Help with eggs

Hi, this is our first bp eggs incubation and eggs are at day 6. The 6 eggs had a weight of 608g and were bumpy as you see in the pic and all candled well. Eggs were moved straight from mother to box without any rotation at all. Using perlite and egg grate with water in the bottom, we have 6 eggs, one of which had sm wet spot on top of eggs when we removed from mother. It has expanded and dimpled in a bit and wet spot has developed on another egg which has gotten bigger over last 2 days. There is only mild condensation on one side of the egg box in which no eggs are touching the top or sides of the egg box. Im wondering what can be done, or if there is something wrong with the eggs, they all candle pretty well, the 2 eggs in question have mild veins while the other 4 have more veins in view. There have been some temp fluctuation with about 4 degrees, and we have been keeping the incubator set at 86 degrees as in the egg box temps are 89-91. I seem to be pulling my hair out and having a large amount of anxiety as I do not know what could be going on with the eggs. I read how so many people just throw their eggs in the incubator set at 89 degrees with the setup I have, do or don't monitor the egg box temp, and there are no issues with their hatching, yet we haven't even had ours in for a week and already having problems. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you

Here are the eggs after hatch
https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho...0b&oe=537CDC44

and here they are day 6, note spots on top and right eggs
https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho...20&oe=537CBF79

Congrats on your first clutch. I haven't really encountered the exact scenario that you're describing but the eggs don't look bad. Sometimes you'll get a clear ish spot on the egg referred to as a window. I'd leave them alone for a bit and see how they look. occasionally I'll get an egg that looks good, some veins but goes bad later. If it starts to deteriorate, you can always pull them later. I've seen eggs that are completely moldy but don't affect the others. I'm one of the guys that sets it at 89 and leaves it. It periodically open the box every 3-4 days for a little fresh air exchange and that's it. If the box doesn't seem humid enough I add a little water. I've had great success in hatching nice healthy babies with very few eggs lost over the past 4 seasons....knock on wood. Good luck and keep posting pictures.

thank you BigFish. Just want to do the best I can to hatch these little ones.

No problem,I know what you mean. Good luck!!!! By the way, what was the pairing?

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Originally Posted by Bigfish1975

No problem,I know what you mean. Good luck!!!! By the way, what was the pairing?

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Lesser x normal

Looks like they got wet. I'm on my first clutch, so I don't have any suggestions other than to keep an eye on them.

Here is mine at day 40.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/20/zegusa5e.jpg

Not looking like a window to me, those look like wet spots, is the condensation building up on the lid?

they never had access to anything wet, have had no condensation on top, only a small bit on 1 side. Eggs not touching top or sides of box either.
Our pairing was 1.0 lesser x 0.1 normal.
Pic in the box
http://i1264.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9e173cfc.jpg

here is them in the tub as of current, other pic was moved by mistake
http://i1264.photobucket.com/albums/...ps95a95654.jpg

We had the same thing happen last year on a clutch. Could not figure out where the moisture was coming from as it wasn't dripping off the top. It was almost as if it was a spot where the moisture was leaching from the egg. I just kept dabbing it lightly with paper towel to keep the moisture at a minimum and eventually, (at least half way though the incubation period) they finally dried up. The eggs hatched fine but I still cant't quite explain why it did that.

Thank you rlditmars, we are keeping our fingers crossed, temps are good and not fluctuating much, so just keeping an eye on them (more like 4 eyes on them or 6 if you count my glasses, lol) I have hatched out perfect little cornsnake eggs in the past in a chicken incubator with no trouble at all, one set even had to go on a road trip with us, and hatched while we were on vacation all 23 hatched. Now with 6 bp eggs in the box, it is gonna drive me to drink. I dont think I was ever this anxious with the cornsnakes, did love that the hatch time was half the time of bp eggs. Its just our first clutch, and I want all the babies.

If you can, I would check the bottom of the eggs. Sometimes if the bottom gets wet the top will show signs of deterioration.

Thank you lazybugz, will check for that, they are on a grate so hopefully they arent getting wet through that

Any updates on the eggs?

Sent From My Man-Cave

I have not had the issue you are having with the wet spot, but I have seen other people post about it before. I have heard of people putting liquid bandaid, super glue, or elmers glue on the wet spots to stop them from spreading. I will try to look up an old thread for you.

4 degrees is kind of a lot of fluctuation (maybe enough to have caused condensation to have formed on the eggs themselves, depending on the humidity?). Just a thought, since it really does look like they got wet somehow. I'm not sure how your incubator is set up or what kind of thermostat you have regulating it, but it might be helpful to add some bottles of water to act as a heat sink and help keep things stable. We allow all our females to maternally incubate now, but we used an incubator for several years, and still keep it up and running in case we have eggs that repeatedly roll out or females that won't stay on eggs. We usually have less than a degree of fluctuation with the water bottles added.

So it turns out the thread I'm thinking of is on another forum...not sure if it is ok to post the link here or not, so I'll PM you.

i think its dropping down from above.

BTW, condensation is only sometimes caused by temperature variability, generally its caused by a temperature gradient. as in: it evaporates where its warm and condenstaes where its cold. and when the humidity is very high, even a slight gradient will cause the effect. so when you heat from below and the top is just 1 degree cooler, you get the drops.

if im right and its dropping down, then water bottles or a better thermostat wont necessarily help. large temperature swings are not good, and water bottles help with that, and a good thermstat wont allow large temperature swings. if the incubator temperatures swing around like crazy, whenever the egg box is warmer than the rest of the incubator, you get some condensation.

you can try to get rid of the temperature gradient. you could try moving the heat source all the way to the top, and then use little fans to evenly distribute it. basically, figure out what the problem with the incubator is, why there is a gradient, and fix it.

a different idea would be to keep the drops from reaching the eggs. like, tilt the egg box by 15 degrees, so that the drops run off sideways instead of falling on the eggs. or make it so that the lid of the egg box is tilted.

but that all assumes that the pictures are not fooling me, and that there is water dripping down.

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"There have been some temp fluctuation with about 4 degrees, and we have been keeping the incubator set at 86 degrees as in the egg box temps are 89-91."

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thats enough of a temperature gradient for condensation. 90 inside the egg box, 86 around the egg box, thats only possible when the incubator recently used to be at 90 degrees and just dropped down to 86. or when you use two different imprecise thermometers to make these measurements. if the temperature is generally constant, you get thermodynamic equilibrium, and you get the same temperatures everywhere in the incubator.

The eggs are further deteriorating. I dont think there is much hope at this stage, starting to brown and dimple a bit , eggs are not getting wet from outside sources, ie tub, condensation, etc. Temps have been stable, not sure we had enough humidity, unable to get it up higher than 60%. :(

Did you have press and seal on the tub?

no, and I was incorrect on the humidity # apparently it was at 98%, honestly dont know what to do with them in their current condition. Leave them in there for now, is my guess. Not very hopeful though. I just cant honestly fathom what went wrong, as soon as we noticed the conditions at day 4, I have been trying my best to figure out what went wrong, temps were a bit high those first 2 days but was rectified from that point on. and of course I am to blame for their condition according to one, I set it up exactly as the big breeders do, I did my research on what needed to be accomplished for their conditions and they were met with the exception of the 2 days with mom (as she surprised us early with the eggs) and the 2 days with the off temps. After that all conditions were set as needed. Quite the disappointment as this is one of the clutches of the season I most wanted.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dawnskies

no, and I was incorrect on the humidity # apparently it was at 98%, honestly dont know what to do with them in their current condition. Leave them in there for now, is my guess. Not very hopeful though. I just cant honestly fathom what went wrong, as soon as we noticed the conditions at day 4, I have been trying my best to figure out what went wrong, temps were a bit high those first 2 days but was rectified from that point on. and of course I am to blame for their condition according to one, I set it up exactly as the big breeders do, I did my research on what needed to be accomplished for their conditions and they were met with the exception of the 2 days with mom (as she surprised us early with the eggs) and the 2 days with the off temps. After that all conditions were set as needed. Quite the disappointment as this is one of the clutches of the season I most wanted.

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Last season I lost my most anticipated and valuable clutch. This season I lost my first clutch very similarly to your experience. This season my eggs got wet from the bottom very early on and died. I used egg crate but the eggs formed to the crate and ended up touching the substrate ever so slightly. Last season my girl laid early while I was out of town and the eggs went bad in her tub with her (very stinky mess). We all have clutches go wrong but it makes up for it when you get a live clutch and they all thrive. Good luck to you.

We are waiting on 6 more clutches of eggs and not sure what needs to be done to prevent the same occurring again. I know everyone has their own best way to incubate, but not sure whether to stick to this plan or change it. Massively confused at this point. Right now I know the incubator is 100% stable on temps and humidity, any ideas on another plan to up the success rate? or is it just a toss up on actually hatching some eggs this year lol.

Using a second layer of lighting grate worked out the best for me to make sure there was no contact with the substrate.

I've also seen a layer of this plastic canvas used under the light diffuser to help keep it from sinking.

http://www.joann.com/darice-stiff-pl...r/1971233.html

hi, understand your frustration ... but I think I read you did not use press/seal? If so, I learned the hard way as well. Absolutely use it and seal the tubs ... makes all the difference. Using the grate allows you to over compensate in terms of water, but the press/seal will set the proper level of tub humidity. Works every time for me. Anyway, good luck, hope you don't lose these guys ... my first two clutches this season were largely slugs ... so know the feeling. :)

David

Well the eggs look like old potatoes, lol, but they are not molding. gonna keep them in the incubator for another few weeks and wait and see. We just got a new batch of eggs today, and husband is convinced that we need to maternally incubate them. We shall see how that works I guess. Fingers crossed

I dont think press n seal would have helped this situation as the humidity was already too high! Maternally incubation is good to try to but make sure you look it up on forum to offer best possible success rate! I think you may have add'd too much water to your 1:1 ratio! to get it that wet/humid. But as others have said if you do happen to get a wet spot You can use liquid bandaid or Elmers glue(id personally use elmers, since well its pretty much safe to eat! and if anything is absorbed it wouldnt be too bad!)

I didn't quite commit to using the substrateless method with my clutch this year but I did take an idea from it. I used a piece of that 'egg crate' plastic grid stuff to raise the eggs above the vermiculite mix I used as a medium. I did it so I could add more water freely without worrying about overdoing it, and it seems to be working... here's my clutch at day 49.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/20/a2ubamet.jpg

Can you update us about the eggs? I've been wondering how they're doing...

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