First Baby Died

Well on day 49 I cut my clutch and out of 5 eggs I got 4 pastels and 1 normal. I made small cuts. Then yesterday mourning now day 56 I looked on my incubator I have glass door and saw the normal poking his head out. The normal was the one I made the smallest slit. Well I left to work and at 10 pm when I got home I checked on them and the normal was 80% out of egg and not moving. I checked it and was really weak. Then 2 hours later he died. I checked him and all of its yolk has been absorbed so I have no clue what happened. The others are still in egg with a lot of yolk still left. So it's weird. The normal looked the biggest of them all on what I can tell. I don't bothered them since I cut. I just think he was just one that did not develop properly and just did not make it. My Bator stayed 88 constantly. So I'm just waiting for others to come out.

Sorry to hear:(. Hope the rest of the clutch do good!

My guess would be at 88 degrees and cutting them at day 49 was too early. But I might be the only one to think that :confuzd:, but I honestly wouldn't have cut that soon.

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Originally Posted by heathers*bps

My guess would be at 88 degrees and cutting them at day 49 was too early. But I might be the only one to think that :confuzd:, but I honestly wouldn't have cut that soon.

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That's what I would have thought Too if he died still in egg and with yolk still there. But he was done absorbing all of it. Plus it should not matter what day you cut if your care full.

It doesn't matter when we cut eggs? So it's okay to cut on day 40? 30? 10? If we're careful?

Look, I don't blame the breeder here. Somebody put this grand idea in his head. Day 49? Is that seriously when we're saying it's okay to cut eggs? No, let me guess: we're saying even earlier than that.

Can I just ask how many posts we've seen this year with people cutting a week or more early, being "careful", and then losing babies anyway?

Can we please stop saying it's okay to cut whenever? We're breeding these little animals that may or may not be worth a lot of money, and we're desperately impatient to see what nifty things we've made. And then somebody says it's okay to cut on day 58, on day 56, on day 52, on day 45. And then... we have no clue what happened?

C'mon, people. We know what happened. Eggs don't hatch until the baby is fully formed for a reason. What happened is: we got impatient, we listened to the advice we wanted to hear, we cut weeks early, we gashed giant holes in the blood supply of the egg, and a bacteria got in there and had a party. What happened is, we're killing our own animals.

Please, can we just tell people to wait? Waiting won't kill us.

It doesn't matter when you cut eggs. It's up to the breeder. I have seen people cut at day 30 with no ill affect. We let a clutch pip on its own this season and one of them drowned after it had piped. So regardless on whether or not you cut or let nature take her course things still can and do go wrong.
:colbert:

Not to mention that the usual 90 deg temps are hotter than what the eggs would normally incubate at I am sure. We "breeders"(people in general) as a whole tend to try to speed everything up. We keep temps high, we feed way too much, we breed way too soon, we cut early and so on. Ball Pythons live under ground in cool humid caves. I highly doubt that there holes ever get close to hitting 85-90 deg. They probably stay closer to mid 70's-80 deg. They probably only eat once every few weeks and take years to ever even get close to 2-3k grams.
It's all a big race for many breeders. Who can get that first new combo, who can make the most babies, in the end who can make the most profit. Not everyone is this way, but most are.
We have changed our whole process. We went from belly heat to ambient heat. Went from incubator to maternal. We now only use our bator for backup if a mother kicks out an egg or doesn't sit on the clutch (fist time layers). We do however feed weekly, or whenever one appears to want to eat. After all, we all want great big ball pythons right? Isn't bigger better?

Cutting at day 49 is early for an inexperienced breeder, especially at lower incubation temperatures. When you cut, you open the inside of the egg to a warm moist environment that's perfect for bacteria growth.

I'm sorry you lost the baby. Breeding ball pythons requires a lot of patience. I know I'd love to see what is in the eggs way sooner than I do, but that isn't in the best interest of the babies. And, me knowing what is in the eggs early doesn't change a thing. They are what they are, no matter when I cut.

I agree the big breeders barely take care of their snakes . they don't even give them hide boxes:(

Why do people cut eggs anyway?

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Originally Posted by moonlightgdess

Why do people cut eggs anyway?

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Many different reasons really. Mainly it's just being impatient and or having had babies drown or die from being tangled in its umbilicus cord. So some do it in the hopes of preventing any unwanted deaths.

So sorry your baby died.
I just had two die today from my first clutch. The eggs were a bit small and one had a twisted umbilicus. They were underdeveloped. It's a bummer.

On the subject of cutting, i cut on day 55 and i don't think i will do that again next year...it was more trouble than anything.
It was a nerve racking experience. And most of the babies still have plenty of yolk to absorb.
I only have one snake out of eight that has come out of the egg. I hope they all survive ok but i know the risk of subjecting them to bacteria from an open egg is not something I'll risk again. Call it an impatient first year clutch impulse, but i regret it. I went from excitement to worry.
My babies aren't out of the clear yet.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

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Originally Posted by cinnamonpython

I agree the big breeders barely take care of their snakes . they don't even give them hide boxes:(

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To be fair, if the tub is dark & small enough (but not TOO small) they don't really need a hide box... a few of my snakes don't even want them, like Nerissa the big normal BP who only knocks them over or sits on top. I tried every type of hide with her, and finally gave up - as she prefers sleeping in the back of the tub, curled around her water dish.

That being said, I am sorry for your loss (OP) but agree with "loonunit" on their points. I have only bred a few clutches thus far, but waited to cut until the first one pipped. Why cut any sooner, unless you have reason to believe they're in distress? I understand being anxious to see what's inside, but patience is a virtue in this hobby! My last clutch was incubated @ around 88-89 degrees and didn't fully emerge until day 60+... so if I'd cut on day 40, that would surely have caused some issues with keeping them clean. Who knows what caused your baby to die, and I'm very sorry for that, but in the future it wouldn't hurt to wait until one pips before cutting. JMO.

I would never cut until one pips on it's own. You can argue until you are blue in the face it doesn't hurt anything, but it does whether you like it or not. Too many people with too little experience read somewhere that this guy who's been breeding for 15 years cuts his eggs 25 days early and figures, well if he can do it so can I. Of course, they don't take any of the extra precautions the big breeder used into consideration. And you never hear about when a big breeder cuts early and things go wrong, because after all everything always goes perfect for them, it's how they got where they are.

Leave the darn eggs alone for pete's sake. You decided to buy ball pythons. You decided to keep them, feed them, house them, and breed them. Then you have a responsibility to take care of any resulting eggs to the best of your ability. This means let the things hatch when they are ready, not when you decide you have waited long enough.

One of my most anticipated clutches this year hatched out three babies born without eyes. Sometimes you can do everything right and still have problems. Why make it more likely something will go wrong ?

Gale