Ok , This is my first year breeding and all has gone better than expected until my last clutch of 5 that I just cut yesterday on day 53. I was hoping to wait a little longer with these but the eggs were severly dented and shrinking so I thought that maybe they were drying out (??). Well, as soon as I cut the first one I realized that something was a bit differant from the earlier clutches as the baby was quite small and I was right regarding the "fluid being low." So at this point I cut the other four and top off the fluids and crossed my fingers. Well this morning I checked them and found that one had already left it's egg but had passed already about 90% out of the egg. This baby appeared to be fully developed other than a smaller than normal head and couldn't have weighed more than 20-30 grams. At this point it looks as if atleast 2 of the other 4 are still alive(and small like the first) and there appears to be an egg with a twin but one clearly did not make it. This twin egg almost looks to have gone bad (almost solid yolk)only on one side of the egg yet the other appears to have a surviving baby. The only known variable that I had was 2 weeks ago we lost power for about 5 hours and the incubator eventually dropped down to about 80 degrees.
Was that the cause?
Any other thoughts on what would cause this and how to prevent it?
What causes a baby to survive this long only to pass once out of the egg?
What can I do now to help the others survive?
Obviously, I am planning on buying a back up power supply for next year and thankfully all my other clutches had been out for a couple weeks now![]()