Help with a friendly wager - enchis with a lesser twist

wow.. that was a scary story.. but I'm wondering how you would get maggots in your incubator if a fly didn't get in there O_o
My babies have it too easy.. half the time I cut them so they never even have to work to pip, then I occasionally break the membrane sack if the opening is awful big.. and if their yolk is gone.. I pull them out of the egg!
Actually.. I can't remember the last baby that hatched completely on its own lol I'm such an enabler

Originally Posted by Miss Tuniwha

No deflecting.. that is NOT the hatchling we want to look at. LOLOLOL

But....but....but.....but.....
Squish is sooooooooo CUTE!. Just look at her little face.
(I love baby bullsnakes)

I'm wondering how you would get maggots in your incubator if a fly didn't get in there

Depends on what you are using for an incubator...I use coolers, but there is access - I take the drain plug out of the side to run the cord and probe. Heck, something could fly in when the incubator is opened to add a clutch or to check on eggs.
I tend to use maggot as a somewhat generic term for the larval stage of whatever insects happened to have left them. Disgusting, squirmy little things, regardless - IMO.
As I stated yesterday - that maggot story was prompted by seeing a couple of gnats/midges/tinyflying things hopping around the empty eggs of the bullsnakes...of course, those were in a ventilated 12qt tub, sitting on my desk; but, really, how hard is it for something that size to get into someplace? I've incubated eggs in 9" deli containers before, the ones with the small pre-punched holes, and opened them to find those little fly things.
I haven't had the experience that I described (knock on wood), but I did once open a large egg box to find maggots - or whatever larval thing - on a molded egg. I cut away the shriveled, moldy egg, cleaned everything up as well as I could, and moved the whole clutch to a new box,...and the next day there were more - I even saw some moving on good eggs (nobody ever said they had to stay where they were put). Again, that was a ventilated tub; one that had been used to house snakes...and it was out in the garage (converted for reptiles); but it isn't much of a stretch to think that something could get into an incubator, and then an egg container.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

Willow, I'm going to help.

Imagine making that slit - carefully, oh so carefully - just a nice safe little window...maybe not even big enough to tell for certain what's inside, but you don't want to risk making it bigger. You looked, now you are going to torture yourself by waiting for the baby to emerge. Then, a day or two later when you open the incubator to gaze in at the precious, you see a movement that first draws you in for a closer look....then makes you gasp in revulsion.
MAGGOTS!! The fluid in the egg teeming with them.
Fighting the urge to slam the incubator closed and wash your eyes out with bleach, you steel yourself for battle. Wad up some paper towel, and do your best to scoop out them out of the egg; seeing more and more of the fluid spilling out each time. You have to make the cut bigger, because they've spread so far that you just can't get them otherwise. After what seems like an hour (but is actually only a few minutes), you call the job done. You did it!! You saved the egg, but the image of those maggots haunts you for the rest of the day, and fills your dreams that night. Finally, in the first light of morning, you find yourself standing at the incubator; taking that deep breath before you look again. You pop the lid on the egg box, and the substrate is just crawling with them...as is THE EGG. Imagine your stomach churning, as you see that little lesser enchi twitching against the movement of the maggots - trapped, and unable to crawl away because he isn't ready to hatch - and wonder WHY you had to know.

Thanks for the soon-to-be nightmares Harald! I'm about to go to bed, and with babies ready to hatch... It is inevitable I dream of babies hatching. Hope no maggots make their way into my dreams for the next few weeks!

The baby you have shown us a little of is absolutely gorgeous, whatever it is. I can't wait to see As well as your other 2 and Willow's egg! Hope you all get SOMETHING you want!

and I agree... Those baby bullsnakes ARE precious... share more if you please ♥

I have a clutch hatching now on the box it said clown ? x normal i put my pastel yellow belly in there 1-2 times. Well the whole cluthc has a whole bunch of pastels in it that could be ybs and some ybs and looks like a couple normals either way im stoked because i need more pastel ybs then i need het clowns. This can happen to anyone just becareful never put multiple resessives in with the same female.

OK, so I looked at them. They're still in the eggs.
A lesser enchi is now dead in the egg - figures it was the one I was set on keeping. From the color, it seemed to have been a little behind in development (though, it was fully formed). I initially thought it was dead in the egg, because it was upside down and didn't move at all...but, after a day or two, it finally started moving around; and did so every time I opened the incubator, so I was hopeful. Ultimately, I'm not particularly surprised...but I would rather it had never showed increased signs of life/activity. The other one seems fine, as does the (whatever it is).
There are a couple of small slits in the other enchi clutch, but no noses yet. Next peek - FRIDAY

Ouch, sorry to hear about the DIE one.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

OK, so I looked at them. They're still in the eggs.
A lesser enchi is now dead in the egg - figures it was the one I was set on keeping. From the color, it seemed to have been a little behind in development (though, it was fully formed). I initially thought it was dead in the egg, because it was upside down and didn't move at all...but, after a day or two, it finally started moving around; and did so every time I opened the incubator, so I was hopeful. Ultimately, I'm not particularly surprised...but I would rather it had never showed increased signs of life/activity. The other one seems fine, as does the (whatever it is).
There are a couple of small slits in the other enchi clutch, but no noses yet. Next peek - FRIDAY

That really sucks you lost a Lesser Enchi in the clutch, hopefully the other clutch gives you mostly female Enchis.

It does suck...but it made my decision about keeping the other one.

Not quite bedtime yet - I brought the Vision boa rack over from my old house this morning, and just finished reassembling it in my office. I didn't want it in here, honestly...but I wanted it upstairs even less. I was SOOOOO close to buying that ARS8018 I've been wanting; but the cheap bass-turd in me decided that if I can get away with using this for a while, then the $3000 is best left in my bank account.

Just have to run the heat cable (I really should make a few small modifications, before I go any further...but I'm probably just going to run it the way I did before and skip the cutting.

I wouldn't part with the only Lesser Enchi either. The ARS 8018 is a great rack to have even for 3k

No good on losing the baby Harald =( hope mine doesn't pull something like that on me

still nothing to see here...day 51

*twitch*