Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can anyone advise me to as to why my veiled eggs would hatch too early? The clutch is at approximately 6 months one week. Some eggs look more translucent then others and some look filled up with a more developed baby. Two eggs split open on there own and one baby was not even green yet,the other was green but not developed enough to have pipped on its own. Odd that all eggs were in the same bin and have different developmental stages!!?? Another egg looks to be sweating and shrinking down like they more traditionally do but im afraid they will not be developed enough to emerge on their own. I have tried to move them around and keep them in room temp, I cant say it might have pushed 80-82 a few times but generally it stayed in the 70s. It worked for my recently hatched panther chams that hatched during the summer months. Please any info much apprecited as to why they would split like that and or why they would start too hatch too early? Thanx

Perhaps the humidity in the substrate is too high. This can cause the eggs to split prematurely. It usually will mean the babies will be dead in the eggs.

Do you mean when they split open they will be dead?That is understandable however, is it possible to do some damage control i.e. make some ventilation holes and perhaps dry it out some?. I didnt have any ventilation holes in the containers and I did notice alot of condensation on the lids when there was temperature changes in the morning when the room started to warm up. I would shake off the extra drippy water but didnt actually wipe them off.

You said..."Do you mean when they split open they will be dead?"...if its happening because the humidity is too high. Have the eggs grown a lot since they were laid?

You said..."is it possible to do some damage control"...I know of one case where the person moved the eggs carefully to another container with vermiculite that was less moist where it seemed to help. However its a crap shoot...it might work....or it might not. I would hate to be responsible for you losing them if it didn't work.

You said..."I didnt have any ventilation holes in the containers and I did notice alot of condensation on the lids when there was temperature changes in the morning when the room started to warm up. I would shake off the extra drippy water but didnt actually wipe them off"...there has always been condensation on the lids and sides of my containers. I do always punch two tiny holes in the top of the shoebox sized containers though.

Where are you incubating them?
Good luck!

They are incubating in various rooms of the house according to seasonal changes i move them round to maintain an appropriate temp. I have been successful in hatching out many panther chams this way. I do believe you are correct,that it has been a humidity issue because the condensation i was talking about was not just a film but dripping drops of condensation. Not sure why i didnt do some damage control when i saw that cause i would never let my python eggs build up that kind of condensation. I have opened them up in a room that is temp controlled and 50-60% humidity hoping that any condensation ordinarily built up on the lids will be released into the air and help to dry out the substrate some,but the ambient humidity is high enough i think from drying out the eggs themselves...in theory. I willl put the lids back on with some ventilation holes after it gets a chance to balance out again. Thanks for the good luck wishes i need all i can get!

You may dry the eggs out leaving the lids off. Iwould think it would be better to move the eggs carefully to another container with less moist vermiculite.

Also, do you incubate the eggs in the dark? Unlike snake eggs they are laid in a hole so they would incubate in the dark.

How was your hatch rate for the panthers?

Yes, I incubate them in the dark. Hatch rate for my panthers was close to 100%,Think I lost two babies out of two clutches. One yielded 38 ambilobes(know for sure I lost one baby out of this clutch) and the other 27 of ambilobe/nosybe.Panther explosion! My husband insulated and built an extension off of our house just so I could have the extra room to set them up and control their temps/humidity more precisely and I am in the process of looking into automatic misting. I feed them fruit flies,gutloaded crix,house flies my own hatched in sterile conditions and silkworms.Wish I could keep every single one!
No more of the veiled eggs have split open but a few are notedly very swollen,Im assuming too much water absorbtion and I can only hope they make it. I think another reason why I did not concern myself with the condensation was because I thought they were getting ready to hatch as I read that veiled take 6 months to hatch and they are a little past the 6 month mark. My pythons will release alot of condensation on the lids of their containers just prior to hatching so i took this as a sign that the veiled were coming.(python breeding mentality just reflex but I am learning) Upon further research I came up with folks saying anywhere from 6-10 months.It is obvious now that they definitely needed some more development time in the egg. Ill transfer them to less wet vermiculite and make sure they are in the dark. Thanks for your feedback.