Nice morning Jungle surprise... :P lol

[zephed]

Well just recently I acquired a beautiful pair of Morelia spilota cheynei from a gentleman named Eric. Big up Eric and thanks again for EVERYTHING dude! First I actually bought a trio of amazing healthy '08's off of him and decided to acquire the parents if possible. These are a gorgeous roughly 9 foot female and a roughly 7.5 foot male. I've only had this pair since February and I was informed that the female may be pregnant but he wasn't sure. He did however say that they were averaging 24 eggs per clutch out of I think 3 or 4 clutches. Since I've had them, I tried feeding the female a few times but absolutely no response every time. The male has eaten once and once only but they are extremely healthy to begin with so I saw no issue with this coming off breeding and such. NOW...this morning I noticed extreme excessive moisture build up on the walls of the glass in the enlcosure. I took the lid off and found the female sitting on what I unofficially counted as 19 eggs and one slug. These are my first snake eggs ever. I was beside myself...I collected my thoughts and as caught off guard as I was...I built an incubator with whatever I had available to me. I took a 6" deep plastic shoebox (Omnibox) and put 1-1.5" of warm water in the bottom and then took an old custom aquarium top that was square and had a fine mesh screen in a wooden frame. I disinfected it in peroxide and extremely hot water first and then filled it with dry hypoallergenic aspen shavings because I had no vermiculite available and that was the best substitute I could find :0( I then wedged it about 1/2-1" above the water in the tray and took the lid and drilled plenty of holes across the whole thing and set a little hygrometer in there and a digital thermometer probe resting very lightly on the eggs. I moved the eggs in there by sliding a section of newspaper underneath them to lift them out of the enclosure and into the makeshift incubator. They are currently incubating at roughly 84.5 F and the eggs don't feel wet to the touch. They do however have slightly brown spots, some have sort of yellow spots and most of them have stress lines and small wrinkles. The wrinkles don't seem to be getting worse now that they have been incubating for the day. They started incubating at approx. 92-93 F but I gradually managed to decrease that by placing more holes in the lid, etc... Sorry about the manic post but any suggestions form Carpet Python breeders would be greatly appreciated. I will already be moving the eggs from aspen shavings to very slightly moist vermiculite tomorrow. Cheers everyone and best of success in 2009! Peace and love.

 

[Red Eyes]

Congrats on the clutch! I'm not a breeder but here's some info that might help http://www.acreptiles.com/carpet_python_breeding.htm and http://www.kyherpsoc.org/carpetpythonsprop.html. Best of Luck!

 

[zephed]

So now I have moved the eggs from the aspen shavings and onto the vermiculite and picked out most of the remainders of the shavings. The eggs are steady incubating at 88.8 F right now. The hygrometer was reading about 90% roughly I think. Everything seem ok? I will post pics as soon as I can figure out what's wrong with my camera usb cord. Cheers.

 

[zephed]

Hey guys, another update. The final egg count was actually 21 good eggs and one slug. They are incubating now nicely at 92.4 F with RH of 85-88% but I'm working on dropping it a couple degrees.

 

[Dom]

Congrats on the eggs!!
Since you have a make-shift incubator the best thing to help with temperature stability is to have it in a part of your house that has the most stable temperatures throughout the year. Basements or closets on the north side of the house especially on lower floors are probably best. With the seasons changing room temps can swing dramatically especially rooms with southern exposure (sunny side).
Do you have some sphagnum moss on top of the clutch? It's a good idea when you have swinging temps because if there is any condensation falling from the top of the container it will land on the moss and not the eggs. Water on the eggs is not a good thing.

 

[zephed]

There is a solution and I found it! I'm using a simple plug-in lamp dimmer made by Leviton and plugging my heat pad into it and setting the dimmer switch. It's a little frustrating and tricky trying to find the optimal setting because the dimmer switch sticks a bit but it's much better than what I had going before. Also in this update, I have found 3 or 4 mold spots and looks like I may lose 3 or 4 eggs maybe. I candled the eggs and most of them look pink anyway. After some discussion with Darren Goldin (Morphsource), he advised me to move the eggs off the damp vermiculite. I did as instructed and I now have the eggs on a 1/4" of VERY slightly damp vermiculite, then about 2" or so of dry perlite and then the eggs. The new lid has one 1/8" hole drilled in the lid of the plastic shoebox. The mold spots are being treated with some Gold Bond medicated powder and a q-tip in the meantime and the humidity is staying up good now. I Will keep everyone posted on the progress and I hope to be able to get my pics up soon. Peace and love to all :0)

 

[Dom]

Don't give up on the ones with mold, if you keep your eye on them and treat them they'll probably pull through. I used to err on the side of incubating a little dryer than optimal because it's less problematic than too much humidity.
Those dimmers are pretty tricky to work with and keep things at a tight temperature. I've been using them for a few years to regulate the heat tape for my bugs. They're good for general heating but not so good for tight control. Maybe place an add or request in RC and see if you can borrow a herpstat or helix (in exchange for a baby carpet. At least that would ensure your temps are good and you'll sleep alot easier at night.
You haven't really said what you are using for a heat source but if you're using light bulbs I wouldn't be relying on one bulb to heat the unit. If it burns out you've lost your entire heat source. If you use a few lower wattage bulbs it doesn't matter as much if one bulb burns out.
Anyway let's see some pictures

 

[zephed]

Well it looks as if 3 or 4 eggs are dead but the others are all doing great now. I have them incubating in a cooler incubator I borrowed and they're sitting pretty at 89 F thanks to a Johnson proportional thermostat and some heat tape. I will post pics as soon as I possibly can. Cheers everyone :0)

 

[zephed]

Tah-dah! I finally broke down and went and bought my OWN lol first digital camera. It's a Polaroid i1035 10MP. I'll make this update short and sweet. Unfortunately I lost all of my original pictures on my SD card after I got the new camera but I got some new ones. Too bad I'm not the greatest photographer. Enjoy nonetheless everyone! :0)

The eggs (laid Apr. 29/09):

The proud parents lol (L - Dad, R - Mom):

 

[Dom]

Starting to look good.
Your eggs need more humidity. At this point they should have filled out without any indentation.
I'd add some water to the perlite and put the eggs on some egg crate if you don't want them in direct contact with the substrate. As I mentioned before it's a good idea to put some of the spaghnum moss on to to catch any potential condensation from the lid of your rubbermaid.
Remove the dead ones cause they can only cause problems at this point.
A few days before hatching they will get shrivelled like that but now they need to be nice and round.

 

[zephed]

Starting to look good.
Your eggs need more humidity. At this point they should have filled out without any indentation.
I'd add some water to the perlite and put the eggs on some egg crate if you don't want them in direct contact with the substrate. As I mentioned before it's a good idea to put some of the spaghnum moss on to to catch any potential condensation from the lid of your rubbermaid.
Remove the dead ones cause they can only cause problems at this point.
A few days before hatching they will get shrivelled like that but now they need to be nice and round.

Hmmm...I had this same concern on R/C. I was told to leave the dead eggs alone or risk damaging the good eggs. That was an easy choice lol I was also told that the mold will not affect the good eggs as long as the good eggs are still good and that the only reason the mold was there in the first place is because the eggs it started on were dead anyway. My only concern right now is the putrid smell coming from the incubator lol There has not been any spread of the mold. The eggs are dry but the humidity is staying around 80-85%. I was told to leave the perlite dry and the moisture from the vermiculite underneath should be sufficient and I'm leaving the eggs on the dry perlite as instructed. I will keep you posted. Thank you all for your advice and concerns :0)

 

[Dom]

Go with what you're comfortable with. The mold won't affect the good eggs I just don't like them in the incubator and I've never had a problem removing them. I just GENTLY peel them off.
Don't rely on what your hygrometer says because obviously the humidity in there isn't high enough. Go by the look of the eggs, they'll tell you when and if the humidity is right.

 

[zephed]

Hey there everyone. Just wanted to update this thread and just say that so far my 15-17 good eggs are doing ok. The rotten smell in the incubator is starting to dissipate more and more now. I hope to show some pics of hatchlings around the end of June. I'll keep you posted. Cheers