Egg Emergency!!!!

[seeya205]

AAAHHHH!!!! I feel so bad for you! This year is my first clutch ever and I lost one egg(small boob egg) and I felt so bad! I could only imagine how you feel! I would put the incubator in a seperate room that you can close the door on when you are out! All you can do now is hope and prey! Fingers crossed! I wish you the best of luck!

[Jay_Bunny]

Just an update on the clutch. The incubator is running steady at 88.3-88.5. I candled the eggs just now and 4 of the eggs have great veins and the embryos are moving around inside. One egg I think is done for. What little veins it had are gone. Its pretty much white on the inside with a red blob in one side which I'm guessing is the baby. I'm leaving the egg in there until it actually starts to go bad but I'm pretty sure the baby in that egg is dead. It was the egg that was covered completely with vermiculite.

The egg with the plastic wrap is doing well. Veins are good and strong, and I saw it wiggle. The plastic wrap is holding well and I will snap a picture or two to show you the progress. Water is condensing on the inside of the plastic wrap. I'm glad its holding in moisture but is this okay for the egg? Let me go snap a picture of the egg's progress really quick.

And again, I really want to thank you all for your help. It has been an interesting week for sure. I THINK my pinstripe female ovulated on the 12th, and the fact these eggs (well 4/5) have survived this.....wow what awesome birthday presents.

[JasonG]

What a great thread. I am glad they are doing well for you. Please take more pics as they progress.

Sending some good vibes your way!

[Jay_Bunny]

Bad egg

[Jay_Bunny]

Because of their tumble out of the incubator and sitting at 70 for possibly a few hours will they delay their hatch date? They are on day 42. Only 19 days left. Should I cut the eggs at day 60? Or just wait and see what they do?

[PghBall]

Hoping you end up with a few healthy little ones in the end! You did a bang up job with that torn egg. Great advice was given as well. It was unfortunate that it happened, but is a good thread for us other newbies when it comes to clutches! Thanks for sharing with us!

[muddoc]

Water is condensing on the inside of the plastic wrap. I'm glad its holding in moisture but is this okay for the egg?

I think the condensation is a testament to how well the seal is, which I think is good. The only bad thing I could think of in regards to this, would be not allowing the egg to breathe, but there is still plenty of porous egg surface left to breathe, so I don't see a problme here. My only other concern would be that the condensation on the inside of the plastic wrap may come into contact with the egg shell that is behind the glue line. This could possibly deteriorate that part of the shell, and thus cause a problem. However, I think you are close enough to hatching that if it manifested, it would still be close enough to save the hatchling.

Because of their tumble out of the incubator and sitting at 70 for possibly a few hours will they delay their hatch date? They are on day 42. Only 19 days left. Should I cut the eggs at day 60? Or just wait and see what they do?

I would not expect that short of a period of cool incubation temps to affect hatching. If anything, it woula push it back one day. Please keep us posted (you have done a great job of this so far), but the updates are definitely registering in my mind, and helping me to devise a plan of attack for the next time this happens (in the event that the process could be tweaked a little)

[Jay_Bunny]

The split egg sprung a leak today. I pulled the egg box out and opened the lid and without even touching the egg, a drop of liquid came out of a small hole in the plastic wrap that had not been glued down. I gently wiped the liquid off the egg and glued the hole down. Other than that, the baby is still moving around and veins look excellent. The other 3 live babies are as if nothing had happened. They are moving a lot and their veins look good and strong. I have no doubt these will hatch. When they do, I will be posting up pictures of the outcome.

The 5th egg had a small patch of fuzz on it and appeared a little damp. I blotted (gently) the surface of the egg to remove any moisture and removed the fuzz. So here comes a few questions. When I was incubating my first clutch of ball python eggs, the ones that died basically became opaque on the inside because the fluid inside became "cooked". This egg, while it has no visible veins, is not opaque yet. I do see a dark blob to one side that has hints of red. I'm assuming this is the embryo and yolk. Without veins present, and no movement that I can see, I am assuming the embryo is dead. There has been no movement since the accident. How long will it take before the egg "cooks" in the incubator? Other than the fuzz on it, it hasn't gone BAD. It just sits there, unmoving, with no veins. I don't want to remove it in case of the very very tiny chance the embryo is still alive. BUT, I don't want this fuzz spreading to the split egg either. Anything I should do?

[Jay_Bunny]

This is just before I attempted to fix the leak.

[seeya205]

I am glad to hear you made okay pretty good! Fingers crossed on some healthy babies! If its growing fuzz which is mold then it probably is gone!