Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My son has 2 females and 1 male, each female has laid a clutch of eggs recently and all the eggs is each clutch collasped. We moved them from the cage to an incubator filled with vermiculite within a couple of hours of being laid. The temp was 86. Any one have any information as to what might be happening?

collapsing eggs mean one of two things. The eggs are infertile (since you have a male and two females, unless there is something wrong with his 'plumbing' not too likely, unless the females are very young (under 15 months of age) or too old to breed (over 6 years old).

The second reason is the incubation material is too dry. The incubation container should have a ratio of one part vermiculate to one part water by WEIGHT. More water should be added around the eggs if the vermiculate starts to look dry or the eggs start to dimple or collapse. Add water around the eggs, not ontop of them.

I suggest adding more water to your mix and the eggs should fill back up in a short period (couple hours anyway) and should incubate fine. If they fail to fill out at all or go moldy, then most likely the eggs are either too far gone to recover or were infertile.
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PHLdyPayne

thanks for the feedback. the vermiculite was probably to dry. we were just misting it with the eggs, sounds like it needs to me very moist.