Kinks, Deformities, and Conjoined Twins

There's a lot of food for thought in both of your posts... in particular about age of females, age of male, and pesticides. I do know that I had a no-pest strip in the mouse-house... decided against it after a while, but for a few months (breeding season) the snakes were eating mice that were living with a no-pest strip. Hubby also has occassionally sprayed out side the mouse house with some roach and ant spray... perhaps this is related. The only one of my snakes not to recover from egg-laying was an older snake, the ones who were younger have recuperated very well from egg laying. The older proven breeder is the one who did not survive the experience.

I just got done trying to feed the first two who shed, from the first clutch, the "normal" looking amel ate right away. The other is thinking about it.

Next year I will change a lot, and see what happens. No petsicides around hte mouse house (hubby has already been TOLD) and no tap water. Different males next year, older females, hopefuly new substrate, hopefully no heat spikes.

Sasheena,

I would be a bit surprised if a 12 hour temp s[pike to 88 degrees caused these problems. I have had temp spikes to 90 with corn snake eggs that did not mess them up like that - but I guess it could depend on the stage of development at the time.

The pesticide thing causes me great concern. No pest strips are nasty if not used correctly. When applied, there should be no food or water available to the animals which are being treated. By exposing your feeder mice to no pest strips continuously for months, and then feeding your exposed mice to the snakes you exposed the snakes to any residual chemicals from the strips. The stuff is a known carcinogen, and could potentially have other nasty effects and cause big problems for animals that have ingested it. It may have been responsible for the deformities and dead eggs.
Good luck with the rest,
GlennB

I think it was the pesticides too because it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

I've used a styrofoam ice chest as incubator, as well as my Little Giant. In the ice chest version, I had some temperature fluctuation but still had 100 percent hatch rate.

I set up the eggs in moist vermiculite and for the most part, just leave them alone. I don't use any pesticides around my house. (The only exception has been Provent a Mite...because it's either that or have dead snakes.)

So, in comparison to your situation, Sasheena...I doubt there is much difference, except for the pesticide use.

1. Sometimes commercially harvested and/or packaged moss has a "petroleum" smell to it. I don't know why a moss farmer would be concerned about insecticides, but if they did, they would surely consider that a bonus to their target customer, plant lovers. Always smell before using. If it doesn't have an "Earthy" smell, don't use it.

2. Before I bought vermiculite and perlite in the "giant economy" sized bags, I'd buy it at the garden departments of the big discount stores or at the Home Depot type stores. Having the habit of smelling these things before using them, I noticed a few bags that reaked of petroleum odor. I found out they "mine"/harvest this mineral with hydraulic equipment. Anyone that's been around such machines know the pressure hoses usually have leaks here and there. Again, this smell would not be considered a problem since it's primary customer mixes it with potting soil for moisture retention. Since eggs respire through pores, they are absorbing anything they come into contact with. Even trace amounts of toxins could be enough to cause death or deformity to developing embryos.

3. Water! I preach water quality to my customers. Except for temperature, it is likely one of the most common causes of problems in captive snakes. Most municipal water supplies are strictly regulated for bacteria, but not for other things. I've been in some cities at a hotel where just taking a shower reminded me of my childhood summers at the swimming pool. Adult corns drinking this are not as negatively affected as neonates or embryos. I'm certain that high chlorine or floride contents in this water is enough to deform or kill embryos or neonates. Hence, I'm glad you're using bottled water now.

As Rich implied, your problem is rare in that it affected so many clutches. Genetic? Maybe, but my vote is environmental. For every 1,000 corns hatched here, I see approximately three deformed nenoates or embryos that are not attributed to environmental stimuli. In any of the other (few) cases of deformities, I can attribute the problem to environment. Usually these animals hatched from eggs that were dehydrated at early stages of development. I've seen malformed/deformed corns come from eggs attacked by fungi. Those micropores in the shells have to remain open. Things like water directly on the egg shell can kill or deform them. Fungus or molds growing on the shells can also clog these vital pores that take in oxygen and expel CO2.

Q: Were any of these eggs dehydrated at ANY time during incubation or when you first found them?

Q: Was there anything growing on the eggs or were there dark spots on them?

I think Rich and Kathy will agree that the only deformities we see are random and rare. The only time I remember having deformed babies that I could not attribute to environment and/or a lethal trait was when I bred some lavenders I got from an irresponsible corn breeder that used to have a business in Las Vegas. In one year, out of over 2,500 corns hatched, there were about 12 snakes deformed. ALL were from two clutches produced by these Las Vegas animals. Just so nobody thinks I'm blaming anyone that currently breeds corns in LV, I'm not. I'm hearing rumors that he's back in the snake breeding business and I pray he leaves our corns alone this time around.

Q: Were any of these eggs dehydrated at ANY time during incubation or when you first found them?

All three clutches had plenty of moisture. One seemed to have super dry substrate, but those are the eggs that had several ruptured eggs during incubation, and NONE of them deflated except for right before hatching. TWO of the eggs from the first clutch were around 40% deflated, covered in mold, but moisture didn't change things.

Q: Was there anything growing on the eggs or were there dark spots on them?

I need to develop the rest of my photos. The first clutch looked HORRIBLE. I had times when I was certain that they weren't going to hatch at ALL! Over-hydrated with windows, I did my best to cut back on moisture, putting them on almost dry vermiculite several times, adding dry vermiculite a couple of times even, to pull out excess moisture. They were all spotty, and two were more than 1/2 covered in a black mold and dehydrated. This was the "oldest" clutch of eggs, laid first. Also this clutch, and the other two, were all laid while I watched so they spent ZERO time dehydrated before being placed in the vermiculite.

The second clutch was 6 eggs, one started molding about 15 days in, and the remaining 5 eggs looked absolutely PERFECT for the entire incubation, growing quite a bit too. At least one of the two babies I thought to be perfect, that I have looked at more closely now, also has a few minor kinks. Slithers like a sidewinder. I haven't closely checked the other one yet. (That one doesn't WANT to be closely inspected, he's a little FURY). The two that slit on visual inspection seemed fine, the three that didn't slit, though the eggs wriggled quite a lot, had dead-in-egg babies. No mold on this clutch.

The third clutch was 21 eggs to begin with, 1 ruptured early, 1 ruptured later (deformed... I had hoped it was just a sign of not being ready to hatch), another was ruptured but I put a bandaide on it, and it hatched before dying just out of the egg. Of the remaining eggs most looked pretty good.... not absolutely perfect, a few were slightly questionable.... tiny little eggs that didn't seem to grow... one long thin egg I thought was infertile, some thick shells, but the majority of the eggs looked pretty good. This clutch did get "scrambled" in that the egg box was knocked pretty hard.... put the eggs back in original position as best I can, but that was at 45 to 50 days of incubation. No mold on this clutch.

It was a lot of bad luck this year. I've already decided to keep all the corns that survived (8 babies). I might give a few away in a year or so as pets once they've proven they can eat.

Hubby has already been heard to wonder "Have people told you that corns are a lot more difficult to breed than kingsnakes?"

When I find pics of the eggs just before they hatched I'll post them.

Wow. Very interesting thread.
That is a very odd occurance.
A lot of possible theories floating around in here, and I would say that a lot could be plausible.

Well I thought I would update some of the details of my summer breeding.

Of the 8 babies I kept, I only have 3 left. There were four that actually ate, but one didn't eat beyond her first meal. Eventually the non-feeders were offered up to some of my non-feeding king snake hatchlings, and that solved both problems at once.

The three that I still have (voracious eaters) have a few very mild kinks.

1.0 "lookeetee" .... mothered by my reverse okeetee and my striped male. He must have some strong okeetee background (which would account for his bold coloration).

0.1 reverse okeetee, sibling to the first.

0.1 normal stripe het anery (poss. het amel)

The one second clutch that was laid ended up having 1 egg die early (the baby inside was only two or three inches long), 1 died full term with a deformed head, and 1 was alive but horribly deformed and euthanized. These three eggs had no heat spikes, were in half as moist vermiculite, exposed to no pesticides, (though I can't speak to the level of residual pesticides from the spring) so I don't think the problem is heat related. Definately environmental though.

Next year my plans are as follows:

Zeus - never bred- is a male hurricane snow motley. I'm going to cross him to the female who had two clutches but no viable offspring. She's Normal het amel, motley, and anery, so it should be a nice clutch, if the babies turn out okay.

Hermes - Father of all the bad clutches will be bred to Athena, who had the small clutch of 5 eggs. These babies should be all normal stripes het for anery, or anery stripe.

Cornelius - Proven breeder - He and his mate Cleo are recent acquisitions and also proven breeders, so if I get bad eggs from breeding them, I'll KNOW it's environmental. He's a normal-sicle het amel, she's a creamsicle.

I have one other female I might breed to one of these males, but I'm not sure exactly which male I would breed her to. She's unproven and a sibling to zeus.

Sounds like you're ready for the next season,
I hope you get some better clutches next season!