Premature Hatchling

[PythonWallace]

My first corn clutch hatched today proving my fluorescent female het for Anery. My problem is that for the last two weeks one of the eggs looked like it went bad, so I wasn't expecting that one to hatch. I saw that all the eggs had hatched except for one, so I just thought it was the deflated, discolored egg that had gone bad. So I put the empty clump of eggs to the side with some of the moss I used to incubate, and put the babies into seperate containers. When I went to throw the empty eggs away, I felt that there was still a live egg, and saw that the "bad egg" had hatched. Since the good egg had been turned I was worried that It would drown if I didn't let it out right away (if it wasn't already too late). So I sliced it open, and the snake was alive, but only about 1/2 the size of the others. It is separated from the shell, but still attached to the yolk sac. I put it on a damp paper towel, on top of the yolk in the incubator, but is there anything else I can do? Is this just a runt that wouldn't have made it? Any help or information is greatly appreciated. Sorry about the long post, and thanks for reading.
Jake Wallace

[cka]

Hey Jake...sounds like you did everything you could...just keep it and its enclosure as clean as possible while it absorbs the last of its yolk :*)

[Willis Wildlife Enterprises]

Keep the little hatchling moist and clean and just give it time. Too bad it had already come out of the shell because it may have had a better chance of surviving that way. But when there is life, there is always hope. I had a little amel zigzag in '02 that also took about 10 days more to hatch then her clutchmates. I slit the egg before throwing it out, just to make sure, and yup! still a live hatchling. She took 4 days total to finally come out of her shell after I slit it and was also about 1/2 the size of her clutchmates. However, she always ate the tiniest pinkies I could find and is still doing well! She is still very small for her age, but is growing nicely. This pic was taken in June of '03 when she was a year old. The marker pen is about 6 inches long so you can see just how small she is...I had '03 hatchlings her size at the time! I'm about due to take a recent pic of her.
Anyway, I hope your little one does as well!

[PythonWallace]

Thanks for the replies. I would have just put the egg back in the incubator and waited it out, but like I said it had been turned for a couple of minutes and I thought the only chance it might have had was to be assisted out before it drowned. If only I didn't get so excited when I saw those first hatchlings, I might have been more cautious. I'll keep you updated.
Jake