First Batch of eggs. not looking good

[flangecat]

Hi

I work in a high school and two of the teachers donated their unwanted Corn snakes. I was lucky that they were male and female. Anyway, I put them in together and they mated a few times. The female had an egg laying chamber with sphagnum in it and about 10 days ago, I got my first batch of eggs. She still looks gravid, so I am hoping on another batch of eggs.

Anyway, the first batch looked good after I discovered them ( They must have been laid over the bank holiday weekend when I wasn't at work )

I carefully transfered them to a spare tank (25cm x20cmx 20cm)

I read on a number of corn snake sites that the eggs should be kept on damp vermiculite or sphagnum and at a temperature of around 28C. I couldnt get any vermiculite, so I used my spare sphagnum. My room is pretty warm most of the time, but can get cold at night so i put a heat mat under one side of the tank I was keeping the eggs in. I made sure that there were no eggs above the heat mat - it only covered about 2 inches of the short side if their tank.

Over the next few days - I kept the sphagnum as moist as I could without drenching it but my eggs are deteriorating.

I took some photos this morning of the cluster and was hoping for some advice - Is there anything I can do to save any of them? I can see that some of them are unfertilised as they are not white and there has been a lot of the eggs 'shrivelling' Im not sure why this is happening.

Please can someone look over the photo's and tell me if there is any life left in them?

Thank you very much for any help

Steve

 

[flangecat]

The photos are in this order:
Original photo of the eggs at day #1
Egg cluster from above
Egg Cluster from Below
Egg cluster from the front
and finally, the cluster from the back.

Thanks again

 

[Shiari]

unfortunately I think only a couple of eggs on the bottom are salvageable. You need to put them in a plastic container, with a *lid*, and surrounded by damp sphagnum moss (top, bottom, sides). Just sitting on moss like that like is allowing them to dry out.

For example, the picture below is will the top of the moss moved aside, and the lid off.

 

[flangecat]

Thank you.

What should I do about the rest of the eggs? I know I cant easily remove them. I read that the bad eggs could be 'sawed away' with dental floss but I dont want to risk losing what few eggs remain.

Also, how often should I spray/moisten the moss?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Nanci]

I would make an egg container- any clear plastic container with a lid, no holes. Fill it with moss like you have there. The moss needs to be soaked, then wrung out as much as possible. Fill the container half way, put in the egg pile, cover it with the rest of the moss. Then put the cover on, and leave it. Don't add water, or mist, or anything. Remove the cover once a week and gently fan the eggs. If the moss feels a little too dry, it's probably just right.

 

[Nanci]

Also, don't worry about the eggs that aren't going to make it. They won't hurt anything.

 

[cornsnakeforsale_com]

You also don't know which ones will make it and which ones will not. Some of them that look pretty bad could plump right up while others that look good could get moldy and die. You might as well try to save them all.