Hi! I am brand new to this forum and would like to ask a question...


I arrived home on Sunday from vacation and found mold growing on my 40 day old eggs! Why is this happening?

I have the eggs in a plastic container with vermiculite/perlite and the incubator's humidity is at 80%.

I'm very worried that this will hurt the babies. I brushed the mold off and the eggs seem to be okay up to this point. Tomorrow I am going to replace the ver/perlite with fresh stuff.

What did I do wrong?

Please help.

Hello,

It may have been nothing you did. This is a tough question because mold can form for several reasons. Moisture resting on the eggs can cause mold as well as unfertile eggs within the clutch.

Do your eggs have water droplets falling in,on,or around them where water could possibly come into direct contact with the eggs? If so, this is something you want to avoid.

These are my ideas, for now. I just woke up. lol BTW, welcome to Herp Center! I hope you enjoy the site.

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Welcome to HC

Mold can often grow from infertile eggs, but will not harm the fertile eggs. I would leave them as they are - changing the vermiculite will mean you have to handle the eggs, and movement of the eggs could cause damage and death to the baby growing inside. Leave them alone and they should all hatch fine.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

One batch of eggs is 44 days old. The second batch is 29 days old, and the third is 12 days old. We had one infertile egg in the first batch. It was removed from the incubator three days after it was laid.

Other than that, every other is fertile.

I guess I'm just worried that things will go wrong. I've had the first clutch for quite a while now and I'd be so sad if something happened to them. Hopefully they will hatch relatively soon so I can rest easy.

I must be obsessing... I even dream about the eggs.

It's understandable that you are concerned, but leave them alone and they will hatch just fine. Imagine in the wild, mold would grow, conditions would change, but they still hatch fine. In captivity we give them more of a chance and more survive that wouldn't in the wild.

LOL just wait til they start hatching - i'm a night owl so not too good at getting up early, but nothing can keep me in bed when the babies are due to hatch!! Good luck with them, and if you need anything you know where to come.
(PS. It is compulsory to post pictures when the babies hatch)

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

50 days and counting now! How much longer can they hold out on me? This is worse than Christmas!!

Do they usually hatch in the morning?

I most certainly will post pictures when they hatch.

Ah they can hold out for longer than that!!

No they don't tend to hatch in the morning - they can hatch at any time of day or night,. you will see a slight slit in the egg where the baby will pop its head out, and then will take up to 24 hours or so to come out completely. Leave them in the incubator for up to 24hours to absorb their yolk sac before putting in their tank, and once one hatches the others should follow closely.

Don't forget to post pics!!!

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

This is going to be so fun for you! I just had my first clutch in '05. It was awsome! What made it even cooler was that I had evacuated from katrina later in the clutch's developement and I thought that I was done for. I brought the eggs with because I was afraid that the power would go out and they'd die. I took them with and put them to an adapter in the car. 3 weeks later, i went to go check ok the eggs and was thinking, "Oh, they are all dead, im going to throw them away." And suprisingly, i was wrong. They were in teh middle of hatching!!! eeeee IT was soo cool! However, the younger clutch didnt make it


Anyway, back to the subject lol. Let me know when they start to poke their little noses out. Its soo cute.