Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thought I would ask the opinion of everyone here..

One of my clutches is on day 51, it's SWEATING as if I misted it with three or four good sprays... the other eggs are all dry and perfect looking still... the shell is getting translucent looking on the sweating egg. I dried it off hoping it was a fluke, but it was back to being just as sweaty this morning.

Should I consider it a lost cause (and open it up and peek inside?) or should I still have hope?

Opinions welcomed. The egg is nearly 3 inches long and I was thinking all along that it might be twins, but around day 30 it did get a black sort of "seepy" area on the underside, so I've thought it was a risk anyway.
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~Sasheena

Is it connected to any of the eggs that look perfect?

I don't think you have anything to worry about either way. If the egg ends up caving in, and no signs of a snake pipping yet, after a little while I would suggest cutting the egg open a little bit.

If the egg was bad you would've known already by the smell when you opened the incubator.

Mike

Michael's Place

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Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

No the egg is not connected to any of the other eggs, I can pull it out of the container at any given moment if i want. It's not obviously bad and rotten. Last year I had an egg in two different clutches that started sweating profusely like this one just before the rest of the eggs started to hatch.... the babies in those eggs were full term dead-in-egg.

I'll snap a picture and post it.

>>Is it connected to any of the eggs that look perfect?
>>
>>I don't think you have anything to worry about either way. If the egg ends up caving in, and no signs of a snake pipping yet, after a little while I would suggest cutting the egg open a little bit.
>>
>>If the egg was bad you would've known already by the smell when you opened the incubator.
>>
>>Mike
>>
>>
>>Michael's Place
>>
>>-----
>>Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
>>KingPin Reptiles Inc.
>>Helmz777@aol.com
>>www.freewebs.com/mikesnake
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~Sasheena

Every time that I've had that happen and let it go, I ended up with a full-term dead baby. Last year I started cutting the few eggs that were that way and actually saved a few.

Kerby...

I decided to go ahead and open it up.

This was my first peek.

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~Sasheena

I'm not quite sure how much developing a kingsnake does in the last ten or so days of incubation, but this baby appears to be what I would expect from about 1/2 term. (not knowing the development stages of an egg)

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~Sasheena

This is what I saw finally once I pulled it out....

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~Sasheena

Several of the other eggs were a little "sweaty" but I think it was due to the high humidity due to the sweating egg... (I hope)

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~Sasheena

bad egg?

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~Sasheena

Sasheena, that was both gross and fascinating! Sorry for the loss but thanks for sharing your experience with us. I learned something today.
Todd Hughes

>>Sasheena, that was both gross and fascinating! Sorry for the loss but thanks for sharing your experience with us. I learned something today.
>> Todd Hughes

Thanks... I should have put up a "not for the squeamish" warning before posting those... but ah well. We're all hear to learn.

My reward is that this morning my first of six clutches of kingsnakes has started to hatch... two babies are pipping!
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~Sasheena

BAD luck on this clutch I guess.
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~Sasheena

Not luck at all. First, there are many reasons for eggs to sweat. Your task or learning experience, is to learn which reason.

It appears in your case its a simple case of osmosis. Do you know what osmosis is? In biology there will teach you that osmosis is how plants move water from the ground to the air(out the leaves) Its basically, a fluid moving thru a semi-permeable substance or layer(egg membrane) in this case. From a greater concentration to a lesser concentration.

For you and your eggs its about pressure. Once the amount of water is greater on the outside of an eggs, the water moves inside. When theres to much pressure inside, it moves outside. A delicate balance.

When there is too much water, the eggs absorb to a pressure they expand, then they release pressure slowly, as is their ability. Then they release it quickly, as in your sweating or beading. This is past their design and causes destruction of the outer layers of the egg. Thus killing the egg.

In other words, to much water.

Now consider, eggs do not need to be fat and sassy, They do not need to grow lots. Consider, the more an egg grows, the worse it is, not the better. Of course, some growth is not a problem, in reality, they only need to not dry out.

Snake eggs seem to be very tolerate and succeed in a wide range of moisture. Monitor eggs are not so tolerate, they do not like change. If you attend the monitor forum, you will see(after some time) not many have success in hatching monitor eggs. But hatching monitor eggs is easy.

This leads to a key appliable point and tool. I never measure humidity, or condensation. I never get any condensation. I measure eggs. After all, I am incubating eggs and not water. I simply feel the eggs, if they are soft, they need a little moisture, if they are hard, they contain to much moisture, let them dry out. To feel the eggs, i gently check from the sides of the eggs not the top. The embryo generally is on the top.

In a post above you asked what to do, normally when an egg begins to bead or sweat, all you have to do is place bone dry pearlite on top, to absorb the moisture.

There are other reasons for eggs to sweat, if they are fairly full and die for other reasons, they release water, in this case, they are already dead. In your case, your open egg had red blood vessels, which means its still alive. Of course that could be a product of the camera and not the actual color. Good Luck FR

Hello Frank,

You made a couple of good points that I appreciated. First I liked your analysis of moisture migration - to the egg and from the egg and the way the egg itself responds to chages in moisture.

I also agree that sweating kingsnake eggs is usually a symptom of something bad, likely an extreme of temperature, moisure, or both. I've only seen it in cooked cal. king eggs, those that suffered 100F or a little more, for an extended time (6hrs), however it should be noted that 7 out of 10 still hatched normal, healthy babies. I've also seen it in python and king eggs that just began to sweat and then mold over and sink, within days for no apparant reason, while the rest of the clutch hatched normally.

I liked how you described how eggs feel in their various levels of moisture retention. I also gauge the viability of eggs based on their appearance and feeling more than anything else.

Finally, I agree that eggs that grow in size during incubation are not typically a good thing. Whenever I see eggs that a friend is beaming about because of their growth, I secretly cringe because I know what is usually in store for me - a clutch that I know will inevitably resemble a pile of taut, semi-translucent ping pong balls....and ultimately a poor hatch rate from excessive moisture. My best hatches tend to be from cluthes that contain eggs which are the same basic size as when layed, or slightly deflated. Anyway, nice post, thanks.

Will

You see you come back to posting and your second post is a great one which should help people. As far as your eggs go I get the impression that your eggs should be full term and the dead one is about 1/4 term as you said. If it is still "alive" as FR stated then it has not been devolping for most of the incubation period. I believe you, like most of us, had wetter incubation material than FR uses but I have had drier incubation yeild smaller babies that did not feed as well. I did a little investigating 2 years ago after a similar talk about humidity levels and found that the babies had larger bellies and feed better when hatch out of higher humidity incubation. I only did this with three clutches so my finding are by far not the best. There seems to be a fine line between enogh and to much. In the end you may have just had a bad egg.

Good Luck
Jason

First, why is it so common to go to extremes. I did not say or recomend shrivelling the eggs up. I recomend, not killing eggs with too much moisture. Do you understand that?

The example was the possible killing of eggs with too much water, so of course any help would be to allow the keeper to aviod that. But I will say, I would take a smaller baby over a dead baby anyday, wouldn't you?

So before you use me as an example please read my post and take it in context, the important part here was, if the egg is soft, add more water, if its hard, let it dry out some. I did not say shrivel the egg up.

Also, I said, I get no condensation, I don't, yet the eggs are very full, if this was your concern, you should of asked how that happens, not assume the eggs shriveled up. I understand how that works, do you? Please explain to me how to keep the eggs full with any condensation. Maybe you should explore what causes condensation, it will surprise you, its not about lots of moisture.

Please understand, this is for conversation, not anyone being better then anyone else. People who come and see my eggs are surprised to see full eggs on what appears to be bone dry substrate.

I will add, I learned this from nature, as the snake eggs I find in nature are always on dry substrate. I have mentioned this before. Good luck FR

WOW Frankie you seem to like confrontation. Try to read my post first as you seem to have looked for your initials then skimmed that sentance. I did not say anywhere to make sure you have condensation nor did I say to make sure your eggs are shriveled for FR's way of thinking. What I did say is that when I did try dry medium ,with eggs from very simular conditions, the babies hatched out thinner. Not smaller. If you read it my post said "fuller bellies". I did not mention length or overall size. Your post are interesting but your replys need a little TLC. Relax
Later Jason

Its not about confrontation, its about context, you went from A to Z. We should all understand, there are lots of letters in the middle(25).

The point is, you assume you did what I said, how would you know? You went to far, From wet(the original example) to too dry(your example), Your results expressed that. There is a whole lot of suitable levels inbetween. Any of these would really help the original poster. Which is the point of this thread, I think.

I get the feeling, you wanted to express that too dry has its problems. That is fine and very good of you to bring up. But using me as an example is not needed, as I did not recomend being a extremist and going to far. Remember, we are talking about eggs, not substrate.

In this case, you used me as an example and then explained the effects of too dry. That is without question taking my words out of context and using them improperly. So of course, I have no choice but to correct you(confront). If you would have just posted your information, that would have been great. Do you understand, you did not need me. By using me, you rendered the whole thread useless, was that your intent?

Also, you avoided my questions about condensation, why? and give it a go, its all for fun. Cheers FR

Dear FR and the humdidity curious, I don't know, but I think a wide range can work. I always fight the compulsion to add more water, and some persons with lots of experience have advocated less water than the 1:1 H20 to Vermiculite so often quoted in literature. I always thought a few drops condensing in the perlite interstices was a good thing...not so? So, I gather that humidity in the air is desired, but dampness i.e. condensation on the surfaces of the egg container is not. Is increasing air flow via more ventilation holes in the egg container a good idea? I just lost some tortoise eggs, experimenting with a "new idea", and I suspect it was too damp. I was getting lots of condensation on the lid of the platic tub/egg chamber. Substrate was perlite, eggs were on styrofoam egg carton. Theory was to have damp air, not damp substrate, but I still lost some... FR, do you have comments regarding humidity about hard shelled (tortoise eggs, Phelsuma geckos) vs. "soft" shelled eggs, i.e. Colubrids?

As I did not ad any water to the first two clutches of eggs I have already hatched out. I bought a 5 dollar humidity gauge from Zoo Med and though there was no condensation on the lid of my container I let it be as the eggs seemed fine. 100% hatch rate too, and let me tell you last year I fumbled around 3 times and ended up re-setting up my eggs halfway through incubation. I was guessing too much and added too much water, and almost lost some eggs because of it. When FR had mentioned earlier this year about eggs being more than capable of hatching out just fine in dry substrate if there is proper humidity I listened....and learned something new. Now I have a clutch of Corns due that dimpled too soon, it was a large clutch of 27 eggs and a few looked iffy from the get go. I want as many of these to hatch as possible so I have peeked in on them often. Instead of adding water to the vermiculite[which i thought was neccesary] I like too add some very damp moss to the box but away from the eggs....off to the side. This does the trick and also allows you to remove it easily if you feel you suddenly have a problem with it being too moist. I also lifted the lids on all my egg boxes this year for no more than 2 seconds at least twice a week allowing a wisp of fresh air in and saw almost no mold at all[except for bad eggs]. Python guys are very into the completely dry or even no substrate at all method of incubation, and next year I may give it a shot with a clutch or two of colubrids. That little thingy from Zoo Med took a lot of guess work out of my equation, it is the little things that sometimes put you in the direction of success. Tom Stevens

Of course a wide range can work, I believe i mentioned, snake eggs are very tolerant. But remember, the context of this thread its to understand what that range is. As oppose to the sweating eggs that are the focal point of this thread.

About different kinds, hardshelled and such, we have hatched tort eggs, turtle eggs, snake eggs and monitor eggs all the same without problem. In the same incubator and set up the same. In fact, we have them all incubating now.

This has been difficult to understand but, As you know, I think reptiles such as snakes(most species) lizards(most species) etc, require very nearly the same thing, There differences are in structure, and this structure is about how they get what they need, not so much what they need. As in, many adaptions to aquire the same things.

Well I think of eggs this way too. There are different kinds of eggs, what they are pretty much after the same things.

Of course there are exceptions, but they are not these and do not effect the meaning of this conversation. Please excuse me for mentioning this, but over on the monitor forum, they know nothing but to make exceptions, as they have practical experience with monitors. FR

Frank, I used you as an example because you are on here telling someone in this thread that 1) she is probably too dumb to know what osmosis is, 2) she most likely had her eggs too damp, and 3) she was undoubtably at fault for her egg going bad because of these things.
You don't want to be mentioned and when you are directly under a thread with your name on it you call me an extremist. Come on now. I said nothing bad about you or you methods of incubation. All I stated was that I have found in very limited trials that a slightly higher humidity level seemed to lead to more yolk in the bellies of the hatchlings. I went further to state that there is definitely a line where too much humidity can cause problems.
Nowhere was it stated that condensation was needed on the incubation box nor was it stated that the eggs should be allowed to shrivel. That is until YOU went to that extreme.
I happen to like seeing Sasheena post and found your reply rude and degrading. I was mostly posting a response to offer support and in a subtle manner a different view of the same things you where stating. If this post is deleted, it will be because you decided that an attack was called for when it was not.

Granted a lot of people on here find you offensive and feel the need to attack your statements. I do not and did not directly contradict you. I find your thoughts interesting and thought-provoking. I do, as others do as well, feel that you could try to change your posts a little and they would lose that rude tone.
A thought for you; The written word can convey much emotion with much skill. But without that skill, which most of us do not have, emotion is lost. That means your little smiles and disarming chuckles, if you have them in your speech, are lost on here and instead of being cute you seem rude. I learned this long ago and it seems the only place where I have out-done you. I don't want you to go away because you have too much to offer, but I don't need anything from a smug writer.
Respectively Jason

>>Frank, I used you as an example because you are on here telling someone in this thread that 1) she is probably too dumb to know what osmosis is, 2) she most likely had her eggs too damp, and 3) she was undoubtably at fault for her egg going bad because of these things.

Actually those are the messages that i received from Frank.

I'm not perfect, I certainly have made mistakes that have cost hatchlings their lives, but to assume that because ONE egg in a clutch of 7 is hatching because I have the moisture up too high is a bit of a stretch. If I came and said "All 100 of my eggs are starting to sweat"... that would be different.

In any case I don't wish to be confrontational. I haven't posted here in a long time due to the bickering and "king of the hill" attitudes found here. I'm a learner and always will be. I hope also to be a teacher for those who know less than I know. I've produced beautiful baby snakes in the past and I don't think it's merely luck that they hatched.
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~Sasheena

If I want to call you dumb, I would do just that. Also, if you want to be called dumb, I will be glad to help you out. But please understand, Nowhere in my post did I call you dumb. I asked you a question, is that calling you dumb? To ask, is to clarify. If you said you know what that is, then I could continue the explaination. Without knowing what that is, makes the whole responce worthless.

From your post and questions, you did not "know" or did not "understand" something. So yes, that makes you dumb, or better yet, naive. If you knew all about all of this and still made mistakes, thats a different name altogether.

To come here and ask for help resulting from your failure(of course its your failure, their in your cages aren't they?)or do you believe its luck?

To ask makes you a caring person, someone who cares enough to ask for help. If you ask for help(you did) it means you are naive to the solution(not necessarily dumb)

So at the time I did not think of you as dumb, only someone who cares enough to ask for help.

But now that you accuse me of calling you dumb, you have gone and proved to me, your status, or how I should think of you is more important then solving the problem at hand. So yes, I now think your dumb. Your welcome, thats what you were after wasn't it?

The reason I understand how to fix some of these problems is, I am so dumb problems keep occuring and I have had to learn(become undumb) on how to fix them. I assume, that all people who are dumb enough to have living animals are at least as dumb as me or we would not keep doing the same dumb mistakes. So please, I know how dumb I am, I have to be, or I would not keep snakes and worse yet, try to help people such as you. Please remind me to not make that mistake again, thanks FR

You don't need to be a arse but you seem to like it so have fun destroying what respect people have for you. You can say you don't care but that you do is obvious by your posts. I tried a different approach than most but like all the others on here that don't kiss your butt you have to go straight to being rude. What a shame you have so much to offer but so little ability to be anything other than a jerk. I have seen alot of what you have done in the herp world and thought wow I would love to be in a room with that guy just to get a vibe off a great mind. Now in the last few weeks you changed that to me not wanting to be anywhere near you ever. I know no big loss except before long you wont have anybody left that wants to hear you.
Heres to the hope of change
Jason

If the person would look thru my posts and take anything out of them that helps them with their animals, I would indeed respect that, but when people go thru with a fine toothed comb looking for anything that may or may not make them look bad. I simply have no respect or no interest in them. In other words, I respect those who care about the animals, not those who care about themselves.

Then consider, if your having a problem, you indeed did something wrong and of course that reflects poorly on you. To offer you a direction that would help of course will conflict with what you thought or did in the first place. To be corrected is not fun. But please do not blame me, afterall, I did not have the problem the other person did.

Lastly, I have no need for your respect, if I did, i would have never worked with reptiles. You see, the general public does not respect us. In fact, zoos and universities do not private keepers either, so why would I worry about what you think. I simply don't. And thats not good or bad.

That you think I should worry about your respect is exactly what I am talking about, you should worry about what will help your animals, not about respect.

I offer help, you can either except it or not. What you think of me really should not come into the it. I have no problem learning from people who I do not care for. Think about it. FR

There were some interesting points brought up in this thread and I thought I would address them here...

I do know and understand about osmosis. I have a husband with a degree in biology not to mention the classes I've taken myself in biology.

I do not believe that the problems I'm having with this current clutch are to do with over-moist eggs. I've kept my snakes on dryer and dryer medium each year, my first year the substrate was twice or even three times as damp as this year, and I had a 100% hatch rate.

This particular clutch has been worrisome since the beginning. The eggs were HUGE, I mean enormous! They had a star pattern on the eggs but I've heard that's not really a big deal. I had trouble finding veins when I candled them, but seemed to see them. They just have seemed to least likely to thrive of all of my eggs, and in fact, they appear to be dead or dying. If it was the moisture levels then all of my kingsnake eggs would be perishing at this point in time.

In actual fact I think that the eggs in the clutch had some issue for whatever reason and started to die... the eggs continued to appear fine (mostly) until suddenly there were some severe barometric changes here in Arizona associated with our "Monsoon" season. As soon as those changes took place the balance between outside and inside was compromised and since the eggs were dead they began to leak all the moisture.

As far as blood vessels, the baby I pulled out of that egg was NOT alive, it had not BEEN alive for some time. Last year I had a cornsnake egg that was at the approximate same number of days, the egg split and started leaking and I opened it up. (two eggs were, but I only opened up the worst one, I put a bandaide on the other and it hatched with the rest)... inside I found a baby that was nearly full term, with scales and some color, but just too undeveloped to actually survive. I don't think that the moisture or lack thereof could have stunted the growth of my kingsnake baby that extremely. There was no sign of any blood flow in the animal, there were no scales, the head was barely developed enough to contain the eyes and hadn't even developed a snout. NOW... for all I know those structures are developed very early on and this one died due to having no face beyond it's eyeballs!

I've had problems with my corn eggs two years in a row. The first year I was convinced it was because of the moisture, which led me this year to cutting the moisture in half or more from last year. But my cornsnake problems persist. Next year I'm going to change my substrate, as I begin to think that it is the vermiculite.

BUT... at this point in time I also have one kingsnake clutch hatching, and so if my methods were completely wrong, I wouldn't have success. But I've had two successful years breeding kingsnakes, and this year looks like it will continue to be successful. I expect there to be some problems. These eggs dying appears to be one of those problems. I learn, I change as necessary, and I am hopefully more successful in the future.

In another ten days all of my king clutches are due to begin hatching, so when I've seen the results (or lack thereof) on those five clutches, then I'll be able to make some new conclusions about the successfulness of my incubation techniques. And about what should be changed and in what way.
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~Sasheena

This is the rest of the clutch.

As far as how damp my eggs are kept, I put them on vermiculite with a tiny bit of bottled water. Airtight containers. If drops of condensation form on the sides or lid, I wipe them away with a paper towel, decreasing the amount of moisture in the egg container. My desired level of moisture is to have the tiniest bit of "dew" damp but not beaded on the lid. I never add water unless the eggs start to deflate at the beginning of incubation. I never add water if they start to deflate towards the end of incubation. Seems to work well for me.

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~Sasheena

Looks like you have two good eggs and four bad. Sorry to see that. Hopefully you will get good results from the rest of your clutches. The thread as a whole was very useful and thanks for the pics as thats what is usually missing in these talks.
Later Jason

>>Looks like you have two good eggs and four bad. Sorry to see that. Hopefully you will get good results from the rest of your clutches. The thread as a whole was very useful and thanks for the pics as thats what is usually missing in these talks.
>>Later Jason

Well I'm very likely to open those remaining eggs, but not until tomorrow afternoon. For the moment I have a paper towel in with the eggs to soak up any excess moisture. I would prefer for the eggs to LIVE but if they are already dead waiting until tomorrow won't hurt them any. Plus I have the current clutch that is hatching (3 out of four have pipped so far!) and that is much more exciting.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the clutch that is going bad and the following clutch that my snake had a few days ago. (The new eggs are less than half the size of the eggs in the first clutch). I am seeing some similarities, and guessing at others to a clutch from last year:

Last year my banded normal cal king took FOREVER to lay her eggs after her prelay shed. More than 16 days, and when she laid the eggs, they were HUGE, like goose eggs! They all died and when I opened them up around day 30, they looked to my uneducated eye that they had expired after a week of growth. They were only pea-sized pink tubes with black specks for eyes. 15 bad eggs, very disturbing. Then the female appeared ready to double clutch and escaped. When she returned (I found her in my mouse building on top of the mouse racks looking at the mice with real longing), she looked very thin like she'd layed a clutch. I never found the clutch and figured she'd escaped to the space beneath the building and laid them there. I never saw those eggs, but 60 days later one of the outside cats "gifted" me with a half eaten hatchling, all I got was the lower half of the baby, umbilical still poking out. I'm sure she did double clutch and that those babies were good! This year I gave her a more appropriate laying container and she laid her eggs within a week of shedding, and the eggs were HALF the size of the previous years' eggs. 14 out of 16 eggs are still good to go and they're on day 56.

To my way of thinking, sometimes the snake retains the eggs longer than is desireable and often this interferes with their ability to go full term in the egg. I don't know why, but it happens.

Next year I DO plan on giving a larger laying area to my snakes. See what they think of that.

Anyway, I'll post pictures tomorrow of the eggs I open up.
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~Sasheena