Hey guys just wanted to start this topic of conversation for strange or odd things that have happened during breeding.
So here is my weird thing that happened. I had a het pied girl who is about 2700 grams and a proven breeder during the laying process 2 of her eggs popped while she was laying them. it was the strangest thing, one of the popped egg shells for lack of a better word, was stuck to the next egg she laid. Never had this happen before. All the rest of the eggs were fine but had an odd rubbery feel to them which i thought may have been due to them sitting in the egg goo. I wiped all of them down before putting in the incubator, now all but one has gone bad. Has any one ever had this happen??? Please add any of your weird experiences during breeding/laying.
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I never seen this but a big breeder has maybe…
Maybe needs more calcium in her diet? Maybe she just strained too hard. I’m sure it happens occasionally.
Did the shell look like a slug or a viable egg?
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That was my thought as well, maybe not enough calcium. but i breed my own rats and they get top quality rodent diet food. Not sure how to safely incorporate more calcium. they were defiantly viable eggs with the amount of goo in the bottom and shells looked like good big eggs.
Never seen of heard of anything like this before but I guess a calcium deficiency and a tight squeeze could result in the egg bursting, you definitely learn and see new things no matter how long you’ve been doing this.
Kevin Finke lost a clutch the exact same way. I think maybe 1 egg survived?
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hi lee so you know of someone else who had a female popp eggs while she was laying them. Do you know if he breed her again after that and if she did it again?
I’ll send him a message and find out for you.
Wreckroomsnakes he said he gave her the year off. So he won’t know until next year for sure
ok thanks lee for looking into that for me 
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I had something similar happen. No eggs popped, but they felt very rubbery. I think it was due to the eggs absorbing urine from the female. These eggs were on the bottom of the pile. They went bad, and slowly it spread to the entire clutch and they all went bad.
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A few years ago I had a batch of 8 eggs from a female who was, I suspect, too low on calcium. (She stopped eating shortly after being paired and continued to refuse food until after she laid.) The eggs were kind of rough and pitted with thinner spots. They were ugly as heck but luckily they all hatched fine.
Does anyone supplement calcium when feeding while the female is building? I haven’t yet but I would be interested to hear if others do and what results you have seen.
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it would be interesting for sure to find if and how anyone has supplemented calcium for developing girls. I would think though that if you are feeding good quality rats/mice then they should be getting the right amount of calcium, unless the female has a type of issue health wise that is not allowing her to uptake the calcium the way she is supposed to.I breed my own rats and feed high quality food, so i thought for sure they would be uptaking enough calcium from that. Another thing to consider is giving them to much calcium and what issues that may cause.
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I’m currently suplimenting a hognose that is building for a double clutch. I sprinkle calcium on a plate and roll the mouse over it before feeding but only every other feeding.
With ball pythons I often see people post eggs that have lots of surface deformations and I suspect that is from a calcium deficiency. Same with clutches that have windows or lots of boobs. I think those may be from over breeding them and not letting them get enough calcium between clutches. That’s all just assumptions though.
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this must be the season of “stranger things”. Just had a pied x pied clutch hatch all pipped on their own and 3 of the 6 so far have crawled out of their eggs without absorbing their yokes. 1 of the 3 has died already and another is looking like it is on its way out. keep shoving the third one back into his egg hoping it will stay in and absorb its yoke. It’s not looking good though. Never had this happen before pretty weird.