First clutch....Bitter sweet

[joelouis821]

I was so thrilled to announce that my very first clutch of eggs has arrived! My Mojave girl laid a clutch of 6 eggs and one slug a few days ago, exactly 50 days after ovulating. I was very happy........until I CANDLED THEM! Out of 6 perfect eggs, 3 appear to be completely infertile, 2 have veins on only 1/3 of the egg, and only one has strong veins throughout. I am SO disappointed! I separated the three that have veins from the others as they weren't stuck together and put them in the incubator using the substrate-less method @ a steady 89 degrees. I am 100% sure that the other three are no good, but I put them in too just to gain the experience of knowing what it looks like when eggs go bad. I am not very optimistic about the two with weak veins....but we'll see. I couldn't believe that so many eggs could look perfect and be no good. Any ideas what may have caused this to happen????

Sire- 900 grams


Momma-2700 grams


Locks- 6 observed






Ovi


Eggs

[dr del]

yep,

Incubate anything that isn't obviously a slug.

Those look like good eggs to me and I wouldn't be surprised if the veins develop just fine after a week. Any that aren't fertile should start decomposing and be easier to spot in that time as well.

[STjepkes]

yep,

Incubate anything that isn't obviously a slug.

Those look like good eggs to me and I wouldn't be surprised if the veins develop just fine after a week. Any that aren't fertile should start decomposing and be easier to spot in that time as well.

Yes, exactly this. Nice looking clutch and may the odds gods have been generous

[joelouis821]

So, one of the weak veined eggs has gone bad and the other looks to be getting stronger veins. The three that had no veins...still have no veins, but have not started to rot yet. So as of now I have two eggs out of a 6 egg clutch that show promise. I discarded the rotting egg, but I cut it open to see what was inside first. The egg was definitely fertile at one point because there was a tiny pink worm looking embryo with tiny black eye specks inside. Besides the embryo, the rest of the contents looked like cottage cheese and smelled AWFUL! I am still disappointed with this clutch, but I know it could have been worse. Hope my second clutch of the season works out a little better.

[f22raptor95]

When you say substrate-less, do you just put the eggs on a light diffuser with water underneath?

[dr del]

I put either vermiculite or perlite under the grating - prevents sloshing and splashing when moving the container.

[bcr229]

I put either vermiculite or perlite under the grating - prevents sloshing and splashing when moving the container.

This. Clean aquarium gravel and new, cleaned synthetic sponges also work.

[joelouis821]

I put either vermiculite or perlite under the grating - prevents sloshing and splashing when moving the container.

Yep! This ^

Officially down to 2 eggs now. The three with no veins finally started to mold and collapse. I cut them open and they were all milky goo, no embryo. Surprisingly, they didn't smell nearly as bad as the fertile egg that went bad.

[joelouis821]

So I lost another egg about 30 days in to incubation. When I cut it open it had deformed twins in it. I thought that the one egg I had left would be a normal due to the horrible luck I was having with this clutch, but I had hopes that it would be a Pastave, either way I just hoped it would be a healthy hatchling. So it is now day 56 and I opened my incubator to this! Someone want to give me their input on what the hell is going on?! I have my guesses, but I want to hear what you think. Either way, I'm happy!!!

[Asherah]

Was this the females first year breeding?