Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Found these strewn all over the cage on July 9th. Almost tossed them all because they had no weight to them and looked bad. Set them up in a squamata incubator and just waited for them to go south. Checked them every week expecting that rotten egg odor, but nothing happened. Finally started hatching around labor day.
Got 3 condas, 3 albino condas, and 3 albinos. From my female albino and male conda, het albino. First clutch gave me normal condas and normal hets. All first clutches feeding on df. pinks. A few took live pinks, then df, but never had to scent the prey. No sheds so far, which is odd since I had sheds the first time around right out of the egg.

Will offer df. pinks in 2 weeks and hopefully no stubborn feeders.

Mike

Very nice!

When you say the eggs looked bad, what do you mean? Dirty, Moldy, Empty?

Also the eggs didn't feel like they had anything in them?

Thanks for sharing....nice looking babies...

Smaller size than 1st clutch, felt empty when handled, and dirty. Normal eggs just feel heavier from the yolk. Three eggs out of 12 were moldy and caved in. They didn't last 2 days. Saved the rest on a lark. Didn't candle any of my hog eggs, and just set up in room temp as with all my colubrids.

Wow, Good thing you did....ur hunch paid off big time!

So when you say you put them up...what were your room temps?

I've read about many old timers doing that (duno if ur old timer or not ...not messing with all these fancy boxes and such...just a old Tupperware bowl and some moss or perlite....works just fine....I'm just wondering how much of a effect does temp fluctuation have on the eggs...say from day to night time....

Glad to see they turned out well for ya....guess it just shows you never really know until they either go bad or hatch...haha

old timers do that because its best. So the question is, what makes best. Colubrid eggs are easy and simple to hatch. So what causes failure? With incubators, mechanical failure, its not just common, but guaranteed. Rooms, take a much longer time to change temps, so the eggs can adjust slowly. Incubators cause rapid change, that is deadly to eggs. Over the long period, rooms have less failure. Its as simple as, a tiny heater in a room cannot over heat. A small spike in outside temps, can cause small incubators to spike quickly.
Us real old timers also have an added education that is not taught now. In the old days, there were no incubators. So we hatched them on shelves in closets in our houses. We hatched them in real weird ways. And they were weird. Like in plastic fish bags closed tight with no ventilation. And that was the advanced method. It was mostly done in pickle jars made of glass, no plastic back then. With a piece of glass covering the top and vasoline applied on the rim. Again an advanced method. primitive methods were, in a jar and close the lid. Funny thing is, they all worked. Best wishes