Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'll try to make a long story short.

Last year I incubated captive bred corn eggs and had a nice hatch rate.

No corn breeding this year but I "rescued' some eggs from the wild (long story not part of this post). Suspect black rat eggs.

Well the clutch was pretty dry when I got to it and using the same incubation methods as with my own corns last year I've been down to one egg since two weeks ago but it has/had the appearence of being a picture perfect egg.

It is "due" to hatch between now and the first week or so of August based on when I think it was put down.

The egg has recently dented big time (humidty is high). The Love's book says this is typical of egges 3 to 6 days before they hatch. Everything seems ok but this is day 5 and there is no movement with the egg.

I guess this entire post is to ask, when do I give up on this last one? I'm guessing the development is such that I could tell what it is even if it has spoiled in the last few days but I want to be reasonably patient.

One technique that I use to monitor the 'health' of egs is candling. It allows you to see inside enough to tell if there is proper development. The things I look for towards the end are:

-viens in the top of the egg w/a red hue to the surroundings.(veins are there from the first week after laying)
- candling the bottom 1/2 of the egg shows black, no light transmission) - this is an indication of the growing hatchling.

When candling 'bad' eggs, I see whine w/no veins or dark, no light transmission.

Try candling the egg. If you see distinct veins on the top side, keep going and be patient....

If candling is not possible, I would wait until the egg really looks bad. There have been posts where people note that the egg loked terrible but the nicest snake hatched....
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1.2 Albino Nelsoni Milksnakes
0.1 Snow Corn
0.4 Sunglow Corns
1.1 Albino Motley Corns
3.1.1 Albino Corns
bunch.bunch Bearded Dragons
2.6 Albino Leopord Geckos
2.0 Pictus Geckos
1 great wife
2 great boys
0.2 dogs (they're great too!!)

Yeah, guess the only real choice it to wait it out but, I don't have a good feeling about the egg. We'll see. It was plump and had good texture and moisture until 5 days ago when it dented major.

It is not changing colors or solidifying though. Still holding white but it's really concave now.