Bloated egg

I've been searching for a while now and coming up empty. We had a clutch of four eggs. When the first one pipped, one of the other eggs started to swell. It was a perfect egg before. Within hours of the first egg pipping, the indentations totally filled out, and the white of the shell disappeared, leaving it completely transparent. At this point, the snake could be seen inside, perfectly developed, but motionless. The bloated egg continued to sweat, while the surrounding eggs remained indented and unaffected.

By the time the other little ones pipped, this egg looked like a water balloon, only minimally larger at this point, but hub cut the egg open to reveal a perfectly formed, same size as its siblings, but dead baby. Heartwrenching.

What happened? None of the eggs was pre-cut. The egg was fine. We candled them and detected movement in all eggs in the clutch before the first one pipped. Within an hour or two after the first pip from another egg, this egg just filled with fluid, rounded out, and did the things mentioned above.

The rest of the clutch looks fine, although they're still pipped. We're not messing with them unless there is a danger posed by the egg remnants from the bloated egg.

Any help is much appreciated.

Hmmm this is VERRRYYYYY puzzeling :O :(

Some additional information:

The fluid from the egg was serous (clear to straw yellow) and no blood. No scent to it, either.

Taking a guess here...Sounds like he drowned...Could have lost his egg tooth...
BT

It almost seems like the egg absorbed more water for some reason? Very strange. :confused:

There are two pictures here: Rusty's blog. Scroll past Gideon (if you can, he's purty) and the two pics are under "Albino Eggs update."

The top pic is right after the first egg pipped and the second is taken not long after, and you can see the egg starting to turn transparent.

I work nights. Hub will probably watch this thread. We don't want this to happen again. I appreciate all comments so far, and please keep them coming. I'll check back when I rise from the dead.

My guess would be you incubated your eggs to wet...I would say that if it swelled up like a balloon it was soaking up water...I had a Woma egg do the exact same thing as that egg - Except it was on day 47 (fully formed perfect little baby inside)...The first egg pipped on day 51...
BT

It drowned, usually the reason people slit their eggs is to avoid this. Sorry for your loss.

Thank you for all the replies. What do you use to slit your eggs without breaking vessels? I can get some good bandage scissors (I think that's what Greg Graziani uses), but I don't know how much finesse would be needed. Would an X-acto knife make a clean, small incision? Would you go about 1 cm or a bit more? I worry about infection, I guess. That's why we really haven't worried about cutting, but I don't really want to lose any of our black pastels or pastels or, god forbid, the pieds.

This is our first big breeding season, and we had all the information, but none of the real deal, you know? There are so many opinions about cutting your eggs...

Thanks again.

generally what i have seen some people do is pinch the egg after candleing, and then cut a v... but i have never bred, so correct me if im wrong...

As for the depth, your trying to mimic what the baby would naturally do with its egg tooth and cut only deep enough for the the egg to split. The V shape is to make more of a door. Candling helps to avoid hitting a blood vessel.