fuzzy eggs

hello everyone.i was just wondering .a baby hatches then crawls across the perilite tub causing mold where she must have dragged some fluids from the egg.whut would you guys do with the mold on the eggs?i picked up the eggs and cleaned off whut i could.any suggestions would be helpful.
thx corey

Desenex foot powder, if its mold, but I don't think a hatchling walkin around on other eggs would cause that, could be wrong but sounds odd.

Usually mold, means either:

1. they are too humid and need more air flow (and 1 hatched so thats probably not it, but could be?)

or

2. the egg is infertile, infertile eggs mold up, Ive even had some I really knew were infertile that I incubated anyway just in case there was a 1% chance and they mold up anywhere from a few days to several weeks later

What are your incubator temps, humidity, I see you are using perlite, how did you mix it with water, are there any airholes in the containers, did you candle the eggs and are sure the moldy (one/ones) are indeed fertile?

here is my first hatchling that crawled over said eggs in the above post

AWESOME patty baby, really cute!!!!!!!

Wow, what a beautiful little dude!

yes i have airholes maybe not enough.hmmm.i am incubating for females at about 79 to 81 f. i used the rule of thumb to squish the excess water out of the perilite by hand .and no mold was present till after the hatchling.hmm please help whut can i do with the eggs that had mold on them are they still good should i seperate the eggs with out mold, guess so dumb question.
thx for your help corey

Originally Posted by damdawg

yes i have airholes maybe not enough.hmmm.i am incubating for females at about 79 to 81 f. i used the rule of thumb to squish the excess water out of the perilite by hand .and no mold was present till after the hatchling.hmm please help whut can i do with the eggs that had mold on them are they still good should i seperate the eggs with out mold, guess so dumb question.
thx for your help corey

Temps are good, and you only need a few pin holes, I use 2 on each of 2 corners and open the container weekly for fresh air.

But with perlite go by weight not texture:
Take your container and put it on the scale, then tare out the scale back to 0, then add perlite to get that weight, say 50 grams of perlite, then mix .8 water to 1 perlite, so with 50 grams perlite you need 40 grams of water, then mist the container with a spray bottle until you reach the weight ratio you need, a total of 90 grams total perlite of 50 + water of 40.

Some infertile eggs take a while to mold and it could be where the baby walked on them, just never heard of that.

Id seperate the moldy ones to a new container for sure, and candle those to see if they are indeed fertile.

If they are fertile, desenex foot powder till kill off the mold for you.

I have never seen mold grow on eggs because of a hatchling walking on them after it hatched..... Hatchling have walked up and down and even uprooted eggs in the containers and there has never been a mold problem.....

It is either too humid, your eggs died, or they are infertile....

I use a 1.1 water to perlite ratio.... Never had a problem..... Infact, I have had a 100% hatch rate last season and so far this season..... I think that might have more to do with my home made incubators though.....

Anyway, I have yet to have a mold problem but I have heard of people cleaning the eggs off with a damp paper towel.....

Hope this helps and good luck....

Usually a hatchling crawling over eggs won't cause mold unless the hatchling has an attached yoolk sack that breaks smearing yolk on the other eggs. If this is te case, take something firm like a note card and gently scrape the goo off the eggs. It's usually possible to do this without moving the egg. If the goo has already started molding, you can still scrape it off. If the whole egg is molding it is probably because the egg was not fertile or the embryo died and not from the hatchling crawling on them.
-Alice