Jess is right. It’s unlikely that those are actually good eggs, but “incubate until there’s no debate.”
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Another update! At a VERY early 52 days, we have a pip! I’ll wait for this little one to come out to make sure everything’s okay with the other eggs and the baby that’s out given it’s such an early clutch
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We had two little ones crawl out! Unfortunately, one didn’t make it short after, but gosh was it BEAUTIFUL, carrot colored with blue eyes and a perfect stripe, it was all tangled up in its umbilical cord by the time I had it and had a kink in its neck unfortunately. I wish it could’ve pushed for a little bit longer until help could arrive
BUT, we had this gorgeous one make it and is doing so very well! What’s even in the parents anymore, I’m not sure, I saw a few other noses retreat once I checked. Hypo? Anery? Motley? Obviously stripe. This cute little guy has only two saddles on his butt I can barely see that I love, I hope the rest of the babies do well after that little mishap and are just as pretty
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Had another poke its head out not long after… and not much else and never to get much else out, if you catch my drift. And they were both hypos of some sort… what could’ve gone wrong? I only have one other egg showing movement now, which has me worrying a lot. I get the eggs are premature and I should wait it out, but candling and with a small cut on an egg I checked didn’t have any veins left, there was absolutely no movement from the poke test, even though the baby looked fully formed. Could my incubator have fluked suddenly one night and either frozen or cooked them?
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Leave them alone until it’s clear they’re not coming out. By continually disturbing the eggs, you can cause more problems. As for the lack of veins, they regress before hatching, so you won’t be seeing a whole lot. Yes, it’s possible you could have had an incubator issue, but it can also take days for all the babies to pip & leave the egg. Patience is key here.
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That’s the plan with the remaining eggs, the dead babies were the main disturbances since I wanted them out asap before decay or anything gross started
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Wow, what an early clutch! Excellent. Fingers crossed for the rest. I usually don’t even know who’s dead-in-egg until the live ones are all out. I usually slit unpipped eggs 24-36 hours after first pip. By the time I’m opening up the DIEs, them and the rest of the egg garbage don’t smell so good.
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The fact that they are quite early makes me wonder if you had excessive heat at some point.
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This is my exact worry, I’m 90% sure I did since right now I have a runt out that I had to force feed a fuzzy tail since it’s not doing well at all, and one inspected passed baby had a severe stomach deformity which I won’t be posting a picture of. I haven’t incubated anything in well over a year so I think it’s fully plausible it had some issues after my move. Next clutch I plan to simply do a room temperature clutch since I read up that corn snakes are fine being incubated at room temperature. I had them at 80 degrees the whole way through but with that being on the high end already I could see ANY temp spike being dangerous
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Well, here’s the three ‘survivors’ after the other eggs either pipped and shortly after died or were clearly a bad egg already from the smell. Unfortunately the little runt passed about an hour after I tried to give it a tail from what seemed like a seizure after I separated it, but it’s heart was about twice as large as the average corn snake’s so I’m assuming it had to do with that.
The little orange baby has both a beautiful head stamp and side markings with split belly checkers, which makes me think there’s some pattern altering gene in the parents. I’m not even sure what gene caused the bright orange coloration in some of the babies but I’m assuming some kind of hypomelanism. Horrible experience but I believe the blame falls on me, I’m more glad all the babies that passed didn’t have to suffer longer than they did and taking this as my sign to incubate another way for all clutches after this/just get a new incubator rather than the takeaway being how horrible I feel it went this way
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Shoot, I’m sorry it’s not going well. The three survivors are very pretty. Hopefully they’ll be good eaters to make up for the rest of the clutch.
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there’s always a first time to the next time, whether that first time went well or not it’s a learning experience at the least 
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My heart goes out to you. It’s my first year, too, and I think I’ve had every bad thing in the book happen (including some malformed babies due to incubation issues).
You’re right about there always being a first time and a learning curve. We’ll both get there, and be able to help more babies as a result.
Love your three survivors. Do you plan to keep any?
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All three, most likely, I might let go of the ghost-y one, but the stripe has some dappling in person that I haven’t seen before and the mystery orange baby has a nice fade from orange to beige I’m in love with (snow motley sunkissed is actually my favorite morph because of the yellow to purple, look them up!)
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Updated baby pics for anyone who want to take a shot at guessing what’s in them since I’m beat. They all have split or missing belly checkers which definitely makes me think masque now, I’m still unsure what’s causing the super bright orange
I swear they’re on damp paper towels the little anery masque stripe (or so I’d guess) just looks very wrinkly already for whatever reason. They’re also the sweetest out of the three, with the orange fade being the feistiest, and ghost-ish one is just kind of antsy
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As far as helping ID, I have some guesses but knowing what the parents look like and any genetics you’re aware of will help us narrow down which genes are at play.
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it was actually a Miami stripe x Miami with heavy het influence, they were gifts who I didn’t intend on breeding until I stuck one in with the other one for not even three minutes for a spot clean, and came back to a pleasant surprise. I’ll grab photos of the parents in a bit just since they’re pretty
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Here’s mom and dad, plus a picture that finally actually slightly picks up the almost granite pattern on the anery stripe from paper towel change time
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Love this Anery Stripe!
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Don’t worry about that loose skin look. It’s the leftover from the egg stuck to the skin. It’ll go away after their first shed. I’ve also seen it after they’ve been zooming around a deli cup with a warm pinkie—they’ll get goo on themselves and look wrinkly then, too. I was worried about dehydration when I first saw that, but I’ve finally figured out what it is.
I wouldn’t recommend putting them on damp paper towels. You don’t want to encourage scale rot with too damp a substrate. Dry paper towels are just fine, and Aspen after their first stool is what I’ve done (based on recommendations from lots of more experienced keepers).
I’d say you’re right with the Anery stripe. The orange one could be hypo, but the masque (you said split belly checkers?) can have a hypo effect as well, giving it an orange look.
Congratulations! I love the Miami. That grey ground color always looks so good with the reds and oranges.
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