Egg Washing?

[John1982]

They're just washing away any natural protections nature has developed against intruding bacteria making the eggs more vulnerable. They aren't changing anything that's already inside the eggs. All they're doing is making it easier for bacteria to penetrate from the outside. Still scratching my head over this one.

[PitOnTheProwl]

The bleach has me...... Makes me think about eater eggs.
They get "washed" when you boil them.
Then you soak them in food coloring to dye them the color you want.
Now think about what the egg white looks like after you shell the egg.

I doubt a reptile egg is less porous than a chicken egg.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I am all about keeping it simple I guess not everyone is, I never washed any egg whether it's geckos or snakes and I do not believe washing them would add anything. If an egg is not meant to be it will die and start molding that is simple as that and for those that wonder the eggs surrendering it will not be affected if they are healthy.

I am glad it works for them and their operation if they want to complicate things its fine by me, what worries me is seeing a surge of new inexperienced breeders deciding to do the same because one of the biggest breeder in the country does it, and do it wrong and kill their eggs.

[SmoothScales]

I am all about keeping it simple I guess not everyone is, I never washed any egg whether it's geckos or snakes and I do not believe washing them would add anything. If an egg is not meant to be it will die and start molding that is simple as that and for those that wonder the eggs surrendering it will not be affected if they are healthy.

I am glad it works for them and their operation if they want to complicate things its fine by me, what worries me is seeing a surge of new inexperienced breeders deciding to do the same because one of the biggest breeder in the country does it, and do it wrong and kill their eggs.

Which is a big part of why I brought it up here when I originally saw it on FB. It seemed a whole lot of unnecessary to me - especially since egg shell isn't impermeable, so I would suspect the chemicals used could also cross the shell and membrane barrier. I wanted input from more experienced breeders as to their thoughts on it as well, as I had never heard of it before. I'm hoping in the search for information, other new people like myself will run across this thread and take into account the experienced advice within before dumping their eggs into a bucket of water.

[Ax01]

i see this as kinda like the industrialization of breeding. just like with food processing - it's on scale, additives/preservatives, chemicals are added for a "better product" and to better shelf life (or in the case attempt to increase/stabilize hatch rate). we'll see over time who else adopts this method and who decides to stay organic.

[bks2100]

Hmmm, wasn't there a frozen rodent dealer that was sued several years ago for selling mice with salmonella? Who was that?

That was Arctic Mice.

OMG! So I guess everything we know about ball python eggs has come full circle? Is this business (his) really serious? He never mentioned anything about water temperatures in any way , shape , or form. Did I miss something? Very hard to believe his hatch rate is unchanged. First , clean the eggs off with clear water. Then soak the eggs in bleach solution. Thirdly wash the eggs in Bacquacil. Then rinse the eggs? Hey, what? What temperature is the water at these three or four stations. 10 minute soaking of the eggs in diluted, cold or unregulated water temps? IDK. Sounds borderline cruel to me but........ .... Not for me right now. More studies and research for me and most , I believe. Air dry????????????? At what temperature?????????????

He really didn't give a great guide how to do it on his video, but I'd imagine his building is like most big snake breeders where the room is temperature controlled so as long as that water sits for a little bit I'm sure it's right there at room temp. I'd worry more about the air drying since evaporation will drop their temp a little from ambient.

Edit: i can't comment too harsh or too much as i have zero breeding experience right now but those guys made the comment they have seen no changes/improvements/increase/drops in hatch numbers since they started egg washing, so why go through the trouble?

Did they say there's been no increase/improvements though? I watched the video but I wasn't paying 100% attention to it, I caught the part where he said it hasn't negatively affected hatch rates and that was it. I doubt this prevented any eggs from dying but I don't think he said that it had a net zero effect. I imagine there has to be some pro to it that they see for them to warrant the time and hassle of this, the question is what evidence they have that this does something and if it's statistically or scientifically sound.

They have been doing it or about a year with no negative effects................ Hope for more people to do this to better the hobby........


I would want to think that I would do more and longer research BEFORE putting my name on something like this and trying to push it on a community that has been doing "whatever" a lot longer than I have been there.
For anyone that wants to try something new, cool more power to them.
Personally I would not gamble my clutches and don't see a need either.

That first part was just so weird to me. They're still pretty vague about what it prevents/helps. They stated salmonella, but that's not really a risk that people have or deal with.

I am only in my first breeding season and I am still waiting for my first clutch, which should be layed around 03-18.

So all I can say is; If people have been doing it like the most have for years with good results and 1 person changes something with no massive change in outcome, why go through all the extra work?

If it works for him, great! Am I gonna try it?

No! or at least not till it is proven it really works.

I won't do it either but I love when people do stuff like this, because all of us are sitting here thinking it's a waste, but there are a lot of times that people ignore methods that work. Not that they don't have good reason not to do them themselves, but it helps to keep an open mind to there being a better way to do things. And you say why do anything if there's no massive change, it's not like this is a lot of work. If they released their clutch records and showed a reduction of eggs going bad during incubation by 5%, that'd be interesting. If they released their clutch records for the next 5 years and that trend was consistent, then I'd probably start doing this myself (especially on the exciting clutches). I could easily imagine an expensive clutch having one egg go bad, I'd be kicking myself if I could have done something that could increase the chance of every egg surviving.

i see this as kinda like the industrialization of breeding. just like with food processing - it's on scale, additives/preservatives, chemicals are added for a "better product" and to better shelf life (or in the case attempt to increase/stabilize hatch rate). we'll see over time who else adopts this method and who decides to stay organic.

Or maybe it's just something that is helpful to them. I've driven past their facility before and it's a lot of space, if that other person is right and they have a building for each species then that's a lot of rats and mice alongside of a bunch of other stuff. So in those cases maybe even a small chance of salmonella would be catastrophic for them. I doubt it's worth it but I'm keeping an open mind.

[Viol8r]

if that other person is right and they have a building for each species then that's a lot of rats and mice alongside of a bunch of other stuff. So in those cases maybe even a small chance of salmonella would be catastrophic for them. I doubt it's worth it but I'm keeping an open mind.

It is. I had a long talk with a previous sales manager about their facility who allowed me to step inside briefly. It's pretty amazing to someone that only has 40 snakes. lol They also employ around 100 people, so maybe they are trying to protect them?

[blue roses]

The only eggs i have ever heard of washing with a special disinfectant are fowl eggs. I used to do this when i filled my incubator with chicken or duck eggs i wished to hatch. This is done to these eggs because the bacteria from the nests can cause the lose of chicks. The disinfectant is only for use for fowl. Maybe the artical you read was written by someone who is used to raising fowl.

[bks2100]

It is. I had a long talk with a previous sales manager about their facility who allowed me to step inside briefly. It's pretty amazing to someone that only has 40 snakes. lol They also employ around 100 people, so maybe they are trying to protect them?

Yea I feel like there might be some other reason that they do it that wouldn't really apply to many others. Like with the number of people and animals it starts to become an issue? Or like someone at the top of this page said that it just removes all bacteria (beneficial and harmful both), but maybe they control their incubator to the point where only a small group has access or are allowed in there, so beneficial bacteria don't have a lot to protect against anyway.

Maybe you guys that have a good amount of experience breeding tell me something, about how often do eggs go bad, and how often do hatchlings have issues where they fail to thrive due to unknown reasons (ie not kinks, twisting, etc)?

[Sensismell]

I've never washed eggs before but I use f10 to disinfect my enclosures and the instructions claim its safe to use on eggs. I still won't try it though never had a problem not washing eggs, keep in mind I'm not the most experienced guy here just posting what I've read.