We are having our first clutch of ball python eggs and they are soon to hatch. We have seen to put them on paper towels when close to hatching. I attached a picture of the eggs. Should I cut them at this point, or wait for some to poke out? Its been about 56 days since we found she laid.
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I’ve never moved my eggs to paper towels. I’ve just let them hatch out in the eggbox and give them a little bath before moving them to a damp paper towel box once they are out of the egg.
I would recommend waiting until the first pip to cut. But I don’t know how moving them to paper towels will affect the humidity. If it’s too low I don’t know if the eggs can toughen up too much. Depending on what you incubated at it can take a few more days for them to start pipping.
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I concur with Christina. I wouldn’t recommend moving them to paper towels. You want to keep them in the high humidity box until they crawl out on their own. Moving them to a lower humidity could cause the eggs to toughen up and potentially impede the babies ability to pip.
I use press n’ seal for my egg boxes and remove it for the last week of incubation. I tend to get pips between day 58 - 65. After the first pip I’ll make a small cut on all the eggs and make an effort to not spill any fluids out. After a day or two I’ll watch for them to absorb more yolk and veins to disappear. If all looks well I’ll further open to eggs to observe any potential wrapped umbilical cords (very rare). They will all generally crawl out within a couple of days but occasionally I’ll get a straggler or two lingering behind.
Some people choose to not cut at all and let them all pip and crawl out on their own. Both are solid methods.
I definitely do not recommend moving them to a lower humidity paper towel. If the paper towel is soaked with water it would likely over soak the eggs as well. Keep them in their egg box at the proper humidity levels until they’ve crawled out.
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