Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, one of the three eggs my Timor's produced on 1/3/2005 collapsed and molded over (the one on the far right), I had candled it a couple of weeks ago and it was a uniform yellowish tinge, so I'm not surprised that it was infertile. I candled the other ones today, they both have a reddish tinge to them, and I actually saw movement in the center one, a small dark shadow on the inside jerk a little as I held the light up to the shell. This could be my lucky year! Wish me luck!

My guess is all those eggs were fertile. In most cases, there is not embryonic development for about(roughly) a month. This can be much longer with larger monitors.

Then once the egg starts to develop they can be candled, until then, you may be throwing fertile eggs away.

About candling. Its only good for your curiousity, as it will never help a good egg hatch, it will only help a good egg not hatch. Candling can only decreases the hatchrate, it will never increase it. You do know that bad or dead eggs, start to look bad or dead very quickly. Again in most cases. As I have had eggs without babies live longer then the normal incubation time. But that is rare.

Anyway, congrats and good luck, FR

Thanks Frank, yep, I remember all the good advice you gave me when they produced eggs last February, and I took it all to heart. You're right, I was darned curious, but I just had to know. I did take the precaution of not handling the eggs, I have a fiber optic penlight that has a bend in it so I didn't have to touch the eggs at all. Other than that, all I've been doing is just opening the incubator every other day for air exchange. Considering all the eggs from the last clutch looked healthy until about 110 days, when the all started molding and collapsing, I'm prepared to wait as long as it takes, whether they're good or bad. Thanks for the well wishes!

If I remember correctly, my timor eggs hatched at about 90 days. I can get you an actual day range, but 90ish is close. I believe I have another clutch coming soon.
-----
^x^ Bloodbat ^x^
Monitors, monitors everywhere
and all the food they ate.
Monitors, monitors everywhere,
their parents loved to mate.