Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yes I know, there are 1000000 post about this, but I'm to excited to search.... Today, after 98 days, first egg started to pip. He seems as big as a 1 year old corn snake (and is the smallest egg). Should I start to pip other eggs? today? tomorrow?
thank you
regards
nazzza

I would NOT and NEVER cut holes indigo eggs. I let nature take it's course.

I have regularly had indigo snake eggs develop at different rates and it's pretty normal for me to see as long as 3-5 days between the first and last pip and I've seen as long as 14 days!

The few time in the past that I have pipped the eggs myself I have found smaller babies not ready to come out yet.

I believe that if they are healthy babies, they will come out on their own when they are ready.

There are others that pip all the eggs once the first one pips...and have had luck this way, but if it were me, I would try to be patient.

PS: CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!
Great job...all your work and attention to detail is paying off!

Hi Dean,
i followed all your advices (temp, ciclyng lights, feeding, breeding, incubation) and all was fine, i'll continue to follow your advice and I'll let nature take it's course.
Thank you
best regards
nazzza

Congratulations! After three days from first hatchling cutting open its own egg I would carefully make a cut in any eggs that haven't started on their own. Cut only at the surface, about 1.5 cm, parallel with the length of the egg, at the highest point.

I agree with Dean....there can be such a large variance between the first egg hatching and the last egg and manually pipping eggs before they are ready can have detrimental effects on the still developing neonate. Assuming that your conditions are just right, including humidity levels, it usually isn't necessary. But, in some cases, though rare, I have enlarged the slit when I felt that the neonate was having a difficult time getting out; this goes against all of my good judgement but I'm guilty as charged. Personally, in order to ensure a vital and healthy captive population of couperi, I oftentimes wonder what a disservice we do when allowing all hatchlings to hatch through manual pipping when some of these babies perhaps should never have survived in this first place. Just stuff that I think about from time to time.

>>I would NOT and NEVER cut holes indigo eggs. I let nature take it's course.
>>
>>I have regularly had indigo snake eggs develop at different rates and it's pretty normal for me to see as long as 3-5 days between the first and last pip and I've seen as long as 14 days!
>>
>>The few time in the past that I have pipped the eggs myself I have found smaller babies not ready to come out yet.
>>
>>I believe that if they are healthy babies, they will come out on their own when they are ready.
>>
>>There are others that pip all the eggs once the first one pips...and have had luck this way, but if it were me, I would try to be patient.
>>
>>PS: CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!
>>Great job...all your work and attention to detail is paying off!
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Congratulations, Nazza,

I recently incurred the same dilemma, regarding the rubidus I recently hatched. The first egg began to pip followed by two more the second day. It was difficult to resist the temptation to “assist” those babies I just knew were trapped within their calcified prisons, but I did wait, and within four days all of the eggs that went full term had pipped and several of the babies were already out and about within their new enclosures.
I have open eggs before to no ill effect, but I am now with the camp that believes they will pip when they are ready. Also, avoid the temptation to “assist” any of the little ones from their eggs, as they will stay within the egg for a day or two, I have seen some remain within the egg for four days after pipping, absorbing the remaining yolk.

Good luck,

Jeff
-----
Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

I am new to this forum, but I have experience with hatching TX Indigo eggs. I have had a very bad experience with waiting for all eggs to pip at their own pace. As someone in a post states the eggs can become a prison. If the shells become too dry on the top the baby will not be able to cut through. In the experience I had, one pipped and I waited two days and began to cut the eggs only to find 13 of the 14 fully developed babies dead in the shell. All the eggs had marking or cuts in the bottoms of the shells but did not find their way out the bottom of the eggs. I assumed it was not a natural way for them to go, down and out. The window of opportunity for hatching and not suffocating does not seem to be too long. They die if they cannot get a hole in the egg timely. Since then I have made it a common practice to cut every egg on all species as soon as I notice one pipped. I have not had any further instances of mass casualties since. I have also cut eggs too early in the past and still had the babies hatch (up to two weeks later)with no outward effects. After determining the eggs were early I covered the slit with a small piece of celophane wrap to seal the opening. The eggs still hatched even though some bleeding from superficial blood vessels occured.

Do not get me wrong, I do not profess routinely cutting eggs to check on progress, but because of the tragic outcome I had, I have decided to take it out of nature's hands. One could say that since we are taking the responsibility of hatching these eggs in artificial conditions, we are already taking it out of nature's hands and I feel we need to take on some of the responsibility to give every opportunity for success for the babies to hatch.

Everyone needs to procede as they deem right, this is only my opinion but it has worked for me.