One of my coastals clutched 20 eggs. This was her first clutch, and two eggs died during incubation. The rest (18) went full term. Of that a total of 14 neonates hatched, 2 eggs were doubles, 1 came out missing eyes and mouth was deformed (which was put down), and 5 eggs were stillborn. The incubation temp was between 88.5 to 88.7 using a proportional thermostat, and the humidity was kept close to 90 to 100 percent. The eggs began hatching at 53 days, the last egg to hatch (deformed neonate) hatched at 55 days, and the rest did not hatch, although one or two pipped I believe on day 55.
Is there anything that I could have missed during incubation that could have led to the high rate of stillborns? They were all full term and looked healthy, but just failed to exit the eggs. I even pipped the tops of the eggs on day 55.
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Egg hatching question
Replies (1)
Your Inc Temp sound good.
maybe humidity/moisture too high?
I have had problems with hatching failure when substrate (vermiculite) is too moist.
I generally have substrate a bit on the dryer side.
I find that dryer substrate prevents eggs from becomming too swollen/pressurised. In the dryer conditions, eggs collapse slighly near close to hatch date (as they are supposed to I think), to allow air in during pipping.
At 89F my CPs hatch right on 49-50 days Inc.
