Twins and Large Masses in Eggs Causing Death

[Slowcountry Balls]

As the title states, I have had some problems this season with twins and large masses causing the deaths of some of my hatchlings this year. This problem has occurred with 3 eggs, resulting in 2 hatchlings dying after pipping, 1 being dead when I cut the egg open, and 1 being only partially formed. To date, out of 19 clutches, I have had 8 slugs laid (1 from 1 clutch and 7 from a second clutch), 1 egg that looked good externally but did not have any veins, 1 egg that was half slug/half good die in incubation, 2 eggs that were completely good die in incubation, and 1 hatchling die from a twisted umbilical chord before I cut the egg open, in addition to the hatchlings that I lost due to the issue that prompted this thread.

2014 Clutch 3 started off as 5 eggs from a Spotnose male paired to a Lesser Bee female. During incubation, 2 of those eggs died. When I cut those 2 eggs open, there were very small snakes starting to form, completely white (pictures are in this thread http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...13-2014-Season). On day 52 (the average day that my clutches pip over the last 3 season, with the probe in the incubator reading 90.0 degrees F), the first to pip was a Spider combination. I cut that egg, and saw 2 identical heads in the egg, my first set of twins! I cut the other 2 eggs and had 2 Lesser Spotnoses. I put the egg box back in the incubator and went to work. About 4 hours later, I sent a text message to my wife, asking how the twins were doing. She checked on them and replied that 1 had tried to come out and was dead and the other 1 appeared to be dead in the egg. I asked her to take pictures of them as they were, and to cut open the egg and take pictures of what she saw, and then send the pictures to me. She found that the twin that came out and died, was still attached to the other twin by its umbilical chord and that the other twin was only half formed. Here are the pictures she sent me:




2014 Clutch 12 was supposed to be a male het Albino het Pied paired with a female het Albino het Pied, but had some unexpected results that are the topic of another thread (http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...e-Het-For-What). The female laid 11 eggs (a really impressive clutch for her first season). Early on, 2 eggs started to deflate more than the others. So, on day 49 (since I expected them to pip in 3 more days), I cut the most deflated egg. The hatchling in this egg was dead from a twisted umbilical chord. Concerned, I cut the other egg that was significantly deflated. Inside was a perfectly responsive Albino looking hatchling. I was quite excited. I removed the dead hatchling, and put the egg box back in the incubator. I waited 2 more days, but just had to know what the others in the clutch were. On day 51 I cut the remaining 9 eggs. In the first 8 eggs, I got 5 normal looking hatchlings, 2 more Albino looking hatchlings, and 2 hatchlings that I am still not sure what they are. In the last egg were fraternal twins, a normal looking hatchling and an Albino looking hatchling. Unfortunatetly, out of 11 eggs and 12 hatchlings, I did not get any Pieds. The normal looking fraternal twin was responsive, but, while the Albino looking fraternal twin was fully formed, it was dead. I tied the Albino looking fraternal twin's umbilical chord off, cut the umbilical chord, and removed it from the egg. I then placed the egg box back in the incubator. The following morning, day 52, I checked on the hatchlings, and the Albino looking hatchling, who's egg I had cut open on day 49, had tired to come out of its egg and had died. I could see that his umbilical chord was still attached to something in his egg. When I took it out of the egg, it was a rather large mass, very similar to the half formed twin from 2014 Clutch 3. The normal looking fraternal twin is doing just fine. He came out of his egg normally and while at 32 grams, he has taken a small mouse hopper last weekend and last night. Below are some pictures of the fraternal twins and the Albino looking hatchling that was attached to the mass.




With both pairs of twins and the 1 Albino looking hatchling, there was a large mass left in the egg that looks like something quite different than unabsorbed yolk. I also can't help but wonder if I could had saved the Spider combination twin and the Albino looking hatchling that both died trying to come out of the egg if I had tied off and cut their umbilical chords. I am not dwelling on these, losses, but trying to learn for future clutches and share my experience to help others learn too.

[RellesReptiles]

You seem to have had a pretty bizarre season all around, what with mystery genetics and strange egg problems...
The big hard yolk sack problem I have seen before (online, not personally) so that's not a completely unusual thing to happen, but as for having so many twins... that half formed one... Very weird, interesting, and unfortunate.
Did you do anything different with incubation than you normally do? Also, is there any chance you had parents that were closely related? Just some thoughts.

[Slowcountry Balls]

You seem to have had a pretty bizarre season all around, what with mystery genetics and strange egg problems...
The big hard yolk sack problem I have seen before (online, not personally) so that's not a completely unusual thing to happen, but as for having so many twins... that half formed one... Very weird, interesting, and unfortunate.
Did you do anything different with incubation than you normally do? Also, is there any chance you had parents that were closely related? Just some thoughts.

Didn't do anything different with incubation than normal. My incubator is very stable, and I had problems with only 2 of 16 clutches (that have completely hatched) so far. With it being the third and twelfth clutches, I would have expected more clutches to show problems if it was incubator related, especially since 2014 clutch 11 was laid and pipped on the same days, so it would have experienced the exact same incubator conditions.

As for close relations, 2014 Clutch 3 was completely unrelated, the mother was produced by Tim Lane of Ballroom Pythons, and the father was produced by Outback Reptiles. 2014 Clutch 12 was a double het pairing, so I assume that they were siblings, but don't know for sure, since I didn't produce them, and I got them from someone who traded a third person for them.

I really wonder if I could have saved the 2 that died coming out of the eggs? Just want to know for future clutches.

[Marrissa]

I have no experience, so I just wanted to thank you for coming forward and posting these. I'm hoping some of the pros can chime in. With my first season coming up in spring, I'm eager to learn about how to deal with these sorts of things. Sorry for your losses.

[Slowcountry Balls]

I have no experience, so I just wanted to thank you for coming forward and posting these. I'm hoping some of the pros can chime in. With my first season coming up in spring, I'm eager to learn about how to deal with these sorts of things. Sorry for your losses.

Thanks. I understand things like this happen, and some of it is out of our control, I just want to be as prepared as possible for what I can control.

[RellesReptiles]

Yeah that doesn't sound like there's anything in common then. Very weird.
As far as the babies that died, it's possible that tying the cords off could have helped, but there's no guarantee of that. Don't beat yourself up about it. If it happens with any of the future clutches you might be able to recognize it sooner and try to do something about it.
Here's to hoping there's no more of that though!!

[Slowcountry Balls]

Yeah that doesn't sound like there's anything in common then. Very weird.
As far as the babies that died, it's possible that tying the cords off could have helped, but there's no guarantee of that. Don't beat yourself up about it. If it happens with any of the future clutches you might be able to recognize it sooner and try to do something about it.
Here's to hoping there's no more of that though!!

Thanks. I am not beating myself up. Like you said "you might be able to recognize it sooner and try to do something about it." That is really why I started this thread, so that I, or others, might be able to take action if this happens in the future. I want to help myself and others learn, so that more, awesome, combinations are produced. Whenever one chooses to breed Ball Pythons, it must be assumed that some will not survive. This does not mean that we like, or accept that some will die, it means that we choose as a community to share information so that we produce as many amazing snakes as possible. By starting this thread, I hope that other members will be aware of what might happen, and to learn how to save hatchlings (whenever possible), so that as many hatchlings, as possible, will survive.

While as a rule, I do not handle a snake until it is out of the egg, this experience has changed my position, to where I will inspect any egg that has a large mass or twins in it, even if that means taking the hatchling out of the egg. I want to do what is best for my animals, and when it comes to twins and large masses in the egg, I think that this action may be necessary.

[Wapadi]

We also had our first eggs die off this year. 8 egg clutch. All candled fine. Incubated same as every other year and all 30 other eggs hatched fine.

Three of the eggs started molding around day 42. But they still candled with veins, just no movement. When I cut on day 50 (bc I was way worried about the 3 very caved in moldy eggs) The hatchling were very under formed and completely dead. I assume they all died shortly before molding started happening. And most off the eggs were fill with a hard mass! Just like yours! The fourth egg died the day after cutting and other than being very little it looked fine. Very weird.

I am glad others are letting the general public know as well! Crap happens even when we try our best. And sometimes we will never know what happened...

[CD CONSTRICTORS]

I posted a thread regarding breeding stats/clutch results....

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...esting-stuff-)

I think that you will find, the more eggs you produce, the more problems you will encounter. You can't save them all, but you can only try to do your best. Sounds like you are on top of things, and sometimes it just does not go perfect.

Last December we had a Pastel clutch that had issues on many fronts..... retained sperm from absorbing the prior year, and she held on to her eggs for 78 days after ovulating. Only 3/7 babies survived. All the babies appeared to be morphs from the retained sperm the prior season (Mojave x Pastel).... no Enchi morphs from her pairing last year. The ones that survived had slight tail kinks. They ate and behaved perfectly normal and were given away as pets with the problems expressed to the owners.

That particular 0.1 Pastel has put on ~400g since last December and is well over 2000g. She snuck up on us this year. Cleaning her tub a few weeks ago she was very fat looking. Palpating her revealed she has quite large follicles already. We just started to pair her this week to our Black Pastel 100% Het Pied. He will not see much duty this fall as we picked up another male for our Pied projects. Pewters will not hurt anyone, and maybe we'll see a ringer on one

Some females need a "red flag" on their tubs reminding us of any issues from prior breedings. Both of these females have a little red sticker on their tubs just as a reminder to watch for any issues. Keep track of any males you paired up that produced funky clutches as well. It wasn't the males (Mojave and Albino Enchi) in our case as they both produced perfect clutches with other females this season.

[RellesReptiles]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater
Just saw this, seems a lot of people are dealing with this type of thing this season.