Smelly eggs?

So, it hasn't even been two days since my eggs went in the incubator. The majority look like slugs, but I wanted to wait and see, at least a little while. However, they already smell super bad. It smells like a week old dead animal has been rotting inside the egg container. At first I thought it was the vermiculite, but it's gotten worse. I tried giving the container a little ventilation, worried the eggs would suffocate, and I think my whole room is starting to smell.

The question is, is something wrong with the eggs? The vermiculite? When can I candle the slugs to be sure that I can toss them? Will that help with the smell?

Incubator is at 84 F (but its about 80 F down by the eggs). One of the fertile eggs was starting to cave so I just added a little more water, which is when I noticed the smell had gotten worse.

Thanks in advance

The slugs are probably starting to mold and rot. Get rid of them. I see maybe 3 good eggs in that whole thing. I would *gently* try to peel the slugs off the two normal looking eggs.

Thanks for the response!

That was my best guess, it just surprised me how quickly they started to smell.

I looked all over, and I couldn't really find any good information on when you can candle eggs and be at least fairly confident in whether they are fertile or not. Is it like 3 days? 5 days? A week?

You can candle reptile eggs day 1
Chick eggs take about a week


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I use to be a chicken breeder, so sometimes I get reptile eggs and chicken eggs confused. But I know not to turn them! (the big difference between the two. That and the higher humidity and lower temp of reptile eggs).

We have a tendency to want to save every egg, just in case there's a possibility of one hatching. But with experience you will be able to identify slugs and bad eggs and throw them out. I've never had an egg that was moldy or felt squishy hatch. I have had a few eggs develop what looks like a green fungus. I lightly dusted them with antifungal athlete's foot powder where the fungus was growing on them and it killed the fungus. The eggs hatched. It worked for me, but my methods may be unorthodox, so I wouldn't try it unless a person has nothing to lose anyway.

After you have done this long enough, you will be able to immediately tell a good egg from an infertile egg just from a sniff test.

Thank you guys so much for the advice! It really helps!

So, I removed the majority of the eggs after candling (left a few for comparisons if I wanted, but will probably throw them out). I candled the one unattached fertile egg and saw veining, the rest had a small dark spot but no red or veins (in the photo the spot looks red, but it wasn't). Is this normal? For there to be a dark spot in infertile slug eggs?

Also, one of the fertile eggs, on top of a pile, started to dent after a day, so I added some water and that didn't help, so I tried a damp paper towel, but it's still dented. It really doesn't feel like 80 F in the incubator, despite a second (albeit cheap) thermometer was added. Could that be why the humidity is so low?

One relatively reliable test I used to use to determine good eggs from bad was to just lightly spray the eggs with water. A good egg will quickly absorb the water. A bad egg will just stay wet looking.

Not sure if it is 100% reliable, but it worked well for me. So your mileage may vary.

The incubator temp has nothing to do with the humidity level. If you moistened the vermiculite properly your good eggs should be embedded in it so they can absorb moisture. I like to leave the top of the eggs exposed in case one goes bad during the incubation, but Rich said he covers his.

Yeah, my belief was that covering the eggs was better for them because mold spores are spread via being airborne and I preferred keeping them from landing on the surface of an exposed egg. When an egg goes bad underneath the vermiculite the mold will form kind of a shell around the egg when mixing with the medium, which I believe helps keep the mold spores a bit in check better.

Eggs seems to have a natural resistance to mold, which makes sense since they are normally laid in an environment that tends to be damp and warm. But I guess they can only take so much abuse before succumbing. Best of my recollection, I never had a good egg get moldy. I have had the damp paper towel that I laid on top of the vermiculite get moldy, however.

Now with that being said, when the eggs were within a week of due date for hatching, I would uncover them so it was easier to keep track of them pipping. And I think it makes it easier for the baby snake to emerge and get it's first breath of air without chancing getting vermiculite in it's mouth.

One thing I noticed that unlike what a lot of people report for their eggs hatching, mine NEVER got dimpled prior to hatching. They always stayed full and plump up till the instant the baby poked through with the egg tooth. Not really sure why that was.

Rich Z said:

One thing I noticed that unlike what a lot of people report for their eggs hatching, mine NEVER got dimpled prior to hatching. They always stayed full and plump up till the instant the baby poked through with the egg tooth. Not really sure why that was.

Click to expand...

It's funny, my experience with hatching is the same as yours. I didn't see any dimpling on the eggs. They were full right up to the time the hatchling started to emerge. My corns seem to do their thing differently than what is usually reported. My males seldom go off feed during mating season. This is the first year one of my young males stopped eating, but even that one ate when an ASF was provided. My females seldom go off feed prior to laying. This year one went off feed, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, she took an ASF the day before she laid. I have had females lay before the customary pre-lay shed. This year one laid and two days later shed. They sure keep a person on their toes. I tell corn keepers that few things are absolute with corns, there are the customary guidelines, but nothing is 100% absolute.

So, I waited a day for the moist paper towel to help the dented egg, but nothing happened (if anything it got worse) so I soaked some sphagnum moss and squeezed it until it didn't drip and then put that over the dented egg.
Hopefully that will raise the humidity in the entire container, as I've heard people say there should be condensation or it should be moist looking and it doesn't look that way at all. The other fertile eggs seem to be doing well though, so that's a plus.

I'm feeling quite discouraged. The 3 or 4 good eggs were doing great, the humidity had raised because of the moss, and then today it got too humid and most of the eggs got moldy (the white, fluffy kind). I tossed the rest of the bad eggs that weren't attached to good eggs and wiped the rest of the eggs off with a paper towel. I also cleaned out the whole container and replaced the vermiculite and removed the moss.
The dented egg is back to normal, but I'm worried its too late, especially this early into incubation.

Chicken eggs were so much easier then this. You could do almost anything and they would be okay. They never molded, rarely smelled, and just putting a couple bowls of water in was enough for the humidity. Even somewhat dirty eggs usually hatched. I hatched hundreds of them (under the mommas and in the incubator). I can't even hatch one snake egg. : (

The egg started denting in again but mold was also growing (hard to tell how to get the right humidity in that case). Managed to remove 2 more rotten eggs from the egg clusters. Wiped off the remaining eggs, added some antifungal powder to the infertile eggs I couldn't remove (and some to the worse looking fertile eggs). Cleaned out the whole container again and replaced the substrate. Added some moss over the egg that is denting. Hoping for the best, but this sure is a lot of effort so early on.

Got five potentially good eggs (and one bad egg that's stuck to a good egg) left. The moss helped the dented egg fill-in, but mold grew again, so I had to clean them off for the third time (managed to remove 2 more bad eggs while doing so).

Well you are gaining in experience. Next year should be easier. Hope you get al least a few babies poking out this year.

I hope you get a few healthy babies. I know it's frustrating when the clutch doesn't go as planned.

Last year I had my clutches all set up the same way, and incubating at 82 degrees. All the clutches hatched except one. On the 57th day the whole clutch died at the same time. I have never had a whole clutch of fertile eggs die like that. No glitches with the incubator as I have a high and low temp alarm on it, and a clutch hatched after that one. Go figure...

Thanks guys! 3 of the remaining eggs are looking good so far. Waiting 2 months sounds so hard!