Questions about our second clutch.

[Jay@PJCReptiles]

Hi everyone,
Last night we checked on our gravid Anery. "Sophie" around 11:30 when we went to bed and she was fine. We woke up this morning and checked on her again at 6:30 and sure enough she had dropped us 9 eggs. We are new at this and this is only our second clutch ever and they look different then the ones in our first clutch. I have a couple pictures to show you what I mean. The first clutch we got was from an older female who had been bred in the past and when we noticed she had laid them it was only about within a half an hour and this is "Sophie's" first clutch that could have been sitting for awhile longer. The first ones we got were nice and round, solid white and smooth where this clutch is more oblong in shape and have these very funny looking "starburst-like" spots and bumps. my questions are.....

#1 - Depending on when she laid the eggs, say 12:00 being the earliest, should the eggs be ok for sitting in her lay box for about 6 hours? (Her lay box is in her viv sitting on top of the UTH. There is about 1 inch of aspen between the lay box and the bottom of the tank. Her viv temp. is always cruising between 80 - 85 degrees on the warm end. The lay box was lined with damp sphagnum)

#2 - "Sophie" is a bit smaller then "Willow" was when she layed her eggs, "Willow" was over 500 grams and "Sophie" was about 270 grams. Could her smaller size be the cause of the difference in the shape of the eggs?

#3 - Why do these eggs look different then the first clutch we had? They are definitely not as smooth and like I said they have funny markings and bumps on them. What is this and are the eggs ok?

The clutch is in a bin in the incubator and doing ok. Can someone help us with our questions as we are a little concerned. :shrugs:
Thank You,
Jay & PJ

 

[carol]

That's what most of us call "snowflakes". It's not all that uncommon, and I don't think anyone has really figured out what causes them. I do know that perfectly healthy hatchlings came come from snowflaked eggs. It doesn't seem to have any effect on the hatchling inside.

Come to think of it, this may be the first year that I didn't have any majorly snowflaked eggs. So I guess I better start thinking about what I did differently this year. :shrugs:

 

[ghosthousecorns]

I haven't gotten any like that, but I always seem to get the ones with clearish spots on them, what some people call 'windows'. Perhaps the snowflakes are smaller versions? This is just a guess but might it have something to do with calcium levels? The amount of time they are in the nest box before they go in the incubator is not a big deal if they don't get too dry, and even then I have seen posts about dried eggs plumping back up after days of sitting in aspen and still hatching. Anyways congrats. 9 eggs seems like a good clutch for a small first timer, hope my ghost mot/stripe does as good :cheers: