Cut an egg! Need help!

I've had these 2 piebald eggs in my incubator for the last 60 days. I expected they were fertile as they had veins when I candled them within a few days of putting them in the incubator.

Yesterday I candled them again because they hadn't hatched yet. I saw a really clear egg with some veins. Basically it looked the same like when I candled them weeks ago. I figured something must have gone wrong during incubation and the embryos never fully developed for some reason. I wanted to cut them open to see what was inside, but it was too late to do this dirty work last night.

Tonight I cut one open and was disturbed to see what looked like a healthy snake inside. It was a high white pied and that's why it didn't look like much when I candled it. I poked it around and it didn't move. Lots of "egg white" liquid came out. I poked some more to move the snake around to see what it looked like. I was shocked to see it move. It is alive! I put it back in the incubator.

What should I do? Do I need to put like saline solution in the egg to replace the lost egg white I sloshed out? Any ideas on what I should do?

I'm planning to leave the eggs in there overnight and check them tomorrow. Hopefully the one with the cut egg has developed enough and can survive outside of the egg.

I am quite inexperienced at hatching ball python eggs. This is my 4th clutch of ball python eggs. All clutches have had some snakes hatch out. However, in the previous 3 clutches I've always had what looked like some fully formed snakes never hatch out, so I was planning to slit eggs open this time. I don't know if I cut too early this time.

This clutch of eggs had 5 eggs originally and had a difficult start. This clutch was discovered for some time laying on dry substrate. 3 of the eggs were very dry and eventually hardened and got tossed out when they got hard and moldy.

What is your incubation temperature?

The temperature at the level of the eggs was about 84 degrees.

I opened the incubator this morning. The snake is still alive in its egg with its giant ragged hole. I'm hoping the baby comes out on its own. Keeping my fingers crossed that it developed enough...

Because I thought the eggs were dead, I remember handling the eggs roughly and chopping into the egg not delicately. If the snake doesn't emerge on its own by tonight, I wonder if I should pull it out tonight. Since the egg has a huge jagged flap with much less egg white, I'm guessing the snake isn't going to do much developing inside what's left of the shell. Should I just pull the snake out later tonight?

Don't pull the snake out for any reason, that will only do more harm.

Your incubator is too cold. Ball pythons want between 86-90 which is why they are taking so long to develop.

Do not pull it out! If the yolk is not absorbed it needs more time in the egg even if its got a big hole in it.

Thanks for the feedback. I will leave the snake alone and hope it comes out on its own. Keeping my fingers crossed that I didn't doom this little one.

What type of incubation medium are you using? Yeah, don't pull on anything inside the egg. Won't help. Try to raise both the temp and humidity.

While the incubation temperture is very low (most people would never go under 86) a few people have hatched animal successfully even that low but obviously they were experienced.

Common sense would tell you that when incubating that low the incubation period is much longer, I incubate at 88.5 and my eggs hatched on day 60 at 84 we are talking about 70 to at least 80 days maybe more,

You should never cut eggs until you can established the date at which hatchlings would naturally pip, that means you need to let several clutches pip naturally at the same temp to establish that, once you know how long it take you can cut 2 to 4 days prior to that date until than if you want to cut you should only do so when the first hatchling pips.

The earlier you cut the higher the risk for the hatchling, the eggs can dry out and more importantly the hachlings will be exposed to bacteria.

Poking around and exesive candling during the last days of incubation can also have adverse effect and result in twisted umbilicus.

Now all you can do is leave it alone hope for the best and learn from your mistake which hopefully will motivate you in doing some research before breeding again.

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So what's happened with these guys?

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