Two clutches with overbites this year. Is it our new incubator, us, or horrible luck?

[Gemini Pythons]

We're at our wits end with this. We've had four clutches this year in our new incubator (a PVC sided one with sliding doors. Same kind used and recommended by Mutation Creation. Pics included below!) and of the four, two have had babies hatch with overbites, aka: shark mouth. We are hoping anyone might have some suggestions or ideas we haven't thought about regarding why this is happening. Info below is of all the clutches we've hatched since getting the new incubator, and beneath all those, our set up.

First clutch: 5 eggs. Mojave x Lesser Mojave
- 4 healthy babies!
- 1 egg went bad about 3/4 through incubation (as this happens occasionally, it wasn't alarming. We did not open the egg.)

Second clutch: 9 eggs. Champagne x Black Pastel. We have bred the Black Pastel male before and gotten healthy babies. The Champagne was bought as a proven breeder, though her first clutch with us.
- 1 perfectly normal baby
- 2 babies with mild overbites
- 4 babies with overbites (culled)
- 2 babies passed in eggs. Kinking and overbites in both.
We did not hear back from the breeder who sold her to us, and sadly, we never will as he has since passed away. This second clutch was incubated at the same settings as the first clutch.

Third clutch: 3 eggs. het Clown x Pastel het Clown
- 3 healthy babies! These were in the incubator at the same time as clutch 3 (one month overlap) and we changed nothing between clutches.

Fourth clutch: 8 eggs. Fire Woma het Hypo x Coral Glow het Pied. Both proven breeders with no issues.
- 6 perfectly normal babies
- 1 baby with mild overbite (their egg was in the middle of the bin, not near front or back)
- 1 baby passed in egg, no visible deformities. We aren't sure why they didn't hatch.

For all four clutches:
- We know we had no power outages or massive temp fluctuations. I work from home and we're home bodies, so we are confident in this.
- We double checked our thermostat readings were accurate by measuring with a stand alone probe.
- The probe itself is in the very centre of the incubator.
- Egg bins were covered with press n seal, and once a week, aired out and rotated. We did the air out/rotation quickly (simply lifting a corner of the press n seal, resealing, and putting it back in rotated).
- When eggs started to collapse near end of incubation, we lifted a corner of the press n seal to allow some humidity to escape as humidity levels rise exponentially around then.
- Pearlite is used. Approx 1.5 inches deep with enough water to be damp but still crumble in hand (not dripping). We poke our fingers into the substrate every three weeks to ensure still damp.
- Incubator has fan running
- Eggs are incubated at 90F (thermostat is at 88, but inside of tubs reads at 90F when we leave a probe in the tub)
- Humidity in the sealed egg bins probes between 90% and 100%
- We also put our stand alone probe in various parts of the incubator to make sure there were no alarmingly huge temp fluctuations between front/back/sides. There were differences of one degree when right next to the heat tape, but nothing to note near where the eggs would ever be


The first time this happened, we scoured this site and read every thread we could find at least once (we referred to the especially long one multiple times!). We rechecked our temps and humidity levels and found no red flags, and the third clutch (which had already been incubating for a month at the time that the scary second clutch hatched) hatched perfectly normal a month later.

After much reading, testing and fretting, the third clutch hatching perfectly normal made us breathe a sigh of relief; we assumed the parents of the second clutch were incompatible genetically or it was the mother. (Similar to another post on here, she also had been off food for a long time before ovulating, and we were surprised she went). But now with the fourth clutch having one mildly deformed baby and one baby pass in the egg, we're back to questioning if there is something we're missing or doing wrong with the new incubator. We love our snakes so much, so worrying it's something we're doing wrong is killing us.

Previous to this, we used homemade incubators (using broken mini fridges) at the same temps/humidity as we have in the new incubator and had zero issues. We were wondering anyway if there is something we aren't thinking of... Is this simply really bad luck or could there possible be something with the new incubator we aren't aware of? Any suggestions and advice are much appreciated.


NOTE: The substrate and egg seen here in the bin are from clutch 4. We are not leaving the incubator door open here with a clutch of eggs incubating in it.


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And for anyone who is reading this in future and curious about how well these babies do... The two babies with mild overbites from the 2nd clutch who weren't culled are about 2 and a half months old at the time of this writing. They were not culled because we saw tongue flicks (though much smaller than a normal bp's tongue) and their overbites were very minimal, so we wanted to give them a chance. They are now great eaters on F/T, growing well, and we've observed all normal behaviour from them. Interestingly, one of them had a straight tongue (no fork) for over a month, then one day, our tongue was suddenly a bit longer and forked! We're holding onto them for awhile to keep an eye on them, but we are giving them to friends who are experienced reptile keepers, and most importantly, who are trustworthy, ethical people who would never think to breed them.

And again for anyone reading this who finds themselves in a similar situation: Babies whose deformities were more severe were culled by destroying the brain completely and instantly, as recommended in other posts on this site. It was beyond awful to do... We're in this hobby because we love snakes... but it was what was fastest for the babies, and after reading the posts on here, it was the right way to go about it. :-(

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I should really try to post on this forum more often. I appreciate all the amazing advice we always get from people here! I feel like I only post when we have problems though!! -_-

[Gemini Pythons]

EDIT: My boyfriend just said he looked again at the baby who didn't make it, and they also do have mild shark mouth. (I left for holidays as they started hatching. We don't cut. The baby with shark mouth emerged from their egg after I had already left.)

[Lord Sorril]

I'm sorry to hear that you are having issues with your new hatchlings. Your incubation method looks fine to me. 90F is cutting it close, but, by my experience: close to lethality, not consistent/repetitive deformity. As you mentioned: It is possible that this is a genetic issue, but, I would not expect this unless one of each of the breeding pair adults was from the same seller.

I would theorize that this issue is external to the incubation method. Factors I would examine first:

Chemicals: Were the egg boxes disinfected prior to use? If so: With what?
The Pearlite (how old is it, how was it stored: temp/humidity, could it be harboring toxic mold/spores?)
The Water (was it distilled, if not, could this be a chlorine/chloramine/fluorite/bacteria contamination?)
The Follicle Development (What were the parents eating? Could the food have absorbed a toxin? If you raised the rodents yourself--did you feed them anything odd or did they chew on toys?)

Anyhow, just a few thoughts

[FollowTheSun]

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...etics-overbite

[Tila]

Sorry to hear what you went through. That's tough when things go wrong for whatever reason. Genetics and pairings aside, if it were me I'd still back the temperature of the incubator a bit. 86° may take a bit longer to hatch the babies, bit it leaves some allowance for when the eggs generate their own heat.

[Gemini Pythons]

I'm sorry to hear that you are having issues with your new hatchlings. Your incubation method looks fine to me. 90F is cutting it close, but, by my experience: close to lethality, not consistent/repetitive deformity.

Yes, we think we are going to lower temps. My boyfriend was the one who first began breeding, and his mentor told him to incubate at 90F. He always did because of that without issue, but we will reduce it next clutch to see if it helps anyway. At least we know that incubating within the 88-90 range is safe, so lowering temps slightly should be alright.

As you mentioned: It is possible that this is a genetic issue, but, I would not expect this unless one of each of the breeding pair adults was from the same seller.

Actually, the mother and father of Clutch #2 (the awful one) came from the same breeder, as did the father of clutch #4. The two males have had normal clutches before with other snakes we've bought from him though. Most of our snakes are from him as he is the same person who mentored my boyfriend when he started out. Unfortunately, he's also the same person who recently passed away.

Chemicals: Were the egg boxes disinfected prior to use? If so: With what?

We disinfect after each clutch with unscented dish soap and water, then F10 (spray, let sit ten min, rinse)

The Pearlite (how old is it, how was it stored: temp/humidity, could it be harboring toxic mold/spores?)

we use new Pearlite each clutch. That's an interesting idea though because one bag is good for two clutches, so the bag has been open for at least a month between clutches. We keep the unused Pearlite in a drawer, just sealed in the bag it came in. We live in a very damp climate though. We've never seen mould grow on the Pearlite, but you never know what it invisible in there.

The Water (was it distilled, if not, could this be a chlorine/chloramine/fluorite/bacteria contamination?)

It wasn't distilled. That being said, we've never distilled it in past as our tap water is very clean and safe to drink, and haven't had any problems.

The Follicle Development (What were the parents eating? Could the food have absorbed a toxin? If you raised the rodents yourself--did you feed them anything odd or did they chew on toys?)

We feed frozen/thawed that we buy in bulk from a local feed supplier (not pet shop. The people we buy from do nothing but breed feeder animals). We've bought from them for the past ten years with no issues, and largely because they put their animals to sleep using oxygen deprivation, not gas (or electrocution). The mother of Clutch #2 was off food a long time, and I recall someone else who had posted here said the mother of their bad clutch has also been off food for awhile before she ovulated. The mother of Clutch #4 though fed exactly as you'd expect the feed/breeding cycle of a female ball python to be.

Anyhow, just a few thoughts

These are fantastic ideas, thank you so much for taking the time to write this!! We're going to lower our temps next clutch we have, and examine our Pearlite more closely. Thank you again!!

[Gemini Pythons]

Sorry to hear what you went through. That's tough when things go wrong for whatever reason. Genetics and pairings aside, if it were me I'd still back the temperature of the incubator a bit. 86° may take a bit longer to hatch the babies, bit it leaves some allowance for when the eggs generate their own heat.

Thank you. It was super tough... It was totally something we knew would probably happen someday, but you can never really prepare for how horrible it is :-(

And you know what... you may have just solved this!!! We also brainstormed over what was different between the two clutches with deformities and the two without, and the only commonality was the amount of eggs. So of course!! They begin generating their own heat! More eggs=more heat. And the two eggs from this recent clutch who had issues were in the centre of the incubator.

We have had large clutches like this in the past, but in our old incubator. Those didn't need the press n seal in the egg box. Maybe the press n seal helps insulate the egg box a bit more, and it's just the thing that tips the scale when combined with that many eggs.

I didn't realize 86F would also work! When my boyfriend started out, his mentor told him to incubate at 90F, which is why we've just always done it that way... We are going to reduce it for our next clutch for sure. Thank you so much for this. This makes so much sense and seems just like the thing we were missing from the equation. I'm so grateful to you!!

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Considering it is 4 clutches and no one random one, this is definitely an issue with the incubation process, and usually the most likely culprit are temperatures especially fluctuation which sometime go unnoticed if they happen for a short period of time and or overnight and when you incubate at 90 you have very little room to allow for that.

Some heat spikes will not affect hatchling but this depends on which stage of development the animals are in.

88 - 88.5 is usually a good number to incubate at 86 is feasible but again you are falling in the very low end and be better off to incubate in the middle between 86 and 90.

[Gemini Pythons]

Considering it is 4 clutches and no one random one, this is definitely an issue with the incubation process, and usually the most likely culprit are temperatures especially fluctuation which sometime go unnoticed if they happen for a short period of time and or overnight and when you incubate at 90 you have very little room to allow for that.

Some heat spikes will not affect hatchling but this depends on which stage of development the animals are in.

88 - 88.5 is usually a good number to incubate at 86 is feasible but again you are falling in the very low end and be better off to incubate in the middle between 86 and 90.

Thank you very much! Yes, we will try at 88F next time. My boyfriend's mentor advised him to incubate at 90F when he was starting out (and he himself did 90F), and he's never had issues until now. But we were using homemade mini fridge incubators, which I imagine are much better insulated against fluctuations. (And in all honesty, over the years of our own learning and experience, we started to question some of the practices of his mentor and advice he gave... He seemed to care a lot less about his animals than he said he did... It doesn't surprise me at all to hear that 90F is riskier)

Thank you again!!