mojo x pastel clutch.. talk about dodging bullets!
So ok, I did something so stupid I am almost too embarrassed to share. But here goes.. I somehow messed up marking the calendar for day 55 on my cell phone. I knew or thought I knew I was cutting them according to my calendar on day 54. I cut and they were very strange looking, their eyes looked blind and fuzzy. I thought the whole clutch was deformed or something. (Especially knowing about the temp drop which I will explain in a min)
A few days go by and no heads pipping and they just looked so strange, a couple even had what looked like webbing around their bodies. I didn't know what an underdeveloped snake looked like but I couldn't shake the idea that they looked way underdeveloped. I checked my written snake records..low and behold.. they were actually cut on day 46.. panic attack city for me. After a few Google searches, I see some *experienced* breeders have successfully pipped eggs at this date. Phewww so now I just hope n pray I was as gentle as I thought I was as I don't like cutting any veins when I cut the eggs. I get so nervous when I cut at day 55 and I worry until they are out of the egg.. and I just learned I cut at day 46. I wanted to cry!
I kept checking on them, adding water in their eggs if they looked less than full. And making sure every time I touched them my hands were EXTRA clean!
Also.. might I add, my incubator got unplugged about 1/2 way through incubation for I'm not sure.. I'm assuming about 8-12 hrs. My incubator is in my living room for lack of space in my snake room. I don't know if it was one of our dogs or one of the kids, not our daughter, she knows to leave it alone and not play near it. My niece n nephews visit all the time. But no finger pointing cuz if you know min pins, they are very happy and active so who knows how it got unplugged? the shock on my face when I glanced at the accurite and it said 78!!!! I pretty much gave up hope for a healthy clutch.
So with both of these major mishaps, I was so upset, mad at myself for somehow messing the dates up on the cell and mad at my choice for the incubator.. I was just hoping at least one would survive..
Skip ahead.. day 60 in the afternoon, one mojave is out.. and late tonight, the other mojo and pastave is out. The pastel and normal are still hanging out in their shells but the first 3 have NO kinks and their eyes are perfect!!
Here is a pic of the first mojo out, its a female. We named her Mascarade. She has an alien head in the shape of one of those hand held masks women hold when they go to a Mascarade party. She also has what looks like an awareness ribbon pattern next to it but I liked the name Mascarade :)
http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/...psb562210d.jpg
So yeah I got VERY lucky in every way. They weren't deformed, they lived through the temp drop, me cutting STUPIDITY so early and I got 1.1 mojos, a male pastave all 3 are perfectly healthy. Pastel and normal look perfect but are still in their eggs. From what I can see their yolk is gone they just are chilling in there still but they look perfect too!
More pics later of everyone else :)
Just wanted to share my story.. I still have no idea how I had the wrong date on my cell! I have big hands as I'm pretty tall so maybe my fingers hit the wrong button? Who knows.. I'm just super thankful I didn't kill them.
~filly
- - - Updated - - -
This pic shows the 2 markings I mentioned.
http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/...ps915205b2.jpg
Re: mojo x pastel clutch.. talk about dodging bullets!
That's a sigh of relief. It would have been a sleepless couple of weeks for me. Glad everything turned out ok. Congrats.
