EMERGENCY HELP!!! - Quiet Tempest, I need you.

[anatess]

Our maternally incubating mother left her eggs!!!
The eggs are already on day 60 but they haven't pipped yet. Candles good still - movement and veins.
My husband went ahead and pipped the eggs and they still have movement but there's no more mother!
What to do????

[AwBaillie]

Macguyver up a quick cooler incubator would be my suggestion.

[anatess]

My husband says the eggs are dead that's why the mom left.
He said, I am mistaken, there was no movement when he pipped them and they don't look "done".
I don't wanna give up hope. There's no smell.
Getting the untested emergency incubator stabilized.

[J.Vandegrift]

Can you post a pic of the one he cut? If it were me I would make sure the one he cut is dead. If the veins still look good I would bet they are alive. The veins basically blow up when they die. I would open the slit on the cut egg a little more and poke around a little to see if you get any movement.

[muddoc]

As John said, the veins are the key. Are the veins white/grey or are the red? If they are red, they are good, and I would expect the babies to emerge soon. I would go ahead and pip the eggs. Also, if they are still alive and truly on day 60, I don't really think they need the mother any longer (I have not maternally incubated, but I have seen eggs hatch in displays at shows, with no special heat or humidity). Essentially once they are already cooked for their incubation period, the mother leaving is probably okay.

I hope that helps,

[PassionsPythons]

Sometimes the babies are coiled so tightly in the eggs and completely ignorant to touch that they won't move. I had several babies out of my first clutch no move when I touched them, but all of them came out of the eggs and are thriving well. Give them a chance.

I'd put them on moist paper towels in a 6qt. container with lid sit that on a heat strip set with a 90 degree hot spot and give them about 2-3 days to come out. If they begin to smell then you know you have dead babies. Otherwise they should all come out. Good luck!

[anatess]

Okay, moving them to cooler incubator... But, I don't know if they need air now that they're pipped??? The cooler is not air tight, but there's not much air in there!!! Should I punch holes in the cooler???

[rabernet]

Okay, moving them to cooler incubator... But, I don't know if they need air now that they're pipped??? The cooler is not air tight, but there's not much air in there!!! Should I punch holes in the cooler???

No - they'll be fine - they don't have the same metabolism as mammals and don't require as much air.

I carried my first two clutches of eggs up to NC right when they were due to pip in a styrofoam cooler and they stayed in their egg boxes in the cooler for a full week with no problems.

[anatess]

Didn't move them to cooler yet.

They're in a small eggbox to fit in the cooler lined with wet paper towels. The box is inside the big sterilite container on top of the heat mat. I bumped the temps to 89 (it was at 86 while maternally incubating) I stuck my fingers in there to see if they're moving.
THEY'RE MOVING!!! Well... okay, only 2 out of 5 have real movement, the others are twitches which I'm not sure is movement because I wiggled my fingers in the egg and the slime makes them slippery, so either they're moving or it's just natural inanimate reaction to slippery slime.

But, they don't look big in there at all. And now that the eggs are opened they don't look good. My scale chose today to break, so I can't tell you their exact weights. If it rains it pours.

My head hurts, my heart hurts, I didn't realize how much I really wanted these guys to make it. I look at y'all's pipped pictures and mine looks like they're super ugly I can't imagine how they would survive in that condition.

Here's the picture after I moved them to paper towels. Some bedding is stuck to some eggs because after I stuck my fingers in the eggs, the slime oozed into the bedding and got them all slimed up too. Oh man, they don't look good...

[anatess]

P.S. I moved mother back to her vivarium. So the eggs are all by themselves in the container without mom now.