Moldy rotten egg.

[Godzilla78]

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?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

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.

[Godzilla78]

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

[Bogertophis]

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.

[Godzilla78]

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.

[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.

[Bogertophis]

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.

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.

[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.

[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?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

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