Reptile & Amphibian Forums

"Hatchling" being a stretch, as I removed this little guy from his egg about a week shy of 58 days when he had died. The entire clutch was weird for me - 6 slugs and one fertilized egg. The one fertilized egg started growing pink mold in the first week of incubation. Incubation temp was 87-89.

Anyone have a suggestion as to what this is? Clown maybe? He is the offspring of a farmed baby ('99) bred back to his '02 daughter - I've always had a suspicion that *something* was going on with the male and I think I was right.

The color is pretty accurate, but since he died early, I have no idea what his true color is. He was already preserved when I took this picture.

Elizabeth (back to lurking for a few years)

That's rough! Regardless of whether it would've been genetic or not, that would've been an awesome looking animal. Now the game is on though, and should make things a little more interesting for you. Can you duplicate the results, but with more fertile eggs, and viable offspring this season? This would definitely get me on a quest so to speak. Best of luck, sorry things didn't work out this time around for you. Take care

Paul

yeah you most deafinetly have to try and breed those two again and see if you can duplicate this again. now the question is what was your humidity? Mold doesnt typicaly grow unless its overly humid.
So do you have a pic of this father and mother that produced this interesting baby? would love to see what the dad looks like

also what was the age and size of the female? was she young and was this her first clutch? I am not a breeder but age and being the first clutch might have something to do with it. Could also be whatever genetic trait that dad might have might just make it hard to reproduce like it does in some morphs. but hey what the heck do i know i am blonde and part polish. lol

Snakes that don't make it fullterm or stop developing before hatching look like this & a couple of other pics that have been posted here. It's nothing abnormal, cut an egg a while before its due-date, and you will see.
-----
Chad Bachman

No, I don't expect anybody to believe me, but I'm right.
-----
Chad Bachman

lol

I seem to remember reading such before.
"Ringer" bp's are from an egg deformity as well,arent they?
-----
3.12 Ball Pythons
0.1 Mutant Thayeri

I have no idea about the ringer's.
-----
Chad Bachman

Actually, I have done exactly that, and while the color changes dramatically in the last few days of incubation, that snake has a very abberant pattern, which would NOT have changed. Definitely worth a rebreed.

>>Snakes that don't make it fullterm or stop developing before hatching look like this & a couple of other pics that have been posted here. It's nothing abnormal, cut an egg a while before its due-date, and you will see.
>>-----
>>Chad Bachman

I've had plenty of snakes die in the egg, and yes, many of them have aberrant patterns, but all the healthy live babies looked exactly like they were supposed to. Why can't you people see this.
-----
Chad Bachman

The ones that HATCHED were normal. The ones that didn't survive were abberant....this can be due to several things. Improper incubation temperature being a key factor. So, the DEAD BABIES had abberant patterns....they DIED....this does NOT mean the surviving hatchlings were also striped or abberant at one point and became normal. It means that baby that DIED was abberant, and IT did NOT make it. Please explain your logic that healthy babies hatched out when abberant babies died in the egg, so there is our proof that the pattern changes during incubation. To PROVE your theory, your going to have to open an egg during incubation and find a striped baby, and follow that babies development from then on. As the pattern changes, you can take pictures to show the development from STRIPED to NORMAL during the course of incubation. Slitting an egg of a DEAD BABY does NOT prove your theory, as there is no way to prove that this animal would have ended up normal. It's your arguement, provide us this proof. If you provide PROOF, not assumptions, I'll be the first to say I apologize, you were correct. Until then, you have no right to say we're wrong when our own proof is as strong if not stronger than your own. Take care

So why is it that I am wrong? I gave my opinion, and I believe I am 100% correct. Prove me wrong thats all, then I will be the A$$ you say I am.

I never meant for this to turn into a flame war, but thats KS for ya. You like to resort to name calling...very professional there bub...LOL If I am proved wrong I will apologize for my opinion. This is getting rediculous!

Peace,
-----
Chad Bachman

WOW...this is all your opinion?? You surely didn't express it as such. I think I saw you say a few times that you KNOW your right....because. Try to turn the topic onto something else by pointing out the "name calling". This tactic is sad. Real life...act like an A$$ and people will point it out. This is the only place I see people try to act like they're all of a sudden better than the other guy because he wasn't afraid to state the obvious. Development of embryos has been studied, do some research and then come back and prove your "opinion". If your going to try to skate out of something because it was only your "opinion" and now we're being mean to you....make it clear that your stating ONLY your OPINION from the get go, not AFTER you start getting questioned on it. As far as having to prove something to see you become an A$$....I've already seen it, check out your posts for yourself. And to clarify, I'm being one myself RIGHT NOW! See ya.

All of them???? Even an albino or a pied??????

No we cant believe you and no you cant be right...... stuff like that is caused by problems in incubation or another outside problem..... if you were to cut a healthy egg before term the babies might have a difference in color but not really in pattern. If that was the case then you are saying that if that snake in that pic were to go full term then that black back would have turned into a normal snake? Not likely...

Not trying to bash here just asking you to rethink your theory...

Raul

Trust me, snakes look completely different if they are not fully formed.

Lets see all these super producers throw a healthy animal that actually lives, then I will be wrong. This is just common sense people, look at the animal!!!! You are the great breeder, and you should know better....Duh!
-----
Chad Bachman

ok so hold on for one sec..... if that snake would go full term it would have hatched out totally normal???? Think about it before you answer......

and if you get alot of premature crazy patterned babies you should check your incubation temps...... really .......

That snake did not look like that because it was premature.... it was going to be born like that or whatever caused it to look like that caused it to die as well......

Raul

That pattern is messed up because the embryo died before full development. No question.

It would have hatched normal.

At least somebody knows. I have a friend that produces Black-necked spitting cobras every year, and one year he had a messed up babie, (died in egg or shortly after hatching) now they normaly hatch out a solid slate grey color with a black head, and orange throat, but this screwed up baby was banded, with white bands throughout its whole body. Very cool looking, but nothing but a srewed up snake.

For the post above.........YES THEY ARE USUALLY NOT PATTERNED NORMALLY UNTIL CLOSE TO HATCHING TIME. It all depends on how close they were before they stopped developing. Ask any large-scale breeder, and they will tell you guys the same thing, cuz it has happened to them on countless occasions also.
-----
Chad Bachman

Have you ever stopped to consider that the pattern abberancies and the death might be interlinked? I've witnessed a few very abberant dead in egg babies like what you refer to. Perhaps the change (whether genetic or environmental) that caused the abberancy also reduced the viability of the embryo.

Also, have you determined if the ringed color pattern in the cobras is simply not a developmental stage that is normal for that species. Many animals have changing patterns as they mature. It's not so difficult to believe that might be the case for your cobra. On the other hand, while color can certainly change as a ball python matures, how many people have seen the pattern shift? ID photos would be useless. I find it incredibly hard to believe that ball pythons, in the 15-20 days prior to hatching have an ability to change their patterns that then completely ceases to exist once they emerge from the egg.

The only way you can say for sure that a particular oddly patterned ball python would hatch with a normal pattern would be to slit the egg and watch them develop. Show me pictures. I have done this with four different species and never saw this happen. If it had a stripe when it was grey and colorless, it had a stripe when it was brown and tan. Granted, I've only done this a couple dozen times, so if there is proof out there of the magical changing pattern snakes, please let it come forth.

>>At least somebody knows. I have a friend that produces Black-necked spitting cobras every year, and one year he had a messed up babie, (died in egg or shortly after hatching) now they normaly hatch out a solid slate grey color with a black head, and orange throat, but this screwed up baby was banded, with white bands throughout its whole body. Very cool looking, but nothing but a srewed up snake.
>>
>>For the post above.........YES THEY ARE USUALLY NOT PATTERNED NORMALLY UNTIL CLOSE TO HATCHING TIME. It all depends on how close they were before they stopped developing. Ask any large-scale breeder, and they will tell you guys the same thing, cuz it has happened to them on countless occasions also.
>>-----
>>Chad Bachman

I agree that it seems unlikely the pattern could change much that late but I haven't done any experiments to test it.

It would be hard to cut up healthy eggs to put it to the test.

I wonder if the premature babies that have been seen where most all ones that where cut after death and whatever killed them also caused them to have an odd pattern. Has anyone really cut open healthy eggs early to see what the pattern looks like or where they just eggs that looked to be dead. I guess I’m just seeing a possibility of bias toward problem eggs in the premature babies that have been seen so far and that it might be the stress of the problems that cause the odd patterns.

Was it the Color Guide to Corn Snakes that had the pic of the odd striped corn that was attacked early by mold? Of course even the mold could also have been a symptom of some other problem that caused both the odd pattern and the death.

Definitely breed the pair again just in case but my guess is this is another example of egg stress.

I believe the animals pattern stopped developing well before he cut the egg.
-----
Chad Bachman

But why did it stop developing with that particular pattern? I'm thinking that there was something way wrong with this egg that caused both that weird pattern and the snake to die.

I'm thinking that if you are seeing lots of weird pattern late term eggs they are probably mostly eggs that had something wrong early on that caused the weird pattern. I don't think seeing odd patterned late term problem eggs is a good test to indicate that healthy eggs undergo pattern changes late. I think the sample is way biased toward problem eggs because I know I'm not ready to cut up good eggs to answer the question of when the pattern stops changing. It’s an interesting question as to how and when the pattern forms but to really do it right you should randomly pick lots of good eggs to open at random times, not just look at eggs that die early.

Usualyy eggs that were moldy. Not Ball pythons though.
-----
Chad Bachman

Read back...before you stated that the snakes Pattern changes dramatically in the last week of developement not JUST color.

I don't doubt at ALL that if that snake was a morph and had gone full term its color would be different than the color seen in the picture, but it still would have had a cool pattern.

And Elizabeth, good luck with that pair. I hope you get some pretty babies out of her next year.

Matt

"There is a problem with getting on the high horse, it hurts more when you fall off it."

I never said the pattern would change dramatically in the last week of incubation. I know better. The pattern stopped developing at some point...Nuff said!!

They will breed them again, and everybody will see.
-----
Chad Bachman

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=599245,599462

Pattern formation happens quite early in embryogenesis. That snake was close to term and would have hatched with that pattern. It is impossible for the entire makeup of the dermis to shift and lay down an entirely new pattern in a few days, that just doesn't happen in ball pythons. Even in other species it only happens after months of post-partem development.
As someone mentioned earlier, many times if you cut open eggs that didn't hatch you will find a pattern anomoly. This is often due to the fact that the same early embryonic genes that play a role in pattern formation play another role in development and the mutation that changed the pattern caused another change that was lethal to the snake. Heck, in corns it seems that most of my snakes that don't hatch have some weird pattern anomoly.

That snake looks like that because something went wrong and it died not because it was premature....

You guys are not understanding whats going on here

Raul

I think we are the only ones understanding what is going on.
-----
Chad Bachman

I have to agree with Raul. The pattern is not going to go from striped to normal. If you cut the egg early enough, your going to think you have lucy's...right??? Well, then the pattern starts to come in, and then the color. The pattern doesn't start off striped and then go to normal. I would say at minimum, incorrect temperatures or some other outside source created the abberancy, but to say given a couple weeks, that pattern would've ended up completely normal seems a little skewed. I have slit eggs early, and I can promise you I've NEVER seen a striped baby, let alone a striped that ended up coming out normally patterned. I have seen axanthic looking normals pipped early, but then regular color comes in and that look goes away, but the pattern remained the same. The cobra isn't proof of anything. One snake, one time....temperature problem, genetic mutation that due to the weak gene didn't survive, who can prove what that was??? You definitely can't use it to support an arguement as your findings are assumptions. On the small chance that the animal was genetic, and a viable animal with this phenotype could be produced, I'd be sure to try the breeding again. What is there to lose by doing so? As far as being quick to slam the genetics of an animal, how many people laughed off Yellow Bellies???? If this situation happened in your incubator, would you have this same mentality? Whatever, take care!

Paul

This thread has already turned into a pi$$ing match, which is why I don't post here anymore.

Since I knew from the beginning that this egg wasn't doing great, I checked almost daily for movement/signs of life.

The baby was alive until about day 51/52. I opened it on day 52/53. Just going by this, I can't tell when development stopped. He was close to normal hatchling size, I didn't weigh him, I didn't weigh the egg at the start of incubation or the finish, and I don't have a chart of normal egg development in front of me. From what I understand, pattern is set pretty early (you can even see this fairly early when you candle) and color was late in development. This pattern wouldn't have changed.

I have actually slit healthy eggs as early as this before - the first year I incubated at cooler temps. The hatchlings looked slightly lighter but were normal in pattern. By the time they hatched, they had darkened to normal coloring.

Obviously, something went very wrong with this little guy. Even if he had survived long enough to make it to hatch date, I doubt he would have lived. Just looking at his head you can tell that he didn't develop properly. If there had been other viable eggs in the clutch, I'd have a better idea of what was going on patternwise/developmentwise/whatever. I do plan on trying this breeding again, maybe in '05

I just thought it was an interesting baby.

Elizabeth

It might be genetic.....it might not.....

Breed them again get some more eggs and find out.

Might be a clown.....might be something else... keep us updated.

Whatever it was it wasnt a premature "normal". Either it was meant to look like this or something during incubation messed everything up.

Good luck
Raul

How all these super cool hatchlings never live. Remember the awsome pastel, and the sweet pied??? Both animals are in freezers right now. The snake in the pic would not have looked like that, if it had developed properly & went full term..No doubt in my mind.
-----
Chad Bachman

really????

Ringers???????

Jungles???????

what are those?????

That snake was either going to be born like that or whatever caused the snake to get that pattern also caused it to die... no pre mature snake looks like that then changes pattern right before it hatches......nope wont happen

changes in incubation or other factors cause snakes to have weird patterns some of them make it some of them dont..

The snake in this pic is either genetic or it was screwed in the incubator...either way it was never going to be born looking normal........period!

Raul

And when a snake developes its pattern....It happens over night??? What?
-----
Chad Bachman

Breed them next year, and hatch out a healthy animal that looks like the one you posted, and prove me wrong. I doubt you will prove anything, but me being right.,,LOL

WHISHFUL THINKERS YOU GUYS ARE!!!
-----
Chad Bachman

LOL all you want. You're not right. And neither am I. You are, however, stating your opinion and you're more than welcome to it.

Worst case I end up with a clutch of healthy *NORMAL* ball pythons, which is my ultimate goal. Heck, I payed $20 for the male, a farmed hatchling and I bred the female myself. They don't "owe" me anything. LOL! LOL! HAHAHA! I don't make a million dollars! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! "Look Ma, some stupid fool on k.com thinks they have the next new morph.......some stupid, ugly dead baby ball python in this here picture.....must be a flamin' idjiot!" - something I never said, but you seem to keep implying.

I have sold very few of my babies. I *GIVE* them away. How's that for "in it for the money". Hey, I must be even **stupider** than even *you* thought.

Laugh away. I know I am.

Elizabeth (who is still a female)

I never intended to upset you with my opinion, but isn't that why this forum is here? I never once said you were in it for the money, take it easy, this whole thread is pretty funny actually.

PS...I have also given away many hatchlings to friends.

If it makes you feel any better,I am an A$$ for having my own opinion, PBM already made that clear, and I doubt he would tell me that to my face without any of his buddies around LOL. I'm trying very hard to not get ignorant with my replies.

-----
Chad Bachman

Try and keep up here while I state what happened to that snake.... for the FOURTH time!!!!!

It either was going to be born looking like that or whatever caused that pattern also killed it.....

I dont remember sayin that this was in any way genetic......it might be.....but she has to breed the snakes again to know for sure.......

This started because you said all normal premature ball pythons have weird patterns and then magically change to normal before birth...... in Chads world maybe..... in the real world no freaking way....

I have seen guys like you on here over the years.... you swear you know everything but dont know jack.......you will fade and another one like you will take your place...... this is you 15 minutes.... enjoy......

Later man
Raul

You are telling me that a snakes pattern is just one day there?? It doesn't slowly develope pattern, but just mysteriously appears huh??

I sure, because I have seen the same thing before.

Now, if you want to get nasty, I can do that too.
-----
Chad Bachman

I'm a fly-by-night keeper ha?? You really got me pegged dont you??LOL
-----
Chad Bachman

Joe I hope you dont mind man.....

is it dead???? is it genetic???? is it a premie?????

Sleep on it man

sorry again Joe....just trying to prove a point man....

A snake starts developing pattern at some point during incubation. The pattern is not normal when it starts to develope (it takes time). Now if something goes wrong & the patterning process is inhibited & stopped (because the animal is having problems developing properly), than yes, you will get weak babies that die shortly after hatching, or die in the egg with a funky pattern, (this is not always the case, but it does happen). The whole point is, it is a dead snake for a reason, and the rest of the clutch didn't fair so well either (something seriously wrong with the whole clutch IMO).

The two snakes you posted are cute, prove them out. I don't know what they are. First looks like a jungle & second, I have no idea, I didn't produce them, so why should I know what they are?
-----
Chad Bachman

lol wow you just proved yourself wrong.......

Thanks
Raul

Hows that?
-----
Chad Bachman

Joe you are going to kill me lol....

These snake were just born like this..... why were the born with different patterns and colors???

Something happened during incubation.....but they lived....

so if the snake that Liz posted would have lived it would have had a crazy pattern..... It happens....

But no not ALL normals start of with crazy patterns..

Raul

WOW! Truly, you are an A@@! Okay, producing all normals will prove you right, how? You are stating your assumption as fact, and you can't back it up. You asked to have big breeders tell us your right. Well, I haven't seen that happen yet, have you? The cobra story was nice, but again, can you prove your ASSUMPTION on that is right? It's nice to see that you have great confidence in your opinion. Now, if you look hard enough, you can find pics of baby ball python eggs slit at various times during incubation. Find some of animals pipped at any day during incubation(since this case is the arguement) after day 50 where the animal was striped yet once ready to come out of the egg, the pattern became normal. Then we will all have the proof of you being RIGHT. The result of Elizabeths next 100 litters will not prove anything to defend your case. Since you are the one that started this stream of BS, I would say it's your burden to provide your own proof. Look forward to it. Take care!

At least there are a couple of people on this board capable of scientific thought! I was going to attempt to put forth this very same argument but somehow felt I'd be talking to a wall.

bachman...you really need to take a genetics course. There are so many explanations for abberancies, you obviously are not grasping them all.

On another note, I recently hatched a sunglow motley cornsnake (or at least it should have been) that was literally tiger striped. It was weak and died three weeks after hatching. Something, presumably linked to whatever also caused the pattern abberancy, affected the snake's ability to survive. Do I ever expect to produce another just like it from the same parents? NO.

>>WOW! Truly, you are an A@@! Okay, producing all normals will prove you right, how? You are stating your assumption as fact, and you can't back it up. You asked to have big breeders tell us your right. Well, I haven't seen that happen yet, have you? The cobra story was nice, but again, can you prove your ASSUMPTION on that is right? It's nice to see that you have great confidence in your opinion. Now, if you look hard enough, you can find pics of baby ball python eggs slit at various times during incubation. Find some of animals pipped at any day during incubation(since this case is the arguement) after day 50 where the animal was striped yet once ready to come out of the egg, the pattern became normal. Then we will all have the proof of you being RIGHT. The result of Elizabeths next 100 litters will not prove anything to defend your case. Since you are the one that started this stream of BS, I would say it's your burden to provide your own proof. Look forward to it. Take care!

making my whole point.
-----
Chad Bachman

Hahahaha

You Said that EVERY PREMATURE SNAKE LOOKS LIKE THE ONE IN THE PIC!!!! And now he proves your point??????

You have to be kidding me...

Raul

I never said all premature snakes look like the one in the pic. Where are you getting this from.
-----
Chad Bachman

"Snakes that don't make it fullterm or stop developing before hatching look like this & a couple of other pics that have been posted here. It's nothing abnormal, cut an egg a while before its due-date, and you will see."

your first post man

Raul

I should have said they can look like this. I know what I meant.

I have my opinion, and you have yours. I'm bored with this nonsense. I never realized my opinion could get so many peoples' panties in a bunch..LOL
-----
Chad Bachman

You're kidding right?

Raul, PBM, Randy, and myself have been saying all along that the snake might not be a reproducible trait. As a matter of fact, we've been attributing it's abnormal appearance to some defect, (whether the cause was at conception or occurred latter in development is unknown) which also ultimately resulted in it's death.

You, on the other hand have been insisiting that the snake died at at "normal" state of pattern development, and that ALL normal babies look JUST LIKE IT at that stage.

Are we getting clearer yet?

>>I never said all premature snakes look like the one in the pic. Where are you getting this from.
>>-----
>>Chad Bachman

I was, and still am insisting the the snakes patterning stopped developing before the egg was cut. Everybody says it would have hatched like that, but guess what?? It didn't hatch. I have seen animals that looked similar (not exactly) and they were dead-in-egg also, seems like a pattern to me.

I'm done, ya'll got my opinion, and I got all yours.
-----
Chad Bachman

The pattern DOES NOT CHANGE that far along in the incubation process..............

You mentioned that you cut the egg a week shy of 58 days...........whatever pattern the snake is going to have will be whatever you see if you were to look in the egg at that time................the only thing that will not be accurate are the colors which set in during the last 4-5 days of the incubation process..........and actually still are ongoing after hatching........which is noticable after the first shed.......a week or so later.

I know this because in my own experiments I open and observe embryonic snakes developing........

That ball you unfortunaetly had to remove from your egg was definaetly going to be a looker.........

it does also look to be a form of "jungle" fom the appearence of the striping and head pattern which is slightly visible in the pic........

if it were not a jungle type..........it would have been a remarkable black back which is one of my favorite morphs......

I would definaetly agree that you should re-pair the same parents that produced this clutch..........you never know....

Jared Horenstein

He cut a week shy of 58 days, that does not mean the animal had not stopped developing well before he cut them. I've just seen it too many times to think otherwise.
-----
Chad Bachman

Ummm, not to point out the obvious from my name, but the last time *I* checked I was still female. Nice assuming there.

Elizabeth

Sorry, didn't even look at you name. My bad.
-----
Chad Bachman

COLOR is different while its developing, hence the albino looking chondro on VPI'S site/
Premies are not of the right color, just like humans.....
but the pattern DOES NOT CHANGE once it is there.
That snake is no where near normal pattern wise.
It might have been born with a normal baby color but the pattern would stay the same. Patterns do not change that far into incubation. Pattern is there, the color of the pattern and the overall color are different, but the pattern stays the same.
That is a very unique snake, though it does look like the patterning was affected by something during incubation, but now adays who knows.
The snake would have been born with that pattern, just maybe a different coloration.
-----
"Quality isn't Quality without customer service so I guess I sell quality"

I seriously doubt the animal was still developing (at least properly) when he cut the egg.

All these super-duper cool hatchlings from normal/pieds/pastels, for some reason they all are dead??
-----
Chad Bachman

Wicked, I love that animal!
definately rebreed those parents.

I am going to have to go with what raul said. i could see some change especialy in color. But that egg was opened a week before the actual hatch date and i doubt that the pattern would change that much that an aberant pattern on its back would change to a normal pattern within a week and become a normal hatchlin.

It all depends on when the animal stopped developing. This kind of stuff is actually normal, but you don't hear about it too much, because nobody wants to boast about their failures...
-----
Chad Bachman

I believe color starts forming fom the back, and then extends to the sides, so it all depends on when the color formation during incubation stops.

I have seen some pretty wicked animals that were not fully developed, and never lived...
-----
Chad Bachman

I disagree, I have cut a couple of eggs early and thought I finally had produced my own MORPH. after a few weeks they all hatched out normal. A couple of years ago i had a clutch of eggs hatch out except for one egg wich I sliced open to reveal a snake black and white with pinstripe pattern, kinda looked like somebody poured paint on a white snake, very abbarent and the snake above reminds me of it, so I have to agree that the snake died in the egg earlier than when it was cut....or was in the middle of dying hence the abbarent pattern. I have seen ALOT of dead snakes that have died before full term and most have an abberant pattern

Steve

Another smart person....
-----
Chad Bachman

How does that make you smarter than them? People don't know what they don't know, right. Get over yourself, man! lol

Hey, what did I have for dinner? You mean you don't know?!?!? Even my 3 year old knows THAT! I guess YOU aren't smart then, hey?! lol j/k

Seriously, I'm sure you were just kidding but that made you sound like an assss.

Peace!
-----

signature file edited.

Edited on October 19, 2004 at 20:09:31 by phwyvern.

LOL...You know exactly what I meant, and if you think differently, than you need to go to a snake breeding class....LOL.
-----
Chad Bachman

-----
Chad Bachman

-----

signature file edited.

Edited on October 19, 2004 at 20:10:00 by phwyvern.

Take it easy, my brain can only handle one thing at a time....LOL.......I'm beat & drunk, go figure...Hahaha!
-----
Chad Bachman

The reasoning on this topic is like putting the cart before the horse. Let's see...all these snakes have two things in common...they have very abberant patterns...and THEY"RE ALL DEAD! They aren't "odd looking" because they died...they are DEAD because they were so odd. Not all mutations are meant to survive. Most don't.

>>I disagree, I have cut a couple of eggs early and thought I finally had produced my own MORPH. after a few weeks they all hatched out normal. A couple of years ago i had a clutch of eggs hatch out except for one egg wich I sliced open to reveal a snake black and white with pinstripe pattern, kinda looked like somebody poured paint on a white snake, very abbarent and the snake above reminds me of it, so I have to agree that the snake died in the egg earlier than when it was cut....or was in the middle of dying hence the abbarent pattern. I have seen ALOT of dead snakes that have died before full term and most have an abberant pattern
>>
>>Steve

Okay, if you cut them a few weeks early, yeah you probably thought you had a lucy. Then the pattern started to come in...totally normal development there. Now, you tied the post together, but it seems the "painted snake" was a different clutch, and you never mentioned if that animal died or survived. I'm guessing it died and that would further support the other side of the arguement. To pip a pinstripe pattern and watch the pattern change would prove your point. BUT....you don't mention what you viewed that made you think you had a NEW MORPH, and you don't mention the fate of the other abberant animal. Thanks for putting your thoughts out there in a polite way though! Take care

I disagree, I have cut a couple of eggs early and thought I finally had produced my own MORPH. after a few weeks they all hatched out normal. A couple of years ago i had a clutch of eggs hatch out except for one egg wich I sliced open to reveal a snake black and white with pinstripe pattern, kinda looked like somebody poured paint on a white snake, very abbarent and the snake above reminds me of it, so I have to agree that the snake died in the egg earlier than when it was cut....or was in the middle of dying hence the abbarent pattern. I have seen ALOT of dead snakes that have died before full term and most have an abberant pattern

>> Incubation temp was 87-89.

Your temp was all wrong. You have learned NOTHING. Go back to the start. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

Lunarballs

________

tag line removed.

Edited on October 19, 2004 at 20:30:45 by phwyvern.

87 is on the low end but with a fluctuation between 87 and 89 there shouldn't be a problem. Longer incubation time should be all. Much better to be a little low than high.

George Knaack
GLK HERP

87 is a tinge low, but how are they all wrong?
-----
www.NEWReptiles.com

Yeah, 87-89 degrees. Sure, it takes a little longer, but living in S.Florida and incubating in a room with no air conditioning, I'd rather err on the side of cooler than too warm.

Nothing learned? My first two clutches I set my incubator at 90 degrees. Probably because of higher ambient temps (91-92), I had a baby from each clutch born with abnormalities - fused/kinked parts.

Now I err on the side of cooler and after 15 clutches in 5 years with a 100% healthy hatch rate on all fertile eggs (with the exception of this one baby), I think I'll keep erring on the side of caution.

Elizabeth

ok i tried to read all the post but there was just so many that i wanted to type this up before i forgot the questions. I dont know if anyone else brought this up in the other post but here goes.....

now i am not a breeder but here is a few questions.

1. Is that snake of equal size to what a ball would look like one week before 58 days? answering that would easily determin how premature its death really was. It looks very undeveloped but what the heck do i know. I am part polish.

2. To help support the answer of either group of people who believe it would hve turned out wtih the same pattern or would have developed normal.. Has anyone opend up a dead egg that developed as much as this one with a normal pattern? If some were opend with a normal pattern then that would help to prove that, that baby would have finished with that abberant pattern...
thats just a couple questions i had.

No one really has it. I know what I believe (I like to err on the side of common sense). But one way or another the ONLY way to prove this animal would have hatched this way or not ...is to breed ma and pa again. And again if needed.
Period.

Prove it out just like any other color or pattern morph. Sometimes strange babies hatch and they are simply a fluke. Sometimes they are reproducable. It's that simple.

Elizabeth, if that animal had survived and hatched out with that pattern (notice how I dodge around picking sides here) it would have been a stunning animal. If you are able to hatch some healthy animals bred from the same parents that display this trait let me know I may be interested.
I wish you better luck with this years clutches.
-----
It's actually not that I love or even like snakes. I just hate rodents.