My Sinaloan milk snake’s eggs have been in the incubator for 87 days now and haven’t pipped. 10 of the 12 that were laid still look good. The 2 that didn’t make it went bad a few weeks ago. Temperature has been 82 - 83F (~28c)
I haven’t found anything online about the eggs taking this long to hatch.
Do I just keep waiting?
It may help if you post pics so we can see how they look. It is weird that 2 eggs went bad just a few weeks ago to me, usually a bad egg doesn’t make it so close to hatching date in my experience. Are they dimpled dented in looking yet? That is quite a while to me, but you did incubate at a slightly lower temp then I did for kings and milks, but it is still a good temperature well within the acceptable range. Post some pics maybe people could tell you more.
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Have you candled them recently?
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Here’s some pictures
The ones that went bad (deflated, moldy, lost veins). Had developed quite a bit before they died. I don’t remember exactly when they died honestly. I have them sitting in isopropyl alcohol.
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Thanks for the pics. To me they look great, but not close to hatching quite yet. They should get a little dented and creased I would think. Has your temp been consistent the whole time. Also are you sure on temps, tested in the egg box with a temp gun? I just bring these things up because retic eggs usually go 84-88 days and These guys should have been out like 20 days ago! I have 2 thoughts, the simplest one is just keep them incubating because they look good as of now, see what they look like in another week. Last idea is a little extreme, you would cut one with a nice sized slit to be able to see what if anything is wrong. You may lose that snake if you are not on top of keeping the slit moist and clean, but around 90 days seems very odd to me. Good luck, please update this post it is a very interesting one!
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I put a couple temperature probes directly in the egg box, they were at 79f. I guess that explains it. Thanks for the help!
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No problem, if I were you I would raise temps gradually so as not to have a spike which can be worse then too cold temps. I have heard of colubrid eggs hatching anywhere from 80-89 (extremes at both ends) so hopefully they still have a chance. I just hope their yolk is enough for this extra long incubation. After you get the temp up in a week or so you should notice changes with the eggs pretty soon I would think. Let us know what happens.
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Well due to my own fault my incubator got to 115f for about 12 hours. Gonna guess they’re dead now.
Sorry to hear that! Incubator malfunctions suck! I have had a few issues with mine as well. I have a herpstat on mine and it went blank on me a couple times, luckily no harm done. The reason is I use a cheap wireless temp gage that has 2 parts the digital thermometer which I keep in the incubator and the lcd screen that receives and displays the temp. It has a high low alarm so although not super accurate it is effective in letting me know if temps are way off. I know most people use a backup thermostat or other method usually with a alarm as well, just because of things like this, malfunction or human error. Feel bad for you. Better luck next time. Also thank you for posting, it could really help people out!
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Thanks. I cut them open and there were a couple neat aberrant patterned ones in there.
I left the temperature probe outside of the incubator when I checked on the eggs that morning before work. Going to make a better incubator for next year that doesn’t need me to move things around just to check on the eggs and I’ll use a backup thermostat as well. I’ll try again next year with these lessons learned in mind.
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