in the Journal of Herpetology and/or Herpetological Review where snapping turtle eggs incubated in drier medium hatch out sooner and are more vigorous than companions hatched in wetter substrate.
Finally, in a book published in 1992 edited by Deeming and Ferguson "Egg Incubation: Its effects on embryonic development in birds and reptiles", one of the contributors states that the metabolism of lipids in the egg generates water.( I will have to look for the chapter/author to give an exact reference. From an evolutionary standpoint I think that makes sense- get up on dry land away from the swamp, and lay eggs that contribute to making their own water on the way as they grow. I don't suggest (YET) that eggs do not absorb water but I bet they make more and absorb less under normal conditions (= well drained substrate such as sandy soil or organic material) than I used to think. This makes me interested in trying to incubate my eggs in the "no substrate method" advocated by the Avey incubator folks, and study what happens.

Dave Boyle
(oh by the way, I would love to work with Indigos some day...)
I don't compare apples to oranges (pines: indigos) but here is one of my friends.

This is a worthwhile project to experiment with.

I wish I had a corn snake or something ready to lay now.

Next year...I think I'm going to take a clutch of corn snake eggs, separate them and expose them to varying amounts of moisture from none to very wet and everywhere in-between and record the results.

then I read about on these forums. I also have never had an egg go bad if it was fertile. Common Kings, Mountain Kings (Az,
Cal, knoblocki) Grey-bands (thayeri, Blair's, mex mex) Rat snakes (corns, Trans-Pecos), Black-Tailed Cribo, erebbenus, milk snakes, spotted turtle, North American Wood turtle, anolis lizards, Tree Lizards, all on the driest medium I could manage without deflating the eggs. (13 out of 13 knoblocki eggs this year, and 6 out of 6 Az Mt Kings--routine, by my experience)

I let the eggs tell me what to do. I start them on a humid environment, and if they deflate, I put a paper towel, moistened and squeezed out as much as possibe over them for a few days. When they reinflate, I take the towel out. Even if no more moisture is added, they almost always stay inflated. I think they may just need a "drink" to start them off, and then enough humidity to maintain, but I've seen many herp egg clutches in the wild, and the soil under the rock, or the compost in the log has always felt almost dry to my touch.

It's my opinion that herp eggs need to breathe, that's why I use Sphagnum--lots of fluff supporting the eggs. The sphagnum in contact with the eggs is practically dry, but the air in the jar is pretty humid--95%, according to my Big Apple hygrometer. There is some water puddling at the bottom of the sphagnum column, but that's about three inches below the eggs.

Drymarchon eggs are so precious, who wants to tinker with even 50-50 success, and risk losing a whole clutch to an experiment? I don't have any Dry eggs of my own, or I'd use the sphagnum method and post the results. Is there anyone willing to switch away from Vermiculite or damp cloths to try a batch on sphagnum? Scary, but what if the results are spectacular? I wouldn't blame anyone for not messing with success, and my system probably works for me because I've adapted to it--I know without even knowing how I know (what?) how to care for eggs using this system, for the last 35 years.

I have used spagnum...didn't like it b/c I ended up with little flying insects.

I don't have 50/50 success...I have about 99% success with fertile eggs. I'm not tinkering with my cloth method...especially now the lower humidity seems to have nailed it. I believe that the few fertile eggs I have lost are simply babies that were not meant to be, and not incubation related.

Like you...I have always let the eggs tell me what to do. When I start seeing abnormal swellings..."tomours" etc...that means the humidty is too high. This tends to happen when the eggs aretouching damp substrate. If allowed to contine, it can cause the egg to spit from the swelling. I actually had this happen once, but was able to save the egg by wrapping it in electrical tape!

"windowing" or the shells turning clear in spots always seems to mean too much moisture as well.

to stick with any system that's working for you, especially with Drys. I know you have excellent results, and have for some time. I was thinking along the lines that even a hypothetical 50-50 success looks better than risky fiddling with incubation techniques that aren't quite tried and true for this species. The fact that a technique is working should weigh heavily in any consideration of trying another.

I will say, though, that I don't recall getting any insects in my incubation medium, although I wouldn't be surprised. Sphagnum is a product o' nature, and I doubt any real effort is made during harvest and packaging to eliminate insects. I suspect your insects, if they were tiny and black, were Sciarid flies--"Fungus Gnats". Nuisance, but no threat to the eggs. If they were Phorids, that's different. Phorid maggots are generalists and might be able to feed on eggshells. Phorids are those nasty little flies that resemble fruit flies, but show up in herp cages, laying eggs on droppings, dead food, etc. (How come Phorid eggs don't have incubation problems?)

I certainly haven't incubated as many Dry eggs as you have, and it's the people who work with a species the most that develop insights into best care that only experience can bring.

You have saved eggs with electical tape? Holy cats. I would not have thought of that. The Apollo 13 mission was saved with duct tape, so I guess I should be more respectful of the possibilities....

Let me tell you the story...it was 2002...

Actually, it was the year I used the sp. moss...and I got the little Phorids you describe. The damn little bastards were a pain in the @$$. I'm sure I had it too damp.

One of the eggs had developed a swelling from too much moisture, and it actually began to ooze fluid from a pin-sized hole that one of the little bugs must have made in the egg right in the swollen area, where the shell was softer and thinner.

So...I put a little piece of electic tape over the hole.
...it wouldn't stick because of the moisture...and daily I'd check this egg and it would always be oozing.

One day ...there were actually little tiny Phorid MAGGOTS coming out of the hole in the egg !!

I freaked and removed the egg from the clutch and put it by itself. One by one I pulled the little maggots from the hole in the egg. (this story is too good to be made up, right?)

I went back of course to the damp coth method...

Anyway...for a solid week or so, I pulled maggots DAILY from the egg as I could not get rid of the flies, and the tape would not stick to the open hole in the egg. I figured the inside must be crawling with maggots and the fetus likely dead.

In one last effort, I wrapped almost the ENTIRE egg in electrical tape! Wrapped and wrapped. I left only a few places where you could even SEE the white of the shell. This kept the maggots out.

In a few weeks (3-4) when the first baby of the clutch pipped, I
opened this egg and dumped out it's contents.

A perfect little female.

She shed and started feeding on fish almost immediately, and was one of the first in the group to start taking f/t fuzzies.

Happy ending for "tapey" as I call her.

That's a pretty good story! I would have never thought to wrap the whole thing in electrical tape. It must have been pretty far along in the incubation.

One time I got impatient waiting for a clutch to hatch, they hadn't even started to pip about a week after I thought they should have hatched. I cut a half-inch slit in one to see what was going on. I saw a fully developed baby in there MOVING AROUND. I felt like a complete idiot, and I freaked out. I tried to patch the hole with a small piece of scotch tape, but it wouldn't stick. I tried a bigger piece and it stuck on the ends, but it still oozed out from under the tape by the slit. But, that gave me an idea. I used a Band-Aid. The pad absorbed some of the fluid but it sort of coagulated and stopped the oozing. The eggs all hatched about 2 days later. I NEVER did that again.
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We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

i don't know that much about insects and [fruit?] flies have been a problem in the past. i don't enjoy opening up egg boxes to find well established cultures/colonies living large in there so now i keep ALL fruit outside during the summer. this has vastly cut back on the little buggers in the house. also, i have a clutch of hypo sonorans about to be delivered. i'm kinda curious and think dean may be on to something. i'm gonna place them on dry vermiculite and just mist the sides and top. i have a high hatch rate but my eggs seem to take 'forever' as compared to others i have heard from or read about. i think there's something to this. i also have alot of turtle eggs out in the yard which i periodically check in on and it seems to me that they are doing quite well in a rather dry enviroment.....much drier than the ones i brought inside. we'll see who hatches first...........

Dean, I did indeed incubate drier than normal, however, it wasn't necessarily by design (although I would like to tell everyone how much time and effort I put into manipulating variables such as humidity to get the optimal clutch). I was out of town quite a bit leading high school/college level herpetology field studies so the eggs were not given the attention that I normally give them....and that is perhaps where they benefited most! I, too, kept the substrate (vermiculite) drier than normal and only introduced extra water via a long syringe that was targeted around the rim of the container; no where near the eggs. The humidity levels were high inside, however, the substrate was drier than normal and as such, probably kept humidity levels at a better level inside the chamber. Maybe we have all stumbled on to something important....now if we only had some field data to compare to ! These are by far the biggest, fattest and healthiest babies I have ever had so who knows. Lets see what happens next year! Rob

I too did not incubate the Kings at a lower humidity intentionally, but it turned out for the best anyway.
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CB

"I'm a truckin bassmole, and proud of it"

I have seen this with King cobras, (O. hannah) and although I seen no difference in hatching time, I have seen the snakes to be a little larger & easier to start feeding (less kinked ones too) when incubated at a lower humidity. This is good stuff. You Indigo guys rock!! Keep up the good work.
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CB

"I'm a truckin bassmole, and proud of it"