long story short, the egg is 5 days old, the clutch was piled up and hard to separate so I left them like that, but the bottom eggs started having some pinkish grease due to incorrect water/subsrate ratio, I took them out, separated them the best I could and when I did one of these bottom eggs was really hard, candled it but saw no veins, decided it was done and opened it, to my surprise there was an embryo but the interior was 95% hard mass, like a rat tumor, little to non liquid - if needed I can put pictures of it, its kinda gross but barely any veins
I was confident there was no embryo, but this is only my second clutch…as far as I know the temps were steady between 30 and 32C, the only thing that I got wrong was humidity (too much) because atm there was a substrate available that Im not used to ( after separating the eggs because I thought they were all going to rot due this grease on the bottom, I changed them to a better substrate w correct ratio)
Question here, even if all the yolk was hardened, could that embryo made it? or it was going to die anyways? I thought it was empy and after seeing the embryo I feel really bad because I think I might have hurried into taking action and may be if I waited it could have developed(? common sense tells me no way since most of the inside was a hard mass but since im not that experienced with incubations…
Edit: also wanted to add that I hurried to separate the eggs because there were flies inside the incubator and flying around the eggs
If the inside was hard/rubbery, it was already long dead. It probably began developing then stopped due to either your moisture issue or something else. The fact that you had an issue with pink “grease” and flies suggests you may have more that won’t make it, if that egg wasn’t the sole problem. Might as well also ask, what kind of incubator are you using, how are you monitoring your incubation temperatures, and do you have any way to be alerted if you have a temperature spike?
Thanks a lot! good to know, I felt so guilty after finding out there was an embryo, but yeah the whole inside was hard rubber.
the incubator is homemade but has a thermostat, im monitoring with a thermometer and I have no way to be alerted about temperature spikes, its summer here, should I incubate in 29C rather than 31C?. Does the pink grease mean something specific? I had a bit of it on the other clutch-different species-,only it was a smaller spot compared to this one, just in that particular egg and I put some antifungus on it and seems to be doing fine with veins and all
with this clutch what alerted me the most was the flies because once I saw them I knew 100% something was wrong.I was about to take the mother to a vet because I thought she reabsorbed and was acting weird and not eating, she laid the eggs two weeks later than she should had (I think she was egg bound, now she’s acting herslef again and ate really well)
32c is a danger zone to me. I would incubate at 30 to 31.
If you felt the mom may have had some difficulty, they could just be weak eggs. Unfortunately it can happen. It is normal for BP moms to go off food the last couple of weeks when gravid though.
Is it possible this egg was a ‘boob egg’? It could have been a small viable portion that just failed and the rest hardened up. Infertile eggs are usually hard and more pointed in shape, but do sometimes have a bit of red inside. Just never actual embryo growth.
I was told to put the thermostat at 31 and sometimes it gets hot to 32, not that I want to, I set it lower now, thanks!
She went off food months before, I think since September/October and she’s usually a beast eating (she fortunately went straight back to eating, I gave her a jumbo mouse the day after, and a normal rat 3 days after)
The egg looked normal, like the rest of the clutch, I can show you pics if you want, I didnt post them just in case the mods would say something because the embryo is visible
Again looked nice but yesterday developed this pink grease on the lower part, that was in contact w the substrate, and today it was super hard, it was soft when it was laid so i must have messed it up with the incubator
It’s tough to say about the rest of them but yeah this egg wouldn’t have thrived and was long dead. Just would cause problems with the other eggs.
What kind of substrate are you using?
I use a light diffuser to keep the eggs off the substrate to avoid the wet bottoms and rot. You don’t want water dripping onto the eggs or the eggs sitting in it.
If I only have one clutch incubating I will put the thermostat probe in the box with those eggs. If not I leave a thermometer in there I can see easily. Also keep in mind heat rises so depending on how the thermostat and incubator is set up the temp above the probe can be higher…which is dangerous to eggs if they go above 32c for too long
Could it be some type of fungus/slime mold?
it was perlite and when I washed the container (after putting the eggs in proper vermiculate) I saw the bottom of the perlite was getting black, so maybe it was a combo of mold, weak egg and the egg getting wet?
How wet, exactly, was the perlite? The pink “grease” likely isn’t grease, to me it sounds like Serratia marcescens. It’s a bacteria that thrives in moist environments, and causes a pink, slimy residue. I’d suggest if possible, aside turning down the incubation temperature, that you get either a thermostat with an alarm and put the probe for that in with the eggs, or a wifi thermometer that can track temp spikes.
Yeah I agree on the pink being a bacteria. I’ve seen it on leopard gecko eggs that have failed in the past.
If it’s on more than just that one egg you may have a tough battle.
Turning that dark that quickly really doesn’t sound right… Was this a fresh bag or something that had been around and left open? There weren’t any additives to the perlite, correct? Some come with chemicals in them…
fresh bought perlite, I dont know if there were additives it didnt have a label on it and it was that or paper towels (again it was quite unexpected), thanks for the heads up, I didnt know perlite could have chemicals!
it was the only thing in stock atm and was the same place I bought vermiculate the first time (they didnt have it in stock this time)
there’s only one more egg that looks acceptable with the bacteria so I’ll be closely monitoring, I think the rest might make it they dont look that bad
there was a puddle deep down the substrate, I did it because the first clutch dehydrated and even though I saved them I wanted this clutch to be better, ironically I messed up worst
I keep calling it grease because idk what is it but after googling Serratia, its 100% that stuff, I dont have anything like that with an alarm where Iive but I do check the temps daily since its right next to my bed
I turned it down to 29C, and since its summer here I’ll probably be ranging 30/31C