Is my clutch dead?

Hi guys. As you may be able to tell by the title of this thread, I've been having some problems. Back on the 2nd my spider het pied girl laid a clutch of 8 beautiful eggs. I was really excited! I had a small homemade incubator all ready for them and put them in as soon as I found them, but now I'm having issues.


The day before yesterday, sometime between my morning check on the eggs and my night time check, the thermostat I use for my incubator (a herpstat 2 redline) had an error (I think it said "Invaid Temp" or something) and cut off power to the incubator. By the time I got to it the temp was down to 74 degrees F.


I couldn't figure out a way to get the herpstat to stop making the error, so I unpugged it and plugged the heat source in directly to an outlet to let it warm up. It took a good 12 hours to rise above 80 degrees, probably another 12 to get to proper temperatures. I have it on a different thermostat now, but the eggs are dimpled and not looking so great.


Is there any chance that they're still alive? I'd like to save them, if at all possible. My girl was paired with a leopard het pied male and I was hoping for some really nice combos, but after a temp drop so low and for so long I'm afraid there's not much hope for them. I've been wondering if I should just put them in the freezer and then throw them out.

Pictures:
Before
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...com/o04eae.jpg
This was taken the day they were laid, shortly after putting them in the incubator.

After
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...com/wsr6uq.jpg
This was taken today. I didn't want to disturb them while I was waiting for the incubator to warm up.

To be clear, I'm not incubating them at 84 or 86 degrees, that's just what the thermometer reads while the incubator is open. The thermostat is set to 89.

So what do you think? Dead?

All you can do is wait and see what happens......

You can candle the eggs to see if they still have veins. However as mentioned above it’s a waiting game. However I wouldn’t get rid of the eggs just yet. If you have a problem like that again. Get two soda bottles and fill them with hot or warm water. Put it in the incubator to get the temp up. Just be careful not to raise the temp too fast. So you will have to monitor the temp until it stabilizes.

You can't tell from the picture they just look like healthy eggs just a bit deflated which happens.

First thing to do do is to candle them first before doing anything drastic then see how it goes over the next few days, if they are dead it will not take long before they start to mold and you no longer see healthy veins.

Thanks guys. I'll candle them in a bit.


@Tigerhawk: The temp is stabilized now. I don't have room for water bottles in the bottom, but I have ice packs down there (they're not frozen obviously, just full of water). I think they're why it took so long for the incubator to warm up again. Unfortunately, they helped stabilize the wrong temperature as well as they help stabilize the right one.


@Deborah: Thanks, will do. I figured they would likely go downhill quick if they are dead. The tub has started to smell a bit like mold, unfortunately.


I'll take my flashlight to them tonight and let everyone know the results.

Hope dies last !!

No reason not to leave them in until they either go bad (you will know) or hatch !

I wonder, though, why did it take so long for the temp to go up with the heat source plugged in directly to the power? Mine went up rather quickly. But my incubator isn't really big.

Also, are the eggs buried in substrate or just laying on the tub floor? I can't tell. It almost like they lost some humidity, but the reading shows high humidity...

Either way, you have nothing to loose by letting them incubate for now.

On the bright side, eggs tend to handle lower temps a lot better than higher. You can moisten a paper towel with tepid water, wring it out, then drape it over the eggs. If they plump back up after a day or two, that'd be a pretty good sign they're still chugging along. Don't lose heart if they don't though. Some eggs dimple early and hatch just fine. There's no harm in continuing incubation until you're 100% certain. Unless the smell is overbearing and they're molded and I can't candle veins, I give eggs a chance.

So far so good! I candled the eggs and saw veins in all of them. I know they may still die later, but for now the veins look strong.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/2na0684.jpg

Sorry for the quality of the photo, my camera doesn't do well in low light.

@zina: Mine's not big either, so I'm not sure why it took so long to heat up. Possibly because the water underneath the floor had already cooled by the time I got to it.

The eggs are on top of a spare bit of plastic. I know some people put them directly on the vermiculite, but a lot also use egg crates to keep them from coming into direct contact with it. I wanted to do that, but I couldn't find an egg crate anywhere. So I used what I had lying around the house.

Humidity has been consistently high. The top of the tub is always dripping when I open it. I think that may have been responsible for the herpstat error. The probe was wet when I took it out.

@John: If I drape a moist paper towel over the eggs will they still be able to breathe? I might give it a try, as long as I know it's not going to smother them.

Yeah, I used the diffuser on top of substrate method.

Here is what I did...I had the probe for the thermostat in the middle of the incubator. NOT in the egg box. In the egg box, I had a probe for a regular thermometer. Then I adjusted the thermostat until the thermometer read the correct temp for inside the egg box.

Perhaps that may help you out?

They shouldn't look that deflated after 13 days. I know everyone does that mix until clumpy but not dripping but if you are that dimpled, humidity can be raised. I get 100% humidity in my setup. I put vermiculite, fill with water until the water is just below the vermiculite surface and use a light diffuser. My eggs don't dimple until around day 48-50.

Quick update: The temperature has been stable the last few days, no more errors, so I'm focusing on increasing the humidity with the hope of getting rid of some of the dimpling. It's been at 95% pretty consistently, but I haven't been able to get it any higher than that. I tired putting a moist paper towel on the eggs, but it didn't seem to help, so I took the plastic out from under them. They look a bit better since I took it out. The smell of fungus seems to have vanished as well.

I've been busy the last couple of days, but I think someone dug up an old thread that advised people to put suran wrap over the tub, just under the lid. Has anyone ever tried that? The thread recommended to lift the wrap every 3-5 days for ventillation. That doesn't sound like a lot to me, but if it helps I'd be willing to give it a try.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by the_rotten1

Quick update: The temperature has been stable the last few days, no more errors, so I'm focusing on increasing the humidity with the hope of getting rid of some of the dimpling. It's been at 95% pretty consistently, but I haven't been able to get it any higher than that. I tired putting a moist paper towel on the eggs, but it didn't seem to help, so I took the plastic out from under them. They look a bit better since I took it out. The smell of fungus seems to have vanished as well.

I've been busy the last couple of days, but I think someone dug up an old thread that advised people to put suran wrap over the tub, just under the lid. Has anyone ever tried that? The thread recommended to lift the wrap every 3-5 days for ventillation. That doesn't sound like a lot to me, but if it helps I'd be willing to give it a try.

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Yes, I've used "press and seal" and I think a lot of people do..

Thanks Zina. :)

Thanks to everyone else too. I was really worried about the eggs and it helped to have your input. I know I'm not out of the woods just yet, but so far things are looking up.

If you do use the press n seal or saran wrap make sure that the low point where condensation collects and then drips off of it is off in over one corner of the eggs tub, NOT over top of the eggs. That water dripping on them would also kill them.

Will do, thanks! :gj:

If you want to increase the humidity, the only way to do it is to change the Dew Point. If you use 5 cups of vermiculite and 2 cups of water, the humidity will be different than if you use 6 cups of vermiculite and 2 cups of water. The relative humidity decreases because the vermiculite is capable of taking on more moisture, but the same amount of water remains. So to increase the amount of humidity, you have to use more water. I put roughly 1.5 inches of vermiculite in a 6qt tub and then I simply add water until I can see the water nearing the surface. I don't squish it in my fingers and make sand castles. I took my advice from a couple old bums who have hatched 1 or 2..... dozen thousand clutches..

Hope everything works out well for you...

So over the past several days there were two eggs that slowly sunk in and started growing mold while the others began to plump up. Last night the smell got strong enough that it started to bother me, so I gently pulled the moldy eggs away from the healthy ones and threw them out. I'm sad they didn't make it, but really happy the rest did. 6 out of 8 ain't bad, particularly since I was afraid I'd lose the entire clutch.

Update: the remaining 6 eggs made it! I started to get a little worried on day 61, checked for signs of life on day 62, and ended up cutting on day 63, just in case they were having trouble getting out of the eggs. Nothing much happened on day 64. Then this morning, on day 65, the first one finally stuck it's head out!

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/20s6tki.jpg

More pics to come when the other 5 slither out of their shells! I didn't see any defmorities through the slits, so I'm pretty optimistic about their chances of survival now. I know I have at least one pied in there and I'm so happy the parents proved out!

Congratulations so glad things turn out well, such a sweet little face popping out can not wait to see when they all came out to meet the awesome person who worked so hard to help save them as eggs 😊🎉

Congrats and good luck with them once they hatch out.

Glad it went well for the babies!! Congratulations. :)

Just keep humidity up and the temps stable at what their supposed to be at. I think they’ll be fine!

Great news! Congratulations, I know it was scary for a bit but looks like all's well that ends well. Keep us posted.

Just realized they already hatched out lol congrats!

Congrats! :carrot::banana::pinkele::carrot::banana::pinkele:

:D Congrats, I had a feeling they were going to be just fine.

Thanks everyone!

Waiting is the hardest part. The spider that pipped yesterday retreated back into the egg and none of the others have come out yet. They all seem active in the eggs though, so I'm trying not to disturb them.

So far I think I have: 1 normal, 1 leopard, 2 spiders, and 1 leopard spider (all 66% het pied), and 1 pied (possible leopard?). Reserving final judgement until they're all out. I may need help identifying whether or not the pied has leopard in it.

So excited! The hardest part will be deciding which one to keep.

More babies! I woke up to this:
https://youtu.be/-ed56Xwq4aM
The first girl to pip was really active earlier today, but now she's all curled up in a corner. Sometime while I was at work the pied hatched out as well.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/1zxqvyh.jpg

The pied and the leopard spider are both really gorgeous. I'm so happy with them. I want to keep both, but I really should just pick one.

is that a super low-white pied??? ohhh i can't wait for more pics!!!!!! CONGRATS! [emoji3]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

is that a super low-white pied??? ohhh i can't wait for more pics!!!!!! CONGRATS! [emoji3]

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Yeah. You can't see it in the picture, but there's some white at the end of the tail. I still suspect it's a leopard pied, but I'm not 100% sure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by the_rotten1

Yeah. You can't see it in the picture, but there's some white at the end of the tail. I still suspect it's a leopard pied, but I'm not 100% sure.

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i can see it! THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL I LOVE THEM.

Good news and bad news guys. Two of the remaining eggs hatched out just fine this morning, a perfect little leopard and another spider. Unfortunately, the last egg didn't hatch. The poor normal ball python inside didn't make it. I took the body out of the egg and it was badly kinked and hadn't absorbed the yolk. I won't post pictures of it here. Even though I was expecting something like this to happen, I'm still pretty sad about it.

The others are all doing great though, here's a video.
https://youtu.be/NbWLYIsmdvo

I had planned on waiting until after the first shed to sex them, but curiosity got the better of me. Here's what I have:

1.1 spiders
1.0 leopard spider
0.1 leopard
0.1 pied (possible leopard?)

Definitely keeping the pied. I wanted to keep the leopard spider too, but I don't need anymore males.