Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings all: I am new to the forum. I have had two Taiwan Beauties (breeding pair) for about 6 years now. I received them as adults. This is my girl's fourth clutch. I was a little surprised when I got home from work today and found that she'd already had 7 eggs, I admit, I thought we had at least another week or so.

Her first clutch was 10 eggs, but only 3 hatched. I was disappointed, but very happy to have the three little ones. Her second and third clutches hatched no babies We've worked very hard on their diet, water and environment this year. Now I'm looking for advice on what I can do to improve the chances of having more hatchlings. We're ready to be grandparents again.

She's laid 10 so far and I'm keeping an eye out, I think there are a couple more (her average is around 15). I have them in an incubator, placed exactly as she's laid them (at least the ones I was able to watch). They're in very slightly damp vermiculite and I'm keeping the incubator between 85 and 90 degrees.

Is there anything more I can do other than wait?

Hi and welcome to the board from another newbie! I've posted below about my trinket snake eggs (no reply yet!). Congrats on your new egg clutch. I haven't bred Tai beauties and indeed don't own any, but have bred corns before. 15 eggs seems like a good clutch size - I found a care sheet on the internet about breeding Tai beauties which says 5-12 is usual (mind you like trinkets I feel it's hard to get accurate information, surprisingly as people do breed them quite a lot now).

One thing that struck me reading your post - I don't know for sure, but from what I've read 80-90 seems like a rather high temperature to incubate eggs. The care sheet I found on Tai beauties suggests 75-85. It's possible that's why your eggs are not hatching. I would make sure the incubator temperature doesn't go over 85. I'm incubating my corn and trinket eggs at 83. How do the eggs look? What's the humidity in the egg box - you say the vermiculite is very slightly damp, but I wondered if you'd measured the humidity and if it's high enough? Just some thoughts. I suppose the other thing is that the combination of your two snakes has brought out a genetic abnormality. Did you open the unhatched eggs, and did they contain deformed or normal babies, or nothing?

Good luck with them!

Jessica

Oh and by the way, do you know how to view someone's profile? I'm still finding my way around this site and it doesn't seem quite as user friendly as other reptile sites I've posted on.

The problem is the temps. Low 80s is where the eggs should be, not upper 80s. If the perlite is too damp, they may also drown. I had this problem with my pythons. My milk snake eggs dimpled a little though, so I don't think it was moist enough, but they can always be moisted more. Can't be saved after drowning though.
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