What's Going on With These Eggs? Transparent Looking.

Hey All,

I tried searching around but couldn't really find anything helpful.

Whats going on with these eggs? Humidity? Temps? Every egg was fertile, full of veins. The transparency seems to be mostly on the bottom of the eggs where they are touching the substrate.

http://www.forums.repashy.com/pictur...pictureid=6515

http://www.forums.repashy.com/pictur...pictureid=6516

http://www.forums.repashy.com/pictur...pictureid=6517

http://www.forums.repashy.com/pictur...pictureid=6518

http://www.forums.repashy.com/pictur...pictureid=6519

Temps are set to 89F.

Substrate was superhatch/perlite mix and the feel is moist but not wet.

I use substrateless, but my guess is your substrate is too wet. Grabs some light diffuser grating and suspend your eggs out of it.

Were the eggs like that when they were laid? I'm thinking she didn't have enough calcium to fully form the shells. If they came out normal but then changed to look like that later on then I'd take Annarose15's advice!

They looked normal when they came out.

Too much moisture underneath the eggs. Definitly puts them on something to have them sitting above the substrate.
I had ONE egg have a "silver dollar size" spot that looked similar to that. It went full term and hatched completely healthy


Http://www.BCBallPythons.com
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we had a clutch last year with a "cheater peek" window. the baby hatched out strong & healthy so just keep tabs on temp & humidity... sometimes abnormalities occur but they arent necessarily harmful. good luck! :sweeet:

Hmm, think I would be ok sucking some of the water out of the substrate with a paper towel or three (then trashing the paper towels of course)?

Hi,

They are definitely getting too wet from the substrate.


dr del

Looks like they're too wet.

Use Elmers Glue on the windows to keep it from spreading after the moisture issue is fixed.

Your eggs look like that because they got wet on the bottom. Not much you can do about it now, if it doesn't get worse they'll probably be fine. I used to incubate my eggs like that for many years and hatched hundreds of babies but the problem is that it's really easy to have too much moisture in the substrate. It shouldn't feel damp at all in fact it should feel fairly dry but will hold together when you sqeeze a bunch of substrate in your hand (kind of like a snowball only dryer) The eggs need to be in a very humid environment but not necessarily a damp one.

For the last several years though I've been using a substrateless method (so called because the eggs sit above the substrate and not in it). It's a lot easier to monitor the moisture in the egg box this way and you don't have to worry about getting the right water/substrate ratio. Here is a picture of a couple of egg boxes I set up last week. I put a couple of inches of perlite in the egg box and soak it real good. No need to measure, just pour water until it gets almost to the top of the perlite. The perlite just adds more surface area from which the water can evaporate. Then there is a plastic mesh sitting on top to keep the eggs off of the perlite (the plastic mesh is a light diffuser from a florescent light fixture cut to fit inside the egg box) The eggs then sit on top and are held above the moist substrate instead of sitting in it. Then I put a piece of glad press n seal plastic wrap on top of the egg box to make it tight so I don't lose a lot of moisture through evaporation then put the lid of the egg box on top of that. The whole thing then goes into the incubator. I've found this to be a lot more fool proof then measuring out water and substrate to make sure you have the right ratios.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...psc41abc15.jpg

Sorry this got so wordy. Hope you find it helpful.

No need for the perilite. Just use the Superhatch ( Calcined Clay ) and prep it according to the directions.

Haven't tried that stuff before. What's it like? How much would you need to fill a shoe box about 2" deep?

The main thing thats nice about superhatch is that it changes color so you can visually inspect whether its dry or not. We lost a bunch of ciliatus eggs our first season because we incubated on perlite. They ended up caving in from the bottom due to lack of humidity then mold growth would start in the cavity ultimately killing the egg before we even knew something was wrong. Superhatch has a distinctive color difference which allows you to add more water when it dries out. Very important for geckos that come from regions with high humidity (Uroplatus). I think thats probably were I messed up with the BP eggs, I'm used to doing gecko eggs from humid regions, dry to me is probably wet for BP eggs. Also, this is my first time incubating soft eggs.

I took a paper towel to the substrate and it seemed pretty dry. This is day 21 of incubation so I'm thinking this damage was done a while back, alot of the humidity has evaporated as I have the lid slightly cracked.

I purchased this Volta girl mainly as a test run though so if I end up losing the clutch, while that will suck bad, it won't be as bad as losing our expensive animals. So far it has been a really positive experience with alot of things I will do differently in 2014 (when my animals are RTB).

Ok switched them over to the substrateless method just now. We could not find the grates you all recommended at Lowes but I got some hard plastic circle grate which i think is used as a gutter guard. So I currently have them in a 6qt bin with about 1" of wet superhatch. I also purchased the glad press and seal but have not put that on yet.

The press n seal is only important if you lose a lot of moisture through evaporation. I've hatched plenty of ball pythons without it, but I've also lost clutches in the past when the egg box dried out with a couple of weeks yet to go before hatching. Once the eggs desicate, especially late in incubation, it's tough to get them plumped up again. The lids to most shoe boxes don't have a very tight seal, hence the press n seal.

I've been doing a bit of research on this superhatch substrate and I think I'm going to have to get some to give it a try, it sounds like it should be pretty effective. I think I'm going to set up a couple of boxes with it this year to see how it works out. Thanks for the tip.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Haven't tried that stuff before. What's it like? How much would you need to fill a shoe box about 2" deep?

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It takes 4 scoops with a 8 oz. deli cup for approx. 2" in a 6 qt tub. I don't use Superhatch specifically but use Calcined Clay that comes in 50 lb bags :)

I place 4 scoops into a kitchen strainer and rinse it under water until clean and then placed in a bowl to soak for a few minutes. Then I allow it to strain and excess water while suspended above the bowl for around five minutes. Then nestle the eggs into the media.

Soak, Strain, Setup... Simple

I have hatched Cal Kings, Western Hognose, Leo's, and Balls using this exact method :)