Egg Washing?

[bks2100]

Hmmm, wasn't there a frozen rodent dealer that was sued several years ago for selling mice with salmonella? Who was that?

That was Arctic Mice.

OMG! So I guess everything we know about ball python eggs has come full circle? Is this business (his) really serious? He never mentioned anything about water temperatures in any way , shape , or form. Did I miss something? Very hard to believe his hatch rate is unchanged. First , clean the eggs off with clear water. Then soak the eggs in bleach solution. Thirdly wash the eggs in Bacquacil. Then rinse the eggs? Hey, what? What temperature is the water at these three or four stations. 10 minute soaking of the eggs in diluted, cold or unregulated water temps? IDK. Sounds borderline cruel to me but........ .... Not for me right now. More studies and research for me and most , I believe. Air dry????????????? At what temperature?????????????

He really didn't give a great guide how to do it on his video, but I'd imagine his building is like most big snake breeders where the room is temperature controlled so as long as that water sits for a little bit I'm sure it's right there at room temp. I'd worry more about the air drying since evaporation will drop their temp a little from ambient.

Edit: i can't comment too harsh or too much as i have zero breeding experience right now but those guys made the comment they have seen no changes/improvements/increase/drops in hatch numbers since they started egg washing, so why go through the trouble?

Did they say there's been no increase/improvements though? I watched the video but I wasn't paying 100% attention to it, I caught the part where he said it hasn't negatively affected hatch rates and that was it. I doubt this prevented any eggs from dying but I don't think he said that it had a net zero effect. I imagine there has to be some pro to it that they see for them to warrant the time and hassle of this, the question is what evidence they have that this does something and if it's statistically or scientifically sound.

They have been doing it or about a year with no negative effects................ Hope for more people to do this to better the hobby........


I would want to think that I would do more and longer research BEFORE putting my name on something like this and trying to push it on a community that has been doing "whatever" a lot longer than I have been there.
For anyone that wants to try something new, cool more power to them.
Personally I would not gamble my clutches and don't see a need either.

That first part was just so weird to me. They're still pretty vague about what it prevents/helps. They stated salmonella, but that's not really a risk that people have or deal with.

I am only in my first breeding season and I am still waiting for my first clutch, which should be layed around 03-18.

So all I can say is; If people have been doing it like the most have for years with good results and 1 person changes something with no massive change in outcome, why go through all the extra work?

If it works for him, great! Am I gonna try it?

No! or at least not till it is proven it really works.

I won't do it either but I love when people do stuff like this, because all of us are sitting here thinking it's a waste, but there are a lot of times that people ignore methods that work. Not that they don't have good reason not to do them themselves, but it helps to keep an open mind to there being a better way to do things. And you say why do anything if there's no massive change, it's not like this is a lot of work. If they released their clutch records and showed a reduction of eggs going bad during incubation by 5%, that'd be interesting. If they released their clutch records for the next 5 years and that trend was consistent, then I'd probably start doing this myself (especially on the exciting clutches). I could easily imagine an expensive clutch having one egg go bad, I'd be kicking myself if I could have done something that could increase the chance of every egg surviving.

i see this as kinda like the industrialization of breeding. just like with food processing - it's on scale, additives/preservatives, chemicals are added for a "better product" and to better shelf life (or in the case attempt to increase/stabilize hatch rate). we'll see over time who else adopts this method and who decides to stay organic.

Or maybe it's just something that is helpful to them. I've driven past their facility before and it's a lot of space, if that other person is right and they have a building for each species then that's a lot of rats and mice alongside of a bunch of other stuff. So in those cases maybe even a small chance of salmonella would be catastrophic for them. I doubt it's worth it but I'm keeping an open mind.

[Viol8r]

if that other person is right and they have a building for each species then that's a lot of rats and mice alongside of a bunch of other stuff. So in those cases maybe even a small chance of salmonella would be catastrophic for them. I doubt it's worth it but I'm keeping an open mind.

It is. I had a long talk with a previous sales manager about their facility who allowed me to step inside briefly. It's pretty amazing to someone that only has 40 snakes. lol They also employ around 100 people, so maybe they are trying to protect them?

[bks2100]

It is. I had a long talk with a previous sales manager about their facility who allowed me to step inside briefly. It's pretty amazing to someone that only has 40 snakes. lol They also employ around 100 people, so maybe they are trying to protect them?

Yea I feel like there might be some other reason that they do it that wouldn't really apply to many others. Like with the number of people and animals it starts to become an issue? Or like someone at the top of this page said that it just removes all bacteria (beneficial and harmful both), but maybe they control their incubator to the point where only a small group has access or are allowed in there, so beneficial bacteria don't have a lot to protect against anyway.

Maybe you guys that have a good amount of experience breeding tell me something, about how often do eggs go bad, and how often do hatchlings have issues where they fail to thrive due to unknown reasons (ie not kinks, twisting, etc)?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Maybe you guys that have a good amount of experience breeding tell me something, about how often do eggs go bad, and how often do hatchlings have issues where they fail to thrive due to unknown reasons (ie not kinks, twisting, etc)?

It happens but it comes down to the fact that not all life are meant to be, from poor veins to hatchlings dying during incubation we all experience it (just like we experience slugs as well) however there is no miracle wash that can prevent and save something that is not meant to be.

If mold and bacteria were such an issue people would report entire clutches lost to said issue and many breeders would do what they do.

You can lose an egg or two in a clutch and when it happen it does not mean other eggs will perish because of mold or bacteria and failure to wash them.

Here is an example 2 eggs gone bad within a few days of incubation, both had poor vein structure so it was no surprise, this picture is taken at day 56 of incubation, as you can see both have rotten yet the other eggs are totally unaffected by the mold and decay and all hatchlings emerged healthy.



So sure you can bath eggs but I can tell you that most breeders who do that for a living producing hundreds or thousands of animals do not do so. While it might work great for them with the number of inexperienced people starting to breed each year that is not something I would recommend. New people have a tendency to emulate others based on what they see or read thinking if so and so does it so can I. They try to breed small females / males because some do too and they will probably give this a try as well and because of their like of experience it will likely go wrong.

I have experience and I would not even consider washing my eggs, because to be honest I am not seeing any benefit from it. Now if they start posting official data based on a few years of using this procedure I guess people may rethink the subject, until than it's one unnecessary step .

Now wiping down an egg and using athlete foot powder or elmer glue because an egg is starting to mold because it got too wet is another issue and always worth the shot.