Moldy rotten egg.

So I have 4 clutches laid so far this season.
One of the larger clutches of 8 eggs has one egg that is discolored and looks like it is rotting.
It is stuck to two other healthy eggs, I’m afraid the rotting bacteria will spread, what is recommended in this situation?

Moldy eggs do not affect healthy eggs, if the eggs are attached I do not recommend intervening as you could cause a tear in the other eggs.

The only good time to detach eggs is when they are first laid or a few days away from hatching.

Here is a clutch full a few days from hatching as you can see 2 eggs went bad and the mold did not spray to the healthy eggs.

http://i64.tinypic.com/k1anar.jpg

That’s what I thought, thanks for the reassurance.

When I've incubated snake eggs, I've always separated them shortly after they were laid: never lost any by doing so, but it does take patience & a little time.
I dripped (from my finger) one drop of water on the point of contact, then slowly & gently rotated the eggs slightly back & forth (keeping the same orientation)
until the contact point finally released all the way. When I've had a dud egg go bad, they not only got moldy, but they also drew flies -tiny ones that move in
and can also affect the surrounding good eggs...so by having them separated from the start, it was EASY to just pitch an egg that went bad. Just my 2 cents...
The mold may not affect the good eggs, but the flies certainly can...they start families.

I have the eggs sealed off from flies in plastic wrap and pop top tubs, plus inside refrigerator style incubator, so hopefully that won’t happen.

It’s already starting to smell and looks like it might be spreading to its neighbors.
I hope it’s just mold, and not bacteria.

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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

It’s already starting to smell and looks like it might be spreading to its neighbors.
I hope it’s just mold, and not bacteria.

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Ugh, I hope so too. It's too late now to separate them...it's not too hard the first day they're laid, but once they dry out, it's much more risky. Fingers crossed for ya.

It amazes me that someone that posts here as much as you wouldn't just follow Debs write up on how to make a fool proof egg tub, might of saved you some headaches and possibly a disaster. I'm hoping for the best for you but from now on you might just want to follow her write up EXACTLY. It's been proven to work perfectly for years for many people and really is fool proof. Every time I've seen someone here with incubation problems, it is always a different setup than what's in the write up and I'm not sure if it's because they have not read it or just decided to try their own way but it doesn't make any sense to me, if something has been proven to work perfectly every time, why complicate things? It's hard to miss but if by chance you did miss it, it's a sticky in this section.

Don't get me wrong, of course you could still get a moldy egg following her write up so I'm not saying that's why it happened, but people do seem to run into these situations more often when putting the eggs right in the substrate. When you put the eggs on a light deflector, it eliminates running into an issue with the substrate being too wet which is a possible cause for eggs rotting. This is just an observation from looking at your tubs in the other 27 egg post that you obviously didn't follow the write up and I'm surprised since your a regular here.

I also agree with her advice not to try removing the rotting egg, if anything you may just want to redo the tub according to the wright up just in case your substrate is too wet and causing the problem. Then just leave them. If there is a problem with the way you have the tub setup it could lead to more bad eggs but if your tub is setup right, the good eggs don't get affected by the bad one.

Good luck with the rest of the incubation and other clutches.

For the sake of discussion & for what it's worth:
I haven't read Deb's write-up on incubating snake eggs, & don't doubt it's excellence for a moment, but I have successfully incubated many clutches of snake
eggs (none were BPs, if that matters?) and I never once used a light deflector. My eggs always sat right in the damp vermiculite & I didn't have any problem
with eggs "rotting". I hope this forum doesn't try to emulate the Facebook groups I've heard so much about, where there's only one right way or the highway?

I agree Egg incubation can definitely be done many different ways and eggs molding happens regardless of the incubation method people choose.

Not all eggs are meant to be and when eggs are no longer viable they will start to mold (as seen in the pic I posted above) that picture is taken at day 55, one egg went bad at day 5 the other at day 10

And to be clear, I see nothing wrong with using the light deflector...it's a good idea, just another way of making sure the eggs aren't too moist, especially if you
aren't sure what the ratio of water to substrate should be.

As Deborah said- an egg can go bad quickly or wait until the "11th hour"...it doesn't mean it was incubated incorrectly, some just don't make it...it's nature's way.

All the eggs seem to be doing well. I did read the write up of Debs, but I also read many other write ups by experienced and professional breeders, and there are many variations of incubation methods.

I followed the instructions I read (in more than one place)of 1 part weight in water and 1 part weight in vermiculite, but it still seemed a bit moist.
If I did anything wrong, I suspect it might be the amount of water, but so far all the other eggs are ok, and maybe it’s all just the normal course of action.

I also considered maternal incubation, but worried that it would prove to difficult for me to keep the humidity high enough and such.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

For the sake of discussion & for what it's worth:
I haven't read Deb's write-up on incubating snake eggs, & don't doubt it's excellence for a moment, but I have successfully incubated many clutches of snake
eggs (none were BPs, if that matters?) and I never once used a light deflector. My eggs always sat right in the damp vermiculite & I didn't have any problem
with eggs "rotting". I hope this forum doesn't try to emulate the Facebook groups I've heard so much about, where there's only one right way or the highway?

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I 100% agree with you, there is not just one way to do things. It wasn't a matter of right or wrong, my point was just that he is a regular here and I believe this is his first year breeding so I was surprised he didn't use the helpful write up here. Obviously eggs can be incubated perfectly in the correct substrate mix, it's much closer to nature's way but you must get the mix correct or it can ruin the eggs. For a beginner it's much safer to just use a light deflector because it has no chance of hurting anything but will save your butt if you mess up the mix. Imo 1 to 1 could be too wet and could very well be an issue. If you use the light deflector, you could even do straight water and as long as you have them propped up out of it, there is no chance of your eggs being too wet, I'm sure we can all agree there is no such thing as too humid for incubating BP eggs. It's just a matter of keeping them out of direct contact with the water. The light deflector eliminates the chance of this being an issue so I believe it is a great precaution to use. That certainly doesn't mean it has to be done that way, I know many eggs have been incubated successfully without one but I don't know of any reason not to use one so for a beginner especially, it seems like a good idea to use one as a safe guard.

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Originally Posted by rufretic

If you use the light deflector, you could even do straight water and as long as you have them propped up out of it, there is no chance of your eggs being too wet

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Yeah, I use zero substrate. Just the deflector and water. The only drawback is the water moving around when you mess with the tubs.

Where is the best place to get the deflector screens?

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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

Where is the best place to get the deflector screens?

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I think home improvement stores, where they sell fluorescent lights & all?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I think home improvement stores, where they sell fluorescent lights & all?

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Yep!

They come in 2'x4' so you need to cut them which is a pita because they are brittle so just be careful. It's good though because you can make the perfect size for your tub.

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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

Where is the best place to get the deflector screens?

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Home depot or Lowe's in the light section, light diffuser come in 4 x 2 sheets allowing you to make a good number of tubs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rufretic

It amazes me that someone that posts here as much as you wouldn't just follow Debs write up on how to make a fool proof egg tub, might of saved you some headaches and possibly a disaster. I'm hoping for the best for you but from now on you might just want to follow her write up EXACTLY. It's been proven to work perfectly for years for many people and really is fool proof. Every time I've seen someone here with incubation problems, it is always a different setup than what's in the write up and I'm not sure if it's because they have not read it or just decided to try their own way but it doesn't make any sense to me, if something has been proven to work perfectly every time, why complicate things? It's hard to miss but if by chance you did miss it, it's a sticky in this section.

Don't get me wrong, of course you could still get a moldy egg following her write up so I'm not saying that's why it happened, but people do seem to run into these situations more often when putting the eggs right in the substrate. When you put the eggs on a light deflector, it eliminates running into an issue with the substrate being too wet which is a possible cause for eggs rotting. This is just an observation from looking at your tubs in the other 27 egg post that you obviously didn't follow the write up and I'm surprised since your a regular here.

I also agree with her advice not to try removing the rotting egg, if anything you may just want to redo the tub according to the wright up just in case your substrate is too wet and causing the problem. Then just leave them. If there is a problem with the way you have the tub setup it could lead to more bad eggs but if your tub is setup right, the good eggs don't get affected by the bad one.

Good luck with the rest of the incubation and other clutches.

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I don’t think you know as much about it to be this condescending.
Justin Kobylka has a wee bit more experience than you, and watching his latest video, he uses no deflector, his $3,000 eggs are sitting right on the vermiculite.

Also, the mold stopped spreading. I am going to check again, but I think it was possibly condensation drip from the Saran Wrap, that god on the egg that molded. I put some dry vermiculite on the top of the moldy and egg, and it dried it up and halted the mold from spreading so far. The rotten egg looks better, but I’m mainly concerned about the two eggs joined to it, that can still be saved.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

Justin Kobylka has a wee bit more experience than you, and watching his latest video, he uses no deflector, his $3,000 eggs are sitting right on the vermiculite.

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Justin Kobylka is pretty far from a beginner and has learned along the way what works for him. He obviously has his mix down so he would have no need for the light deflector.
I still consider myself a beginner and have used a deflector for all my clutches and luckily have not experienced one bad egg so far. I don't know if my mix has been good or not but never had to be concerned about it because I used the deflector.
My point still stands, there is no reason for a beginner not to use one.
I'm glad your remaining eggs seem to be doing well and have nothing against you, like I said, I'm a beginner as well. I just feel Debs write up is a great help to the community here and think if people here decide to try breeding, it should be taken advantage of so hopefully they run into as few problems as possible.

Update, the very moldy egg and the little bit of moldy egg attached to it are still moldy.
All the other eggs are fine so far.
So it looks as Deb said.

The mold is at the top, and not the bottom where it sits in vermiculite. I believe it was condensation dripping from the plastic wrap.

I removed the wrap on the 4 clutches and just put back the snap close lid, as the Saran wrap can sag if not careful!

2 out of 27 is acceptable, I suppose.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

Update, the very moldy egg and the little bit of moldy egg attached to it are still moldy.
All the other eggs are fine so far.
So it looks as Deb said.

The mold is at the top, and not the bottom where it sits in vermiculite. I believe it was condensation dripping from the plastic wrap.

I removed the wrap on the 4 clutches and just put back the snap close lid, as the Saran wrap can sag if not careful!

2 out of 27 is acceptable, I suppose.

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In my humble experience with snake eggs, it's too moist if condensation is dripping from the plastic wrap...although I also had several pin-holes in the plastic wrap.
Did you do that (make pin holes in plastic) as well? or not? While I agree that you never want drips of water onto eggs (they can drown), it's by no means the only
reason that eggs get moldy...some just aren't viable & they go bad, with or without water drips. When I had condensation like that, I opened it up for a bit (I lived
in the desert then, it was easy to get rid of "humidity") and then recovered them after some time (maybe a day?)...that helped, & the eggs later hatched.

All the best with your eggs...;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

Update, the very moldy egg and the little bit of moldy egg attached to it are still moldy.
All the other eggs are fine so far.
So it looks as Deb said.

The mold is at the top, and not the bottom where it sits in vermiculite. I believe it was condensation dripping from the plastic wrap.

I removed the wrap on the 4 clutches and just put back the snap close lid, as the Saran wrap can sag if not careful!

2 out of 27 is acceptable, I suppose.

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Good to hear.
I originally used press & seal for my first clutch and found the same thing, it makes for too much condensation and unwanted dripping. I have since just used the closed tub, no holes, and found the humidity still stays near 100% but without so much condensation.
If you only lose two out of the 27, I'd say your having a very successful first year breeding ;)

I agree, losing 2 or 3 out of 27 is pretty normal, not something to beat yourself up over. ;)

Well bad news. The whole clutch went bad. It was obviously more than just mold, it was some sort of bacteria or fungus as well that spread among the attached eggs.

The other clutches of eggs are totally fine. It is a bit frustrating and disappointing, as I am still not sure why this happened to this particular clutch and not the others. I will definitely really extremely cautious when I am setting up incubation tubs from now on, and make sure to keep everything sterile.

The bad clutch was firefly pied x het pied ... 8 eggs. [emoji22]

3 other clutches are doing perfectly fine. Good luck breeders!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

Well bad news. The whole clutch went bad. It was obviously more than just mold, it was some sort of bacteria or fungus as well that spread among the attached eggs.

The other clutches of eggs are totally fine. It is a bit frustrating and disappointing, as I am still not sure why this happened to this particular clutch and not the others. I will definitely really extremely cautious when I am setting up incubation tubs from now on, and make sure to keep everything sterile.

The bad clutch was firefly pied x het pied ... 8 eggs. [emoji22]

3 other clutches are doing perfectly fine. Good luck breeders!

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That's terrible news, I feel for you man:( Would of been a really nice clutch too. Not that it will make you feel any better, but I think it's more common than people talk about here to lose a clutch, sometimes things just go wrong and it's out of your hands. I doubt there was anything you could of done to save them. It's possible it could of just been a bad clutch too, and it would of happened no matter what. I have a friend that has quite a few clutches every year and last year it just seemed like he had really bad luck, lost a few clutches with no apparent reason. They all looked good when laying but for whatever reason they went bad. He had others setup exactly the same and in the incubator at the same time that hatched perfectly but for who knows what reason, some of them just went bad.

Don't let it get you down. Focus on the remaining clutches your lucky enough to have and I'm sure you'll still end up hatching some awesome babies. You're far ahead of me so far, I have been lucky enough not to have any serious problems the last couple years of breeding but this year I can't even get a clutch laid lol. Good luck with the rest of your clutches, I can't wait to see what you hatch out. :)

At first I was really frustrated and upset. Made me think of all the struggles of having a large reptile collection. The difficulty keeping them in perfect conditions, always watching their health and husbandry parameters. The frustration of having over half your ball python collection not eat, lol. Its enough o drive one mad!

I've determined to only buckle down and work harder than ever on keeping my ball pythons healthy, just learn, and move on.

did u happen to take any photos?

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Originally Posted by sur3fir3

did u happen to take any photos?

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No, I should have, but didn't think about it. It did look like fungus or bacteria spreading among the snake eggs

So sorry for your loss...some clutches just aren't meant to be, not necessarily anything you did or didn't do. But I get the frustration...:taz: ....;)

Sorry about your clutch. Stuff happens. I've never had a problem with mold, but I did have a beautiful 8 egg clutch that was supposed to be highways all come out infertile this year. Big hit to the bottom line.