Baby coming out too early?

[Galaxygirl]

Today is day 57, we opened the tub to find this one straining his umbilical cord. Is this normal? You can see him pulling quite hard on his umbilical which is still in the egg, and his tail is also still in the egg.

[Galaxygirl]

After reading other threads we decided to move him to a deli cup and see what was going on. It appears the umbilical is in a knot.

[John1982]

I'm not able to see the pictures but if it is indeed a knotted umbilicus you will almost certainly need to intervene sooner rather than later. Deborah did a great writeup/pictorial on how to deal with this issue that you may find useful. Good luck!

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...y-Graphic-Pics

[Galaxygirl]

It was definitely knotted and we couldn't get it undone, so we tied the cord and cut. Very little blood came from the cord so hopefully he'll pull through. The other one is sitting ontop of his crushed egg. The umbilical is not attached to yolk and the egg appears very flattened, like there is no yolk in the egg left. We've never had a baby come out with its umbilical still attached. Anything to look out for for the hatchling that has the umbilical cord still that is unattached to any yolk?

[Galaxygirl]

Fixed the picture issue. Here's the little guy before we took him out and cut his umbilical following Deborah's guide. He seems to be doing well, not lethargic as he was squirming a bunch. Don't know if you can tell from the photo, but does it look like he managed to absorb some of the yolk from the sac?