Egg Death?? HELP!

So my husband and I are new at this. This is our first year actually breeding and although we thought we had researched everything we possibly could, there seem to be things popping up that we had hoped wouldn't be an issue. This year we had 6 of our 13 females lay eggs. Our Lesser (or Spider) x Normal clutch hatched a few weeks ago (all normals) and are doing awesome. However, we're having issues with a few of our other clutches. Our Spider held on to her eggs way too long, long enough I thought she had possibly just gotten really heavy and refused food for the season. All of her eggs were small and we knew they would go bad. All but one did, though I'm still not sure about it (last picture).

One of our piebalds also held on to her eggs longer than we had wanted. She laid 4 eggs, one of them was kicked out. They were small and I figured we'd lose the one that was kicked out and one other. Our other piebald laid 6 perfect eggs on time. However, as we looked at them this morning, I was incredibly frustrated and disappointed. It looks like two more of the "bad" pied clutch have gone bad - not including the one that was kicked out. And as I looked at the "healthy" pied clutch, they all look like they may have gone bad. One definitely did, and I took it out. The others...I think they're bad but my husband thinks we may just have too high humidity and they'll pull through. They candle well, but the bottoms look rotten and/or soggy to me. The pearlite mixture isn't too wet, but we did just add humidity to the room the incubator is in and we were using press-n-seal which may have made them more humid than we would like. Our other two clutches (lesser x spider and hclown) are doing just fine. Look at the pictures and tell me what you think! I'm expecting bad news but hoping for good. I'd have loved to hatch pieds this year.

http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0491.jpg
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0492.jpg
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0493.jpg
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0494.jpg

Did they all candle healthy when laid? How do they candle now?

Honestly, its hard to say for sure but my guess is that there is too much moisture in the substrate.

I'm sure someone who's seen way more of this stuff will chime in with some help.

Btw, if you put IMG tags around your links it'll embed the pictures, much easier.

Good luck.

This is why I went to the substrateless method, if the eggs are in the substrate the moisture content is fairly critical.

My eggs started to mold with press n seal on so I removed it and have had excellent humidity with 3 holes in the side of the tub.
Your eggs look like they have been sitting in soaking wet substrate :(

13 females for your first year breeding :rolleye2:

We're doing substrateless next year. This year we knew would be a learning process. I've checked the substrate a lot and its never seemed very wet, -- i actually think it's quite dry right now, but I agree they look like they've been sitting in soaking substrate and maybe they have. Can we dry them out to keep them alive? They all candle well which makes me think we can either fix this or they died just recently and they wont candle well soon. I took the press-n-seal off. We were actually worried about keeping humidity in - not out. Our mistake.

I'm sorry. I haven't had any clutches (yet) so I really can't give you any advise. I just wanted to wish you luck, and that I have my fingers crossed!

I'm not sure on if they'd be good still, but I would get them off the substrate and onto light diffuser to let them dry out.

I think pretty much all of those eggs will live if you get your incubation medium fixed. I would switch everything to substrateless now. Just less stuff to worry about that way. You can even keep the same vermiculite in the tubs. Just put a layer or 2 or egg crate and add some water to the vermiculite. No point waiting till next year and letting these die when the problem can be fixed for about $10 and a few minutes work. I bet you won't lose any of them aside from maybe that one small egg in your first pic if you switch now. Good luck.

Mine did the same thing, I ran over to HD & got a piece of grating to set over the substrate. The eggs are great now :)

I can't seem to edit my first post so here are the pictures again:

http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0491.jpg
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0492.jpg
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0493.jpg
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/a...y/IMG_0494.jpg

i'll be getting them off the substrate tonight. thank you!

Mix in completely dry incubation medium (perlite works wonders for this), and cut the wet to dry by 1/3 to a half.

It will be fine.

Soggy substrate will not nessasarily kill an egg, Hatched a many that never collapsed due to excess water in the medium..It can or may have developmental issues for the neonate such as runts..During incubation of most pythons you shoot for 100% humidity..Yellow/green staining/widows generally signifies the death of the egg..Some are spouting that foot powder or liquid bandade saves some but if, it in fact died theres no bringing them back to life..RIGHT ?? A common thing seen today is mediums with fertilizer which would spell death for eggs..In our experience if an egg is going to die it usually occurrs inside of 2 weeks..That would be natural issues and not environmental issues though..It affecting the bottoms as it does leads me to believe there may be an additive to your substrate..One more thing to consider is "AIR".. Many now employ the press and seal stuff but an egg is living from day one..It takes on moisture and oxygen and expells Co2 so if it can not breath it sufficates..
IMO..:salute:

Thank you! We've never let the press-n-seal completely seal our bins because we wanted them to breathe, and there are holes in our lids to let the air circulate a bit, but this is definitely our error. it might be something in the substrate, but the problem seems to be only with our piebalds. One clutch has hatched already and two are doing just fine. Even our last spider egg doesnt' seem to have the problems our piebald eggs do. It's just odd to me that we've done the exact same thing to all of them and yet only our piebalds are experiencing this. I should've been paying more attention. We'll get them off the substrate, all of them, this afternoon and see how that plays out.