Ok I am on day 46 since my first clutch dropped. Eggs were separated and placed on easy hatch trays placed on wet perlite. The egg box was sealed with press and seal, since locking lid did not really maintain high enough humidity during the previous couple months I had the incubator set up to test it. Temps have been stable at 88.5 F. Other than opening to air out once a week and maybe add a little water I haven’t touched the eggs other than to candle initially and at 2 weeks.
Yesterday i went do the weekly air burp i noticed a pinky nail sized spot of mold on one egg and several more eggs are starting to dimple. for some reason humidity had dropped to around 95. I decided to candle to see if any particularly the one with mold had gone bad. Every egg still has very strong veins, but doesn’t seem to be very full or reactive. What I mean is when I candled roughly 1/3-1/2 or more of the top of the egg is fluid and vein before any shadow from the baby snake, if that makes sense. The last time I candled around the 2-3 week mark i could, in several clearly see the developing embryo with developing eye structure and definite movement.
For the mold tomorrow when a few more places open up I’ll go get some athletes foot powder to clean and try and deal with the spot that is there.
I’m just curious if all this still sounds normal or what. I would have thought the the babies would have significantly more mass to them this late in development as well as showing more movement. To clarify I did not candle the eggs for longer than it took to verify the vein structure and see the shadow from the mass at the bottom of the eggs. I’m assuming the sudden appearance of light would have illicited some sort of reaction.
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I would not worry to much yet, sometimes babies don’t move around even when we shine a very bright light in their cozy little home. Just keep and eye on it, but as long as it has good veins just let it do it’s thing.
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Take a deep breath. Your way over thinking this. Reptiles hatch in the wild just fine without humans helping. Unless the eggs are super moldy or foul smelling just leave them be and wait it out. If an embryo is dead in the egg there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. Until there’s an issue, there isn’t an issue.
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It all sounds good to me. This late in the incubation it’s not surprising that they are starting to dimple a bit naturally. On around day 50 I usually open up a small corner of my press-n-seal to increase air exchange, which does drop the humidity a little, but as long as the shells are nice and soft and moist you should be good to go.
You’ll be surprised how the growth seems to accelerate in the last couple weeks and they’ll hatch out before you know it!
I had small mold spots on my very first clutch too. I was only 10 days in when the mold showed up. Gently wiping it off with a paper towel and then dry it up with some Lotramin foot powder worked well for me to stop it spreading. You’re on the home stretch and the snakes inside are well equipped to fight the mold at this point, so it’s not a big risk. Again, sounds like you’re doing well! Only a couple weeks more to go!
So quick update went to treat the mold spot tonight, and upon closer inspection it is actually a window that has formed. There are actually 2 other eggs that have also developed windows.
Definitely movement in all of them unfortunately the only one I could clearly see was a yellowbelly so, still waiting to confirm male is indeed asphalt.
Also two of the eggs have substantially deflated. Seem to recall this being normalish by this stage. Still have good veins and think I caught some movement, so back waiting…lol.
Thanks for all the replys.
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