So, I've been trying to make super cinnamons for years really. I got Tony and Tina, two of the most gorgeous cinny hatchlings ever. Tina has laid before this season, but the eggs were killed when my AC went out and the temps in the snake room hit 110F. This year she bred to Tony and laid a nice clutch of eggs.

Fast forward to Day 55... I was watching two other clutches... not hers yet. I looked up and saw a sizable baby python's head waving around in the wrong bin!! I got very excited, since they were hatching early. I've had a lot of eggs hatching a day or two early this season. The heat has been bad, so keeping the incubator LOW enough has been a trial, and I had a couple temp spikes(once due to my forgetting to turn the AC up before leaving for work, once when the local electric company turned the power off midday to repair a pole hit by a truck).

But upon looking at the eggs, I see....


That's two cinny heads and one normal(this is the first normal Tony has ever thrown!). There were slits in two of the remaining three eggs, so I widened the slits a little, and slit the last egg. I saw this!


SUPER!!! And in all THREE of the remaining eggs! I thought it oddly silver, rather than the traditional dark brown/black. But it was definitely SOLID colored, no pattern on each of the patches of hatching in those THREE eggs. So the Odds Gods had blessed me with 50% supers! I've been trying to make supers for soooo long, and now I have THREE!! I was extremely excited to say the least.

Then I had one cinny and the normal climb out. The normal is nicely large, typical hatchling. The cinny(female) is HUGE at 72grams and zooms around like a cornsnake on RedBull and sugar. Very active, perfect and chocolately in color.


So I waited (im)patiently. I tried not to look in the incubator, don't poke anything, just sit and grin like a foolish idiot... a foolish trusting idiot.

I opened up to check them again... and the second cinny was out(female).


And..... all three super cinnys were dead in the eggs. I pulled the bodies out and all three were kinked. I do have a picture, but it's graphic so I won't post it here. The color was still silvery. Here's a cropped bit of the pic to show JUST the coloration.


I'm going to assume that the silvery color is because they just hadn't darkened up, although they were already large and well formed(just with kinks). There was no sign of duckbilling either.

So... the Odds Gods had their pranks. They gave me, not one... but THREE supers... then took them away. Raising my hopes in a typically cruel fashion, only to dash them upon the rocks of despair. I'm trying to look at the cinnys I have and feel good that I produced some awesome cinnamons. The het OG are doing fine. I have a couple other clutches I'm waiting on. Haurie's entire clutch died(it had all cinnys, no kinks, just died during development probably about the time of the last temp spike). The other clutches are het OG and maybe some pastels.

Such a huge loss makes me begin to reconsider the hobby. I hate to see living things not make it. I also hate to think of the price they would have brought, AND the benefit to my breeding programs they would have been. But I am being as positive as I can, since I still produced healthy cinnys, healthy hets and have more to hope for. Next year will be better. This season I produced more eggs than all my previous seasons added together. Next season will be even better.

For those following the uber pastel boy, he has not passed the hard yolk. Short of surgery(which would most likely kill him), he will probably not make it, but we're still hoping! He hasn't lost weight yet, although he's obviously not eating either.

I appreciate those that are reading my posts on how my season is going, and really thankful to all those who've listened to me whine, gripe and wail over the eggs/hatchlings. I don't have any local friends or family who understand. The internet community is my snakey support and I thank you all!