Possible egg problem

Hi,

OK I admit I have been a bit lax about checking the second clutch of eggs. :oops:

I have been opening the incubator to exchange air and glancing at the eggs but I hadn't been candling them or really looking at them close up.

Tonight I did and just about had a heart attack. :(

The eggs are on day 47 so my initial instinct is to leave well alone and just pray a lot.

One of the eggs has developed a bulge with odd dots around it. I didn't take any pictures of the egg in normal light but can if needed to determine what is happenng.

http://satanswombat.googlepages.com/...Lightened1.jpg

http://satanswombat.googlepages.com/...Lightened2.jpg

The veins still seem nice and strong. :please:

Has anyone seen anything like this before?


dr del

As long as there are veins keep them and keep your fingers crossed. I've seen some pretty ugly eggs hatch out just fine.

Just a wild guess. It could be dry spots.

Ummmmm... What gets me is I dont see anything except veins in there.. They are that far along? Thats very odd. At this point I wouldnt think it should be so easy to see through the egg. Is it possible its a very slow developing baby? Ive never seen anything like that before except in turtle eggs.

I would be praying, thats for sure. Leave them be and check them again in a week or 2 to see if there is any development. :confused:

What are your incubation temps and are they consistant? How often do you open the door?

Hi,

I think it has something to do with the way I'm candling - I never see anything but veins unless I lift the eggs up out of the substrate and shine the light in from the side or bottom. This was true of the first clutch as well and all nine of them hatched fine on day 57 -60.

The temps I'm using are 88.6-89.1f and they hold fairly steady. I open the incubator about once a week for the first 50 days or so on average then check every day after that. The incubator is a 2foot by 1 foot by 18 inch fishtank 1/4 full of water with an aquarium heater in it so has a large volume of air but also a comparatively large volume of water to keep the temps steady and a rock solid 100% humidity. The eggs are in ice cream tubs that I put mesh tops on when the eggs are due to hatch to prevent the hatchlings possibly falling into the water below the shelf.

This was what I was actually doing ( putting the mesh tops on ) when I noticed the egg had a bulge and decided to candle them all.

You can see two of the lids sitting on top of the sorry excuse in this old picture;

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...01adjusted.JPG

And the inside of it here;

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...03adjusted.JPG

Again that is an old picture - actually of the first ever ball python eggs I ever had, they hatched fine despite being dented to the point of being flat. :rolleyes:

I was wondering if not having had them on up until now had allowed water to drip onto this egg - would that cause a bump?


dr del

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but I had eggs that developed a weird lump earlier in incubation. It looked like this:

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...n1104/Egg1.jpg

I think it was because my substrate was a little too wet. I added a little dry substrate and then moved some of the substrate away from the egg so it could get more air circulation. It started looking better but never completely went away. The baby hatched fine. Hope yours turns out to be ok!

The spots can occur from not enough calcium. Remember females while developing eggs need around close to twice as much calcium intake to develop strong white eggs. Its nothing big dont worry about it.

Dr Del! Hows your babies? Did they hatch?

My guess would be the air pocket inside the egg doing something odd? Or, as previously mentioned, an area of calcium deficiency? Of course, since it's day 47, the babies are probably starting to absorb the calcium from the shells to prepare for hatching, and it's also possible that that baby is only absorbing calcium from that one spot in the egg? Can't say for sure, but best of luck! Hope the little one hatches out just fine, and since you've still got strong veins, I'd say there's a very good chance of that. ;)