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snake eggs got too moist

fliptop Jun 08, 2015 05:51 PM

How long does it take to kill kingsnake eggs?

I let the humidity get too high in the incubator and a bunch of the eggs were bloated (some even had bulges).

The eggs are three weeks old. I've since lowered the humidity. The eggs themselves never felt like they were weeping. It was the bottoms that were bloated/bulging. They were on coconut fiber until I got hold of sphagnum moss this weekend.

So anyone have a similar experience? What was the outcome? I hate resigning myself to this rotten feeling of failure and uncertainty for the next five weeks. Argh!

Replies (3)

markg Jun 11, 2015 01:05 AM

Excess water pressure can kill the embryos, but kingsnake eggs are quite tough in that regard as opposed to say python eggs. I have had kingsnake eggs with bulges from too much humidity when I first was learning to incubate eggs. Once corrected, they looked better and eventually hatched.

Your best bet is to have a closed plastic box with just one small air hole, and then a substrate like perlite where the water is below the top of the perlite. This way, the eggs are in a humid environment but are dry, not touching water. The air can be humid as long as the eggs are dry - no condensation on them and not touching wet substrate.Moss is wet, coco fiber is wet.

Some people use a piece of white plastic light diffuser - the sheets they sell at Home Depot, etc for diffusing fluorescent lights, the one that is 1/2 inch squares, over a substrate like vermiculite or perlite. This way the eggs stay dry for sure. The container can have just a single 1/16 to 1/8 inch hole for air. Some people use no air hole, just open the lid once in awhile. If you can keep the entire container at 80-82 deg, then condensation typically does not happen. It is when the container is exposed to heat and cool gradients that you get lots of condensation.

I use a styrene foam cooler, heat tape on the bottom, some plastic water bottles on top of the heat tape, and the egg container on top of the water bottles. I use a temperature controller to hold temps. No problems with wet eggs. I use perlite or perlite/vermiculite, the plastic grate, then eggs. Keep the cooler cover on. You can see examples on youtube. Way better than using moss.

fliptop Jun 11, 2015 08:40 PM

Thanks for your feedback! The eggs are looking much better. Due to a bunch being clumped together, I'll stick with the moss. I've hatched quite a few clutches with it (including the clutch that contained the parents of *this* clutch).

So, my next question is: were there any issues with the snakes that hatched out of the bulging eggs (e.g., deformities such as kinks), or did they emerge as healthy babies?

Thanks again!

markg Jun 15, 2015 12:37 PM

I am glad they look better! No deformities were evident in the hatchlings from the eggs that had bulges.

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