This past season I only bred one female, Sadis. I bred her to my 100% het pied normal male, Xefaud. Sadis laid 3 fertile eggs and 1 slug. Incubation for these eggs was near perfect. Day 60 was 8/29. I incubated at 88.0-88.3 and I cut on day 61. Once I cut the eggs, I found one of the eggs to hold a very tiny baby. I was concerned but left the egg alone. On 9/2 a healthy, 66g female normal hatched. That same day I checked on the small hatchling. I nudged it gently with my finger and there was no response. Fearing the worst, I cut the egg open further and found the baby had a twisted umbilicus. I removed the baby from the egg. The baby was severely kinked. I tied off the umbilicus and cut it. During this entire process, the baby was limp and not very responsive. He weighed only 27g. After weighing him, he had gone completely limp and not responsive. I put him in the freezer after taking a picture.

The third baby to hatch out has a small kink near her tail and one of her eyes looks small, but other than that she appears healthy. Now I'm wondering if the father of this clutch may have something genetically wrong with him. I've only bred him once before to a different female. That female laid 6 eggs. During incubation, all but two died off. The remaining two went to term, but one died before hatching. It had severe kinking and was missing one eye. The last hatchling had a kink in his neck and was never able to eat. He died 3 months later. Xefaud actually passed away in February from unknown causes.

Of the two remaining hatchings we pan on keeping the kinked one and rehoming the other with the condition she not be bred. The kinked one we are keeping will not be bred either.

With all this bad luck with his hatchlings and his death this year, I have to wonder if this may be some kind of genetic defect he had.