noob question on eggs.

[xreinx]

back when I was a kid, a friends fathers snakes had eggs, they didnt do anything special, just put it in a container with dirt and put it up high in the house about 4 months later, all of them hatched. their house fluctuated a lot, but all the babys survived and they gave them all away to a petstore in town.
a few years later another friend of mine, whos snakes were housed togather, had eggs.. nothing happened, she left them in the cage and threw them all out later when she cleaned the tank.. half of them looked alive, she said they werent..

is there a rule or guidelines on keeping eggs alive? whats the incubation period and why are some able to sit at room temp, and others not?

 

[bitsy]

Corn eggs need a temp range of about 75-88 degrees. Anything over 90 degrees could kill embryos or result in abnormalities in hatchlings. Some people in areas within the Corn's incubation range can incubate at room temperature without added heating or cooling.

Eggs also need humidity, which means you ideally need a controlled environment such as an egg tub inside an incubator. Too little humidity and the eggs dry up and die. Too much humidity and the eggs can also die or the hatchlings may have develomental problems.

Corn eggs also shouldn't be turned or moved. During the first couple of days after laying, the embryos become attached to a specific spot inside the egg and moving the egg can affect the connection and kill the embryo. If eggs are left in with adult snakes, the adults don't recognise the eggs as anything other than part of the viv decoration - they'll quite happily crawl all over them and shove them around, which is likey to result in the eggs failing.

Some eggs don't hatch because they're infertile. Either a female lays eggs without mating so they were never fertilised in the first place, or she did mate and the male was "firing blanks". Some eggs fail because they had incorrect incubation conditions. Some succeed without extra help/equipment, because their "ad hoc" incubation conditions fell within the tolerances for success.

Incubation periods seem to largely depend on the temperature of incubation. Consistently towards the top of the range and they hatch sooner. At the lower end of the rnage they can take weeks longer. I incubate at 82-84 degrees and mine hatch around 64-65 days after laying.