Corn snake eggs color change

Hello, my corn snake eggs are on day 47. At first, they looked a bit dirty because they were covered in peat and sphagnum moss. As the days neared their end, they turned a little yellow. The temperature is stable at 28 degrees. Wouldn’t the eggs spoil if they were dead? What do you think they look like now?

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They look just fine!

This is completely normal and totally harmless. Zero worries. I incubate my corn snake eggs in sphagnum and am used to seeing this. It’s not a problem.

It’s normal for eggs to become less white as they near hatching. This is due to the fact that the babies are absorbing much more calcium and other minerals from the eggshells in preparation for pipping. This is doubly beneficial. It directly benefits the babies’ development of course, and it also thins the eggshells to make pipping easier.

At some point during the final approach to pipping you may see the some or all of the eggs begin to look slightly dented. If so, don’t get; they’re not dehydrated. They are just about ready to pip! Don’t fret if you don’t see this. It doesn’t always happen.

Your temps are perfect. The eggs look good. You said it’s Day 47, so sometime in the next couple weeks or so you should be seeing those sweet little noses. :+1:

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I’m currently on day 59. I read that they hatch in 55-56 days at 28 degrees, but a few babies still haven’t hatched. Should I be worried? Two days ago, I accidentally raised the temperature of my incubator from 28 degrees to 28.5 degrees. Could this have killed them? Here are some updated photos…

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Incubators don’t often keep perfectly constant temperature, so that time frame is an estimate. I hatch around the same temperatures and it usually takes around 65 days for me. As for the increased temp, 28.5 would not kill them. Just keep waiting and they should hatch.

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I wouldn’t expect them to hatch before about Day 60-63 at 28°. They may well go a few days past that. As @noodlehaus says, incubators rarely keep temps 100% stable. Just be as patient as you can manage. They’ll be pipping before too terribly long (even though these final days can seem very long indeed!)

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