Well, here's the bad news from this clutch... that final snow finally attempted to emerge from the egg. It only made it part way out though. I knew as soon as I looked at it yesterday morning that it wasn't going to make it.
Even before I helped it the rest of the way out of the egg I could see something was wrong. It's entire belly was collapsed in, almost as if it's lung had collapsed. And though it was still alive at that point, it seemed to have trouble breathing and was extremely weak.
I snapped a few pictures, and than helped it out of the egg and found that the last 1/4 of its body was all deformed and fused together. Poor little guy. I only took a few more quick pictures and than euthanized the poor thing to put it out of its misery. Can't tell you if it was male of female, there was no way to check. But it was definitely a snow.
I'm sad, but I am comforted by the knowledge that the majority of the clutch hatched out healthy.
For those who are morbidly interested in seeing the pictures, I have placed them on our site on the
Immature Hatchling page. The pictures aren't the best, but I didn't want to spend the time to get them just right because I didn't want the poor snake to suffer any longer. I only took the pictures in the first place to document the deformities.
