Sasheena
Addicted
I've been thinking a whole lot about the "don't turn the eggs or they'll die" concept and a few other things and recently made some conclusions but would love to hear other thoughts on the topic.
People say: "Don't turn the eggs, or the babies will drown"....
Some people refute this: "I'm not sure that's valid"
Other people have even done limited research on this issue... I think it was at http://www.henryshouseofsnakes.com that I read of one particular experiment where it was done deliberately to determine the result.
Myself: I don't feel so rich in eggs that I would do this experiment. BUT... two things have me thinking about it this year.
Dead Eggs. I lost a clutch of california king eggs. 15 beautiful HUGE eggs (can we say eggs the size of XXXLarge chicken eggs?). They were yellowish, but had veins when candled and seemed fine. But they started to show signs of dying at day 10. I firmly believe they ALL died at that age but it took another 20 days before they began to writhe with maggots and really ALL appear dead. Me and the kids disected all fifteen eggs and found 15 embryos all very tiny, all attached to the 11 am location of the yolk (which was "hard boiled in appearance). The little embryos were just little flesh-colored tubes with tiny heads and eyes the size of grains of sand.
Big Clutch: I have a clutch of 20 corn eggs due to hatch in 11 days and a few days ago the egg box got disturbed and all the eggs were pushed to one side, some might have even been rolled over
and had me worried.
Some conclusions I've made are that the newly laid eggs have "free floating" embryos who then attach themselves to the upper 20% of the egg. I'm not sure if this is because there is less fluid there and a pocket of air, or if it's instinct or what. I'm thinking that if you were to shift the eggs at that stage, after they've attached but while they are just a tiny little tube that isn't terribly much like a real snake, they could be drowned, or worse, crushed, by the weight of the egg contents pressing on them. My thought is that this CAN happen, but only if they are turned in such a way that they are directly under the mass, and only during a crucial one to four week period. (Not sure how quickly they develop.)
My thought is that my "close to term" eggs are mostly full of little snakey now, and that the little baby, if it is turned, would just readjust to a comfortable position within the egg, and be fine.
So my conclusion:
Turning eggs CAN be fatal during a certain point of incubation, but probably is NOT fatal during the latter half of incubation, and probably not fatal when the egg is quickly reoriented to its proper position.
Anyway, my conclusions are far from scientific. I am basing my conclusions mostly on ONE dead clutch, and hopes that my other clutch will all hatch out fine.
People say: "Don't turn the eggs, or the babies will drown"....
Some people refute this: "I'm not sure that's valid"
Other people have even done limited research on this issue... I think it was at http://www.henryshouseofsnakes.com that I read of one particular experiment where it was done deliberately to determine the result.
Myself: I don't feel so rich in eggs that I would do this experiment. BUT... two things have me thinking about it this year.
Dead Eggs. I lost a clutch of california king eggs. 15 beautiful HUGE eggs (can we say eggs the size of XXXLarge chicken eggs?). They were yellowish, but had veins when candled and seemed fine. But they started to show signs of dying at day 10. I firmly believe they ALL died at that age but it took another 20 days before they began to writhe with maggots and really ALL appear dead. Me and the kids disected all fifteen eggs and found 15 embryos all very tiny, all attached to the 11 am location of the yolk (which was "hard boiled in appearance). The little embryos were just little flesh-colored tubes with tiny heads and eyes the size of grains of sand.
Big Clutch: I have a clutch of 20 corn eggs due to hatch in 11 days and a few days ago the egg box got disturbed and all the eggs were pushed to one side, some might have even been rolled over
and had me worried. Some conclusions I've made are that the newly laid eggs have "free floating" embryos who then attach themselves to the upper 20% of the egg. I'm not sure if this is because there is less fluid there and a pocket of air, or if it's instinct or what. I'm thinking that if you were to shift the eggs at that stage, after they've attached but while they are just a tiny little tube that isn't terribly much like a real snake, they could be drowned, or worse, crushed, by the weight of the egg contents pressing on them. My thought is that this CAN happen, but only if they are turned in such a way that they are directly under the mass, and only during a crucial one to four week period. (Not sure how quickly they develop.)
My thought is that my "close to term" eggs are mostly full of little snakey now, and that the little baby, if it is turned, would just readjust to a comfortable position within the egg, and be fine.
So my conclusion:
Turning eggs CAN be fatal during a certain point of incubation, but probably is NOT fatal during the latter half of incubation, and probably not fatal when the egg is quickly reoriented to its proper position.
Anyway, my conclusions are far from scientific. I am basing my conclusions mostly on ONE dead clutch, and hopes that my other clutch will all hatch out fine.
