First Clutch, Are My Eggs Okay?

10 days in. Used 4 cups vermiculite and 1 1/2 cups water. Did see pictures of eggs similiar to this. Just would like some feedback. Incubating at 89.
Thank you so much.


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Congratulations on the eggs @storm_exotics! I can’t advise but you will get feedback soon! Good luck with the hatching and we love baby pictures! :+1::blush:

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Congratulations.
would be better to assess if I could see the eggs without looking through the box.
anyway, regardless of the mix whats the humidity?
They look a little dehydrated but might not be, the brain like structure of the shell is a little strange but might mean nothing.
To check if they are viable at the moment hold a torch to them to see if there are veins.
Edit: here is aa picture of that-

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I did candle them just now. They look good. I did add some water. Humidity was a little low. I hope I didn’t mess this all up.

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I’ve never personally seen that kind of texture on eggs, but another thing you could try to bump up humidity is draping a damp paper towel directly on top of them for a few days and see if they fill out a bit. I’ve never had to do it for ball python eggs, but one of my cresties laid a pair of eggs this year that I didn’t catch for a few days and they were both folded in. Damp paper towel had them filled back out in 3-4 days.

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I did find this thread. Pretty close to mine. I will try what you said. Thank you.

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This was day 1.

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They do look a little dehydrated probably. Be careful about adding moisture, if I spray water to bump up the humidity I don’t spray the eggs directly and stick to the corners and sides, you can use press and seal on top to keep more humidity from escaping. A couple things that may help, but Don’t try to change everything in this egg container right away(could shock the eggs!) I would get another one, set it up including putting it in the incubator for a couple days to stabilize, then transfer the eggs to it. I would maybe use more substrate,(seems to stay more stable with more density) I use coarse perilite, but have also used vermiculite with the ratio of 7 cups of substrate and 3 cups of water with a light diffuser on top(like you) for years, no issues! Also 89 is perfectly fine if your incubator doesn’t fluctuate at all, but most do at least slightly and if it’s getting just 2 degrees warmer it could be a issue, I recommended 88 or just over, in case of fluctuations either way to be a little safer. Good luck, looks like a decent sized clutch and eggs!:+1:

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Look dehydrated.

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So I’m between 88 and 89 degrees and at 92% humidity. I read anywhere from 85% and up is okay. I see most people saying they keep it at 99%. Am I okay in the low 90s?

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Yes I would rather a little low then too high. Also if using analog humidity gauges, double check it. I have a few and one will say 60 while the other says 90% so just be aware of mechanical errors there. I have had some crazy bad looking eggs hatch, so it could just be how the eggs are- but in my opinion they do look like they were just starting to dry and shrivel.

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My personal opinion is that the humidity number isn’t the whole story. A 90% reading could be enough, or could be too little depending on other factors like ambient Temp/pressure/humidity, airflow, etc.

My first year I had problems with eggs dehydrating worse than yours even though sensors in the box said 98% humidity. The only way I could get it fixed was using the press-n-seal method. These days I fully saturate the substrate until it can’t hold a drop more water, separate with an aquarium egg crate, and press-n-seal until day 52, when I lift a corner in case they pip and need to breathe.

That said your eggs don’t look too bad, so don’t overly panic or anything

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Honestly thank you for the advice. I truly appreciate it. The knowledge and help is priceless.

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I’m going to echo some of what others have said. They look a bit dehydrated. I incubate at 88 in case of a spike in temps. I mix my vermiculite very wet and sometimes need to use 2 stacked light defusers to keep the eggs off the very wet substrate. Also, I use press and seal. At 30 days in I replace the press and seal and candle the eggs again. Sometimes water will drip on the eggs and I make sure to dab them off. After that I replace the press and seal each week until they hatch.

This has always worked very well for me and they tend to hatch around day 57-60.

Hope this helps.

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