Hard boiled eggs? Why?

[Amanda E]

Hey there! Long time no see. Anyway...

One of my snakes laid 17 eggs this year, 8 obvious slugs (wet and yellow) and 9 eggs that looked fertile (perfect and white).

However, I'm thinking that all 17 eggs were infertile, because by day 30 or so they all went bad, except for 2, but then they went bad yesterday at day 74. I opened these last two and they looked like hard boiled eggs, no sign of any developing snakes at all.

Does anyone know what would cause infertile eggs to look like fertile eggs? I mean there was an obvious difference in the looks/feel of half of the eggs.

They weren't overheated at all. The highest temp during incubation was 84 F.

 

[Sasheena]

I had a snake last year who laid "hard boiled" eggs.... there were veins to begin with but instead of becoming a strong network they started to break into pieces, and then the eggs went all bad.... upon dissection, there was a pea-sized embryo in each and every egg... like they all got to the exact same stage of development (these are kingsnakes I'm talking about).... little pink tubes with dark spots for eyeballs. Perhaps eggs that are "close" to being fertilized are the ones that SEEM fertile but aren't... mine were obviously fertile, but yours might have gotten close, but not quite.

 

[PssdffJay]

Sorry to hear that, i ahve no advice for you b/c i know nothing at all. Better luck in the future though!

 

[Amanda E]

Sasheena:
Maybe those eggs were fertile but had something wrong with them. I don't know. They were clearly different than the ones I knew for a fact were slugs.

Better luck in the future though!

Thanks. I am going to try to breed this female (ghost) again next year. I am going to use the same male (snow) and make sure he gets plenty of chances to breed her, but I will make sure she is bred at least once by another male (bloodred) who I know can fertilize eggs. If I get a good clutch and I get Anery's I'll know it was just a bad year and my snow does have good sperm. If I get normals instead, I'm going to have to guess that my snow is infertile.

 

[SnakeNutt]

Amanda, I had the same thing happen to me with my first clutch laid this year. 10 white, perfect-looking eggs that all went bad in the last 10 days before they were due to hatch. I opened them all, and they all had some degree of "hard-boiled stuff," and some had partially formed embryos. The last two actually had almost-formed hatchlings, along with some of the solid yolk stuff. I originally chalked it up to the parents being young, first-timers, but I just checked all my eggs this morning, and three of the 12 remaining clutches had one "hard-boiled" egg apiece. However, my second clutch of 15 hatched perfectly this weekend, with no eggs going bad.

I hope some of the experienced breeders will weigh in on this (I've only been breeding for three years, with only about 30 clutches total -- I still consider myself a fairly new breeder). I, too, would really like to know what causes some eggs that look perfect to eventually "hard boil," especially since the hard-boiled ones don't smell rotten/bad.

Liz

 

[carol]

There has got to be something to this... This year I am noticing more and more "strange things" happening. I just hatched a clutch of mostly deformed domed heads from a mother that had perfect babies last year. They were incubated the same as other clutches hatching right now perfectly healthy. As for the father of the clutch, he has also sired healthy hatchlings with different females. I also had a few clutches just go hard boiled for no apparent reason. The only trend I have been able to pin point what so ever is that the fact that the longer the female waits to lay her eggs after the pre lay shed, the more eggs go hard boiled. It seems like if the females lay those eggs any later than day 12... I get big problems with those clutches. I plan on keeping much more detailed records next year to try and figure this out.

 

[Sasheena]

You may have a point.... I had a kingsnake clutch last year... the girl went 16 or 17 days post pre-lay shed before she laid these GARGANTUAN eggs (we're talking larger than a XXLarge chicken egg).... and they were the ones that all went "hard boiled".... and my girl who got egg-bound this time went quite some time (wasn't counting days) after her pre-lay shed before finally laying her eggs... and she not only got egg-bound, but her eggs also took on the exact same appearance as the bad eggs from my kingsnake from last year (oooey gooey). I believe there is a very strong correlation based on anecdotal accounts. Next year, hopefully I will not be able to add any data to this search for knowledge however. I plan on doing things quite a bit differently when it comes to providing a laying box also, so that the snakes will hopefully lay eggs soon after shedding and not have this problem.

 

[SnakeNutt]

I also had a few clutches just go hard boiled for no apparent reason. The only trend I have been able to pin point what so ever is that the fact that the longer the female waits to lay her eggs after the pre lay shed, the more eggs go hard boiled. It seems like if the females lay those eggs any later than day 12... I get big problems with those clutches.

Interesting observation, Carol. I checked my records for this year and last, and for both this year's clutch that went bad and last year's clutch that I lost over half due to HBS (hard boiled syndrome), the females went 10 days between pre-lay shed and actual egg laying.

What is a snake's normal temperature? Perhaps staying too long inside the female starts a process that makes the eggs "cook."

The only other thing that I feel might be relevant is that, in both my instances (where I lost half or more of the clutch to HBS), I suspect that the parents are/were closely related, perhaps siblings or half-siblings.

Liz

 

[carol]

I think another thing we could start investigating is the temps that gravid females are kept at, especially closer to laying. Who knows what kind of "heat spikes" and other enviornmental issues could effect eggs before they are even layed. :shrugs:

 

[Sasheena]

Well I think t hat the actual "hard boiled-ness" of the eggs is simply a function of eggs kept at an incubation temperature that are not "good" .... in other words whatever makes them viable and full of snake is turned off and thus time and the elements start to congeal the useless "stuff" and make it "hard boiled" in appearance. I don't think that "being" hard boiled is the problem, I think that is just a result of the egg dying.... it dies, it turns hardboiled.

I do know that my girl who had HB eggs last year suffered in pretty high temps for three days as my house AC was fixed. I always blamed the dead eggs on that, but I have come to believe that instead it is due to the length of time before laying. This year that kingsnake laid one more egg than last year, and they were HALF the size as last years. Two didn't have veins and have since shriveled up and died, but 14 are still robust and probably going to hatch.

 

[Sasheena]

The heat spike my kingsnake experienced was NOT reproduced in the way things were with the creamsicle. I did raise her temps after she was OBVIOUSLY eggbound because I figured that the higher temps could help her if she wanted them.

I did move her enclosure shortly prior to her pre-lay shed, and I believe that the change in location made her insecure and thus made her delay laying her eggs, which resulted in her becoming eggbound and having HB eggs.