Day 62 Umbilical Cord?

[Miko]

Hello, this is my first clutch and I had some fantastic and not so fantastic odds. Let's start with the not so fantastic, my 1500g 5 year old BP laid 1 good egg and 3 slugs. I'm not super disappointed since I have another female who is almost of weight. The good odds were that she is a blue eyed leucistic which is the morph I wanted! I cut day 55 because I was worried, I made sure to candle and avoid all major veins. No bleeding, yay!

She crawled out of the egg today (Day 62) and is still attached to the umbilical cord, it appears as though there is not too much yolk left in the egg as far as I can see... but she is quite small! I'm not sure if she is normal weight because I have not weighed her yet, but she looks small compared to pictures I've seen of other hatchlings. I did incubate at lower temps (87-88 degrees F)

What should I do in this situation? I thought maybe I should just leave her for a few days but I saw something about putting her in a deli cup with a moist paper towel?

[Billy305]

Do you have a better pic of the yolk left and the snake. Put it in a 6 qt tub with heat on one side and damp paper towel to start. You don't want dry aspen or paper towel sticking to the cord or yolk

[Miko]

The yolk is about the diameter of a quarter it's very deflated but it is hard to see in pictures.



Covered in verm, I'm preparing another clean container because the container I had the verm in had a hole for the prob of my incubator. She is moving around A LOT.

[Miko]

lots and lots of moving, she's tugging on it a lot I'm worried.

[Billy305]

Put her in a deli cup inside the incubator on wet paper towel to see if she absorbs any more yolk. If she doesn't he cord may be bad. If this is the case she may need to be assist fed almost immediately depending on her condition. I've had snakes that didn't absorb much yolk and die before hey even shed

[Billy305]

The dark red on the cord makes me think it may not be absorbing

[Miko]

Should I assist feed the yolk or FT mice? I have pinky mice.

[Billy305]

Do you have experience assist feeding? I would still wait 24 hours to see if she absorbs yolk. You incubated lower so she may still be developing. The small deli cup will give less room to tug around

[Miko]

And should I do that in a couple days or right now? Maybe wait and see if she uses any more yolk? Do you think I will have to use floss and tie the umbilical cord then cut or will it perhaps dry naturally?

[Miko]

I've had to assist feed one of my balls before when she was younger (3 weeks), but that was just once. It was fairly easy with her since she is calm with me. Also I'm worried since she is very small and delicate. I'll get over it when the time comes but with such small hatchlings do you do anything different than when feeding 3 week old BPs?