What's wrong with these eggs?

[ClarkT]

Sorry, but this is my first time breeding, so I'm a newbie.

We set up the egg tub using the substrateless method. Now, they have been in the incubator for 8 days. The two best looking eggs candle with good veins. The bottom left egg shows veins, but looks like its rotting. the bottom right shows veins, but looks rotten, too.

The top right may have been bad from the get-go, but I don't know...




I haven't found much info on the air bubble in eggs. When we took the female off the eggs, a couple of them rolled in the snake tub. We're not sure what the original top direction of a couple of the eggs was. Can that kill the egg?

We're about 10 days from another clutch. I don't want problems if I can prevent them. Any suggestions and help are definitely welcome and appreciated.

[Freakie_frog]

what temps and humidity are you getting in the egg box and have they rolled since they got in the egg box??

[cinderbird]

I've never done ball python eggs, but the bottom left one especially looks like its getting wet (to my untrained eye), but I don't even see any condensation on the tub wall, is there any on the ceiling of the egg box?

[ClarkT]

With the substrateless method, there is water in the bottom of the tub. We have press 'n seal on the top of the tub. Condensation is not happening on the tub, and is very minimal on the press 'n seal.

Temps are ranging about 3 deg., from 86-89.

Eggs have not rolled while in the tub. How critical is that from when they are laid to when they're in the tub? That is, how critical is it to keep them upright from the way they were in the snake tub with momma to their orientation in the egg tub? I just worry that we won't be able to mark the top of each egg before it rolls as we take the female off the eggs...

I haven't put a humidity sensor/guage in the egg tub itself to measure. With the substrateless method, others have said that it's foolproof on the humidity. Are these just getting too wet?

Maybe the lower right egg is just infertile...I don't know. What's the difference between an infertile egg and a slug?

[Freakie_frog]

Temps are ranging about 3 deg., from 86-89.

Spot on there

Eggs have not rolled while in the tub. How critical is that from when they are laid to when they're in the tub? That is, how critical is it to keep them upright from the way they were in the snake tub with momma to their orientation in the egg tub? I just worry that we won't be able to mark the top of each egg before it rolls as we take the female off the eggs...

Tim Bailey did an experiment where he rolled an egg over shorty after being laid and it had no effect on the snake at all the embryo just righted itself and all was good but after the first 24 hours of being laid the embryo is attached and shouldn't be moved..

I haven't put a humidity sensor/guage in the egg tub itself to measure. With the substrateless method, others have said that it's foolproof on the humidity. Are these just getting too wet?

It's possible..but not likely..

Maybe the lower right egg is just infertile...I don't know. What's the difference between an infertile egg and a slug?

and infertile egg is a perfectly formed egg that lacks an embryo. A slug is a follical that never was meant to be an egg..typically they are smaller darker and will never do anything but rot..

[J.Vandegrift]

You might as well toss the two on the right. They are definitely dead and will just stink up your incubator. The bottom left one looks to be dead but I would give it a few days to make sure. For them to be bad this fast they were more than likely not fertile from the start.

[Adam Chandler]

It could just be the flash but they do look very wet, just to be sure, none of the eggs are in any direct contact with any water, right? BP eggs should be exposed to as much humidity as possible with no direct contact with liquid water.

I would try to separate the 2 middle eggs from the other as much as possible.

And let me ask you this, on the discolored eggs that have veins, how well do the veins look?
In a healthy BP egg the veins look nice and defined. On dead eggs they tend to start looking blurry and frayed as the veins start to break down.

[ClarkT]

There is absolutely no water touching the eggs.

The veins in the discolored eggs are as you suggest, not well defined, and blurry...

I hope it's just my bad luck (nothing seems to be going right for me lately...) and not something I did wrong.

We had the eggs in the tub within 3-5 hours of her laying them, so I don't think, based on replies, that it's the rotating egg thing.

We have absolutely no water in contact with them, so I don't think it's that. Condensate is not forming on them, either.

We didn't use sterile gloves to handle the eggs...I haven't read anywhere that it would be necessary. Is it a possible contaminated environment/touched eggs with dirty hands/dirty tub/bad air/etc?

We have our next clutch due to be laid in 8-12 days. I don't want to have been the cause of eggs going bad, and possibly causing it again. I sure feel incompetent at this point.

How much swing in temp is allowable in the incubator without causing problems? It seems nobody has a real answer for this...I know we want it to be as little as possible, but is a 6 degree swing still tolerable/ok?

[SlitherinSisters]

A few things stand out at me. I'm by no means an expert nor am I very experienced, but that temp swing is really big. That worries me. Usually a temp swing of 2 degrees is something to worry about. What are you using for a thermostat? Proportionals are really the only thing that should be used for incubating because they help dampen temp swings. Also, if you don't have any water bottles in the incubator I would get some in there. They help stabilize the temps and hold temps when you open the incubator. As for your substrateless, people generally still put some vermiculite in there or something of the sort to ensure the water doesn't evaporate, which is much easier to do with just water in a tub.

Other than that, those green eggs are definitely bad. I would wait on the third egg starting to turn green. If the third one is touching another egg don't worry about it if you can't get it off the good egg. I had a bater full of bad eggs last year and didn't take any of them out/apart from the good eggs. One egg that was turning green made it all the way to day 52 when it finally died. Three eggs made it to the end (all attached to eggs that started rotting at day 18). The babies all ended up train wrecks, which would explain why they were randomly dying. Perhaps that's why yours are dying? I wouldn't be too surprised if that happened from the temp swings. This year I'm totally revamping my incubator in case something was wrong with it. I had a helix running and I don't think I ever had more than a 1 degree temp swing, but who knows. Good luck with your eggs, I know how you're feeling.

[DemmBalls]

I would guess they were infertile from the start and it's nothing you did.

A 3 degree temp swing may not be ideal by incubator standards, but it can't be any more extreme than what an eggs sees in the wild...