Do you try to separate egges or just let them stay clumped?

[Blue Apple Herps]

I've seen pics of corn eggs that are laid out indivudually in their incubation box. I personally have just always let them clump together and leave them like that. Was wondering what everyone else does. And if you do separate them, do you remove them as they're being laid (in my experience they've always dried together if you wait too long). Just curious what you do.

 

[tbtusk]

I voted to leave them clumped. I guess I can't really say yet, but that is what i am planning to do. My fist clutch was laid and my mom caught her at the end of laying. She actually had one egg to go. I was away and my mom and step dad where leaving for the night so we decided to move the eggs.

I guess it just hadn't been long enough for the eggs to harden yet, because they were all seperate and easily arranged in an incubation container. If the eggs are stuck together I will always leave them stuck. Their is no reason to endanger the eggs by trying to pull them apart IMO.

 

[Roy Munson]

If they're in a clump, I leave them that way. The only issue with this is that if the clump is too tall, you may need a deeper incubation container.

 

[dwilliamsmms]

I actually like it when mine are clumped. That way there's little or no danger of them getting turned. The only problem I've had with taller clumps is that they hatch over a longer period of time due to unequal heating.

 

[Emanon]

I agree with above!

I leave the clumps... tends to stack them closer together for the incubator. The ones that are in the string so to speak... I clip and place as I need them in order to fit... my incubator looks like a jigsaw puzzle of eggies!

 

[westexherps]

We leave them clumped unless there are obviously bad eggs, then we try to separate them out of the clump......sometimes that means separating several eggs. If we don't get to them quickly however and they are hard we usually leave them alone.

 

[El Jefe]

I do the same as westexherps.....separate if there are bad eggs...otherwise leave the clump. Plus it is always fun when I thought I counted the clump correctly only to find one or two more hatchlings than expected!

 

[bitsy]

I leave mine clumped as well.

Remember if your incubator heat source is beneath the eggs, the incubation temp will vary slightly from the bottom to the top of the clump. Make sure you spend some time before laying, setting up and experimenting with the placing of the stat probe in the incubation substrate.

I always incubate with the temp at the substrate surface in the low-mid 80s, with the probe slightly buried. This ensures that the bottom eggs are in no danger of hitting that dangerous 90 degree point, but the topmost eggs still stay above 80.

 

[MegF.]

I leave mine clumped and my heat source is on the side of the styrofoam box. Right now it's so warm in my snake room that heat is not needed. The box stays around 78-80 all by itself.

 

[garweft]

I marked other. I normaly leave them clumped.

I do however remove any eggs that appear bad and incubate them seperately just to be sure.

If one of my females was to stack them too tall for my normal incubation boxes, I would seperate the top of the clump into it's own smaller clump. That hasn't happened yet though.