Sitting on eggs again

[TrpnBils]

It's funny how things work out, isn't it?

I got a call a couple of days ago from a friend of ours who picked up some green trees a few years ago and has been cohabbing them...Lo and behold, they bred at some point ("I didn't see it") and dropped some eggs. The eggs are HUGE compared to other chondro eggs I've hatched, but they look pretty good for the most part. He ended up with 13 eggs that appear to be in good shape and a few that were duds.

We transported the eggs to our place and set them up in our cooler incubator last night. We're experimenting with a new setup that I'll post pictures of later, but I'm pretty excited about it. Over the past three years I've hatched out ~45 chondros in this same incubator but with a different "keep-the-water-off" setup which worked well, but I think it could be improved upon.

We're keeping all of them under the new egg box setup, so it's all or nothing I think...but it could be a good start to the new year!

[steveboos]

Good luck, Chondros can have tons of babies, so lots of LITTLE mouths to feed!! Always wanted to breed GTP's, but just too much work and i don't want to take care of numerous clutches of 20 or more babies!!

[TrpnBils]

Good luck, Chondros can have tons of babies, so lots of LITTLE mouths to feed!! Always wanted to breed GTP's, but just too much work and i don't want to take care of numerous clutches of 20 or more babies!!

Thanks! We have 8 at home right now that we hatched out a year or two ago and I hatched out 35 a year or so before that, so I'm anxious to get back into it. It's a challenge, but it's fun!

I'll get pictures of the incubator setup on here after I get home tonight, but in the interest of keeping things interesting, here's a blaze hatchling from 2008 - the only one like this out of 35!

[steveboos]

Wow is that similar to a paradox in Ball pythons?? Looks like a red and yellow neo merged together in the egg!!

[TrpnBils]

I'm not real familiar with ball genetics at this point as these have been our main project species. The only balls we have are spiders and het pieds, so I'm not real sure about what the paradox genetics involve.

When we hatched this out, I emailed Greg Maxwell and he gave me the original information on this being labeled as a "blaze" hatchling. Apparently there's no rhyme or reason to when these pop out of a clutch, but they turn into regular green adults as they go through the color change. Regardless, it's cool, huh?

I very distinctly remember when this one hatched because it sat there for a day or two with its head out of the egg (they all did), but I thought for sure it was going to die because it looked just like smeared blood on the head. Since I couldn't see the rest of the body at that point, I just figured that it was a birth defect somewhere else on the body that I hadn't seen yet.

I'm a science teacher, so I use my reptiles (the easy ones, like the corns and balls) during genetics lessons and I'm always fascinated to see how different these animals can be despite their similar genetic background. Cool stuff!

[TrpnBils]

OK here's the setup we're working with this time around. It's a deli cup with an overturned plastic margarita glass secured to the top of it. We've had this set up for a couple of weeks experimenting with it for next year's possible clutches, and the dummy eggs we had in the vermiculite didn't get dripped on in the 3 weeks that we had it set up. Hopefully it will work! The way it's been going is that the water collects on the sides of the glass and then runs down the edges rather than dripping straight down onto the eggs...

[adamjeffery]

neat idea with the glass. are gtp eggs that sensitive that water drips will harm the eggs?
interesting
adam jeffery

[TrpnBils]

Yep - gotta keep them at ~100% humidity but a water drop or two will kill them. There's still water in the vermiculite obviously, but anything substantial will rot the eggs.

I've done this a few times before and paid close attention to all the little details, and yet I can't hatch out something as basic as corn snake eggs for some reason...