Hello.

In August we bought an 5 year old genetic stripe (what we thought was a) male. He was very lethargic when we got him and refused every meal. He was ridiculously passive and never seemed to move, as well as being obese. Our concern got to the point that we considered taking him to the vet...

About a month after we purchased "him", in early/mid sept SHE laid a clutch of six eggs. We were SO surprised. I phoned the person I bought the snake from and they just belittled me and told me that they must be infertile because it's a boy and if it was a girl, it can't have bred within the last year since that's when he obtained it. He was also quite sexist to me and laughed at me so I just hung up.

We (me and my partner) candled the eggs to find five beautiful fertile eggs with one slug. The five fertile eggs were placed in the incubator as soon as we could get it, 4 days after lay.

Flash forward to now, we are at day 55 and decided to cut the eggs. As first time breeders we were very worried that these eggs would need extra help because we didn't know their mom was pregnant so we even handled her at the extreme late stages of ovulation up to 3 days before lay. We feel TERRIBLE about this, but we were novices. This snake was our 2nd ever snake.

So today, we set up a little station, disinfected everything and cut each egg. We are extremely worried because they seem so small. Also, unexpectedly, all of them appear to be a variety of spider; which variety we are not certain. Attached are some pictures of the cut eggs. All of which responded except the fetus pictured in the last egg photo; this one had cloudy fluid and didn't seem to respond.

We have put them back in the incubator now but we are SO worried. They seem so small for 55 days but we were so concerned by the fact we had handled mom so late term and that we didn't get them in the incubator until day 4 after laying, and this is why we felt pressured to cut. Right now, we feel horrible.

I know these pictures are terrible and the situation is also terrible but we would appreciate some insight on the morphs of these babies. Also some advice on spider care from experience as we are quite concerned about the effect of spider 'wobble' on their wellbeing. Also pictured is their mom, Hendrix, who is (as far as we know) just a G Stripe. Also a pic with her and her eggs.

Also; are our babies just too small? Did we cut too early? How can we make sure they're healthy?

We love them so much. When we asked on reddit we were told to put them in the freezer. Please help us. Thank you in advance.

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