dead in the last days before hatching

[jelle]

Hi,

i have got a question. My het. lavendel blood red laid 6 eggs a little over 60 days ago. They are now hatching, at least that is what i hoped.

Of the 6, i pipped 2 and the rest hatched by itself, as far as they came.

1 was kinked on several places and had a bulb-head, 1 came out fine and 3 others did not come out of the egg, but died, just a day or less before hatching, i have seen them moving the day before. 1 is still in the egg and moving...

Has anyone ever experienced this? How could this be possible? Temps were always near to perfect just as the ait moisture.... i do not understand, can someone help me?


Thanx
(in the pic is 1 more egg, i know, it is from another snake)
Jelle

 

[Marcel Poots]

Seems like you have been experiencing the same as Camus. Very odd that the snakes die even after making slits or even hatching themselves. I have never heard of this before.

 

[corn on the cob]

Out of 29 eggs, I had 10 that didn't pip so 2 days after the rest had hatched,I slit the eggs and found perfectly formed dead babies with a small amount of egg sack attached.Maybe I should of slit them after a day but as the others hatched over 3 days I left them alone.It wasn't very nice to dipose of 10 dead babies

 

[Darin Chappell]

I know that people don't like to think of things this way, but when you deal with live animals, death is just a part of the process with which one must deal. It's not fun, and you don't always understand why, but the fact is that all living things die (some sooner than later) and there is not always a clear reason behind it.

If it provides you any comfort at all, I doubt that slitting the eggs would have helped much, regardless of when you did so. I have been of the mindset for some time, that any snake that cannot extricate itself from its own egg has something inherently wrong with it. That alone is a fatal trait (obviously), so even if that is the ONLY thing wrong with the baby, that is enough, because that is something I would not like to see being propagated in the corn population as a whole. However, it has also been my limited experience that those animals which are in need of "help" in hatching, are often likely to experience a failure to thrive as they mature.

It stinks, but the fact is that not all breedings produce viable babies. It's especially difficult to bear, when the babies are the results of a project you've been trying to cultivate for some time. Believe me, I fully understand! :crying: