Slitting Eggs?

[CaptBogart]

Ok, I've been wondering about this as it's the first time I slit eggs that hadn't pipped after the mass exodus. I slit a few of mine but was too late on two that looked fine but were DIE, (they had little starter slits but never made it out). One that didn't hatch looked half developed, with a big white/yellow glob taking up most of the egg, two were just goo, uke01: and the last one is pipping! I even poked oke: it after I slit it open to see if it would move, and nothing. I didn't think it would make it, but put it back in the incubator just to see. I thought it would be interesting to see how many of you slit your eggs, and how soon after they start pipping do you start cutting... I think if I had opened the first two sooner, they might have made it. I've noticed too, that just about every pic of BP's hatching, they always look as if their eggs have been slit.

So, the questions are;
1) Do you slit your eggs?
2) How long do you wait before you start slitting them open?
and
3) Is slitting them open a last resort, or the norm?

Oh, and what do you use? I used an Exacto knife on mine because it's small, and I could use just the very sharp tip to poke through and cut out, so I wasn't cutting into the egg...

Thanks in advance...

 

[ghosthousecorns]

I don't slit mine and don't really get why others do. It's part of letting nature take its course = if they can't make it out on their own they will probably be weaker babies.
I think this topic has a thread on it but from a couple of years ago let me see if I can find it...

 

[ghosthousecorns]

It's a poll... http://cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38593

 

[KJUN]

It's part of letting nature take its course

Nothing in captivity is "letting nature take its course," so I don't think I understand why THAT should be a criteria in if eggs are slit or not. The question is: does it help? That should be the only question.

Slitting eggs TOO SOON is very, very bad. So, you should (most of us, anyway) never slit them early in the game. Wait until it is too late. If it IS too late, then slitting them likely would not have helped, anywya. Even if earlier slitting WOULD have helped, it is better to lose on due to delayed slitting than to lose 6 too premature slitting! Due to temperature gradients, eggs within a clutch CAN take up to a couple of extra days to hatch!

One the weaker hatchling idea, I don't completely buy it. Sometimes eggs shell get dry (or are too think to begin with) making pipping difficult no matter how healthy the babies is, and we have have some REALLY weak/deformed babies pip on their own. Pipping prematurely CAN certainly cause weaker hatchlings, but that isn't what we were discussing in this thread. If a baby is weak and slitting the egg gets it to hatch, what is the harm if this animal feeds readily and grows into a healthy adult? If it doesn't survive, I STILL don't see where the harm was by slitting it - as long as you didn't do it prematurely. Giving it a chance ain't gonna cost you much.....lol.

As far as WHEN to slit - if you will slit at all - that has been covered on at least one other thread that a few of the bigger breeders have posted their thoughts.

KJ

 

[ghosthousecorns]

I respectfully disagree.
Even though I'm not a bigger breeder I think my point still has merit. While you say nothing in captivity is part of letting nature take its course, I feel constantly candling, inspecting, and being impatient with eggs to the point you feel you have to slit them if they haven't pipped is much less natural than leaving them be and having a little patience.
Maybe as a big outfit you have slit eggs and it worked for you, but because I don't produce so many I want strong and healthy hatchlings that grow up into robust breeding stock and I don't feel I will get them by nursing along feebler ones that need their eggshells slit for them.
I think the OP question was not "Does it help" but whether or not we do it and when. Does it help is more of an opinion.
I also don't cut viewing windows into eggs that HAVE pipped just so I can photograph babies inside as I have seen done a couple of times. I just don't like to mess with eggs at all, I don't think my giving the logic behind this is so very off topic for this thread.
And you are correct it has been discussed before. That's why I posted a link to the previous discussion

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I have absolutely no idea why ball python breeders always slit their eggs, and none have provided a viable reason why one should do it (other then counting their morphs before they hatch). I see them slitting as early as day 52 and most of my clutches don't hatch until day 60! I really think it's just become the "thing to do" with the bp breeders and few step up and question it.

I have cut eggs after 48 hours of the last pip, but in my experience, the ones that don't make it out on their own, there's a reason for it. I had one egg from my Lav Mot x Blizzard clutch this year that was nice and big and plump and just wouldn't pip...I waited 48 hours after the last pip, slit it open and the baby was severely deformed. It's neck was one big kink that wouldn't allow him to move to cut his own egg (nor would he be able to feed) and he had several other large kinks along his spine. Made me wish I hadn't even slit him because I had to put him in the freezer anyway.

 

[CaptBogart]

I don't slit mine and don't really get why others do. It's part of letting nature take its course = if they can't make it out on their own they will probably be weaker babies.
I think this topic has a thread on it but from a couple of years ago let me see if I can find it...

I remembered the poll, but there are a lot more members breeding since then... I know this because I look at "Pippie" threads and wonder, "Who's this, and how do they have so many posts?" I just started breeding Colubrids last year, before that, my friends and I raised Boids, (Colubrid births are much cleaner, lol)...
I should mention that the two that were DIE, but looked fine, were at the bottom of the stack. One was trying to pip through the egg above it, and the other through the bottom, so I wouldn't say they were weak... maybe a little "challenged"... I believe if I gave them another exit, they would have pipped perfectly fine.

I have absolutely no idea why ball python breeders always slit their eggs, and none have provided a viable reason why one should do it (other then counting their morphs before they hatch). I see them slitting as early as day 52 and most of my clutches don't hatch until day 60! I really think it's just become the "thing to do" with the bp breeders and few step up and question it.

I was thinking the same thing about the morphs and the opportunity to take pics, but so many do it, even with the normals. I also thought because there are still so many WC available every year that they do it as pictorial proof... :shrugs:

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I was thinking the same thing about the morphs and the opportunity to take pics, but so many do it, even with the normals. I also thought because there are still so many WC available every year that they do it as pictorial proof...

I see where you're coming from, but unless you get a shot of the entire BP in the egg, there's no sure fire way to know that particular hatchling in that particular egg is the same one being sold by so and so as CBB. Maybe the normals you were seeing were "left overs" from Codom pairings or someone's first or second clutch and they decided to follow the egg cutting fold? :shrugs:

 

[jmksnakes]

I've slit only one egg each year over the past couple of years, both times for the same reasoning. In both cases, I had noticed the hatchling had started a very small slit, but then stopped. By monitoring these two eggs over a day's time, I never noticed the slit getting any larger, or the hatchling pipping (the size of the slit didn't look quite big enough to pip). My thoughts were that the hatchling may be able to breath at this point, but under the crazy possibility that the egg tooth was either undeveloped or fell off prematurely... after a day's time, I made the slit larger using those really sharp surgical scissors you can get. In both cases the hatchlings emerged perfectly healthy, my paranoid thoughts may or may not have helped. The whole egg tooth defect may be a stretch, but if it's possible, a perfectly healthy (non-deformed) hatchling might be saved!

 

[ghosthousecorns]

I remembered the poll, but there are a lot more members breeding since then... I know this because I look at "Pippie" threads and wonder, "Who's this, and how do they have so many posts?" I just started breeding Colubrids last year, before that, my friends and I raised Boids, (Colubrid births are much cleaner, lol)...
I should mention that the two that were DIE, but looked fine, were at the bottom of the stack. One was trying to pip through the egg above it, and the other through the bottom, so I wouldn't say they were weak... maybe a little "challenged"... I believe if I gave them another exit, they would have pipped perfectly fine.

The frustrating thing is you probably will never know if they would have been fine had you tried to help them or if they were already DIE. I guess the world is full of could have and should have and would haves. I'm sure there's people who have lost egg bound females thinking I should have never bred her and I would have exercised her more for conditioning and I could have taken her to the vet sooner, you know?
I am not trying to tell anybody else to not cut eggs, just why I don't. Even though I don't have decades of experience I hatch a few clutches a year here and the only eggs I ever cut were ones that were obviously not going to make it and the only reason was curiosity as to why. In one case I had a deformed hatchling and another time I had an entire second clutch just up and die after seeming to develop normally for two months, and each egg had a non kinked baby inside :shrugs: I just wouldn't be kicking myself because I didn't slit them sooner if I were you.

 

[bitsy]

I don't slit either. Whilst nothing in captivity is letting nature take its course, I believe I've seen stat quoted that in the wild, 1% of Corn eggs in the wild hatch and produce snakes that go on to survive to maturity. That's one in every hundred eggs - about one egg in every four clutches - that's successful.

Given that perspective, I figure that losing the odd one or two near term is really no big deal, and may just be taking Mother Nature's hint. Then again, I don't depend on them financially - I guess it's different for bigger breeders.

 

[Susan]

I will not only slit eggs that haven't pipped 24-48 hours after the last egg had pipped on it's own, I will also extend/expand the openings of any eggs whose "contents" didn't make a large opening themselves. I had at least one hatchling die that had made a small slit, got it's head out but apparently had trouble breathing because the opening was too tight. I've never kept any records of how well hatchlings did whose egg I had slit open, but I do know that I've had far more live hatchlings in those slit eggs than I've had DIE. And I also use an Exacto knife to slit eggs because of the very sharp point. I use a pair of tweezers to pull and extend opening of those already slit, if they need it.

 

[El Jefe]

One was trying to pip through the egg above it, and the other through the bottom, so I wouldn't say they were weak... maybe a little "challenged"... I believe if I gave them another exit, they would have pipped perfectly fine.

Interesting. I had a first happen this year that was kind of like that. I had a snake pip out of its egg but then push its head into another pipping egg and died like that. It was odd to see a snake coming out of one egg and going into another....don't know what he was thinking! :shrugs:


As far as slitting...I usually do what others have said...wait 24-48 hours after pipping. But I can say I don't remember it ever really helping.

And ball pythons...I don't slit the eggs and have had only one die in egg....and he had already slit it and had his head out....not sure why he decided to tuck back in and die? Maybe that is the 'real' reason for big slits...so the can't go back in?

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

And ball pythons...I don't slit the eggs and have had only one die in egg....and he had already slit it and had his head out....not sure why he decided to tuck back in and die? Maybe that is the 'real' reason for big slits...so the can't go back in?

Then why do they do it so early, not even waiting for the first "natural" pip?

 

[FunkyRes]

I've only slit one egg - but only because the snake made an enormous number of its own slits first, it's just none of its own slits came together. After eggs that pipped after it were out, I went ahead and made a small cut joining two of the slits, and within 45 minutes a beautiful snake, yolk fully absorbed, crawled out. Maybe it would have gotten out on its own anyway.

I don't think I would slit an egg that hasn't started on its own. I've had eggs start pipping four days after the first of the clutch is already out.

With respect to healthy neonates dying in the egg, I think maybe sometimes it is because humidity isn't quite high enough. I base this off of a GBK breeder who had a fairly high frequency of dead in egg. He adjusted his husbandry by adding a damp but not wet paper towel covering the eggs a week before expected hatch date, and his hatch rate shot up.

I guess what I'm saying - if you have a large number of eggs that need help pipping, try the damp paper towel trick - it may eliminate the need for the exacto.

With respect to candling, I never candle. Bad eggs start to smell and shrivel up, good eggs don't, I feel that handling the eggs as little as possible leaves the smallest room for human error damaging them.

 

[zorro]

I have absolutely no idea why ball python breeders always slit their eggs, and none have provided a viable reason why one should do it (other then counting their morphs before they hatch).

I asked a big ball python breeder why they slit their eggs and he said he does not do it on his corns the ball pythons take up to two weeks to come out of their eggs.
I slit one clutch this year as I had one corn pip and was out of his egg for 24 hours and the rest of the clutch not so much as one pip. Most all the clutch used my slit so I did think it helped.

 

[zorro]

I asked a big ball python breeder why they slit their eggs and he said he does not do it on his corns the ball pythons take up to two weeks to come out of their eggs.
I slit one clutch this year as I had one corn pip and was out of his egg for 24 hours and the rest of the clutch not so much as one pip. Most all the clutch used my slit so I did think it helped.

Sorry I should have said he doesn't slit his corn eggs but does do his ball eggs cause they take so long to come out.
John

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

They take so long to come out because they're slitting them a full week or two before they're ready to pip on there own!

 

[susang]

Does anyone slit eggs that have incubated beyond 60 days. I know there was just a thread of pips at day 81, my clutch is at day 71 and while I am 80% sure I would not slit them to see what's going on. Are there corn snake breeders that slit say at day 75 or 80?????

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I would think, if it happened to me, I would slit if it reached day 80. That's way over what my clutches average, and I would at least like to know if they're still alive. Knock on wood, no clutch here has ever went past 65 days.