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My amazing dinkers! Caution: Dead snake photos. NEW ADDITIONS TO THE PROJECT!

Wow, ok I want to be on the list now lol. Thats awesome when a dinker actually looks to be something! Congratulations!! But sorry about the baby, but heres to the rest of the babies and hoping for healthy little squirmers! :beer:
 
HOLY COW BATMAN!!! They're gorgeous!!!! And that poor baby had a GREAT pattern, too!
I'm hoping for your remainders to be healthy. What a cool set of babies, if they all have that type of pattern.
 
More bad news, another egg fully pipped and died. This one was also a full stripe. Now I'm wondering if there's something wrong with my incubator, or if there's some sort of fatal interaction between the stripe gene and the pied gene, or if I just have absolutely rotten luck. Another egg pipped last night too and I suspect that one is dead as well, but I'm afraid to touch it. The other two eggs haven't pipped yet.

This has been so incredibly disappointing.

http://www.geckolair.com/snakes/deadstripeballB1.jpg
 
You should try cutting the other eggs. I don't know how they are incubated but is there a chance they are too wet or not getting enough air?
 
I'm afraid to cut the other eggs in case they actually ARE good. Judging from the amount of yolk left over from the two dead babies I'm guessing they pipped prematurely. Today is day 57. It's a sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't. I don't think it's a problem of air, I'm using the Squamata Concepts no-contact-with-substrate incubation chamber. This baby may have strangled itself, because I noticed the eggshell was rather tight around its neck this morning and I cut the shell to loosen it, and I think the baby was dead already. The other egg, I don't know. The baby is coiled in such a way that I can't see the head, but I can see a substantial amount of yolk left. The other two eggs haven't pipped.
 
I'm really sorry to hear that, that has to be the problem, especially with the death ratio. I know this is a horrible situation but think of it this way: by the looks of it, you may have stumbled across a new gene that you proved Dom/codom! But either way, really sorry about the babies.
 
I would definitely cut the others open and give them room to get out, then, if the one really got stuck. Good luck.

Pics of the others?
 
Unbelievable wow cant stand what im reading, so sorry to see these nice babies die. You still have one left correct? if so i hope that it makes it and be your stepping stone to greatness.
 
Dead male stripe:
http://www.geckolair.com/snakes/deadstripeball.jpg
http://www.geckolair.com/snakes/deadstripeball2.jpg
http://www.geckolair.com/snakes/deadstripeball3.jpg

Dead female stripe:
http://www.geckolair.com/snakes/deadstripeballB1.jpg

Dead female possible stripe:
http://www.geckolair.com/snakes/deadstripeballB2.jpg

I don't think the snake died by strangulation, at least not anymore. Not after that newest snake had obvious kinks. I think the incubator fudged up the temperatures and something (probably their lung) didn't develop properly. Really the only good thing that has come out of this whole mess is that it does seem that I have a new trait here. The adult female didn't lose as much weight laying eggs this time, so if she decides to improve her appetite she might gain it all back by next year. It will kill me if she makes me wait another two years for another clutch. I may breed her to a different male too, just to get rid of all the variables. I've got a nice calico to breed her to.
 
Nooooo!
I want your babies to live!
Give them some more O2!
Drain 'em just a bit so they dont drown!

They need more O2 at hatching, may be they are suffocating?

Got my fingers crossed that the remainder make it!
 
Its really hard to tell what could have came out of them as undeveloped snakes always look really crazy. I wish we could have seen them with some age on them. Good luck with this project in the future I know this is a hard loss but don't take it too personal because you still have momma :thumbsup:
 
I'm sorry you lost some babies. I'll say cut the rest.
What temp are you incubating at? I personally do 88.5 and have four small holes (one on each side of the egg box) for ventilation. I'm a strong believer that eggs should not be restricted to air.
 
I don't think the snake died by strangulation, at least not anymore. Not after that newest snake had obvious kinks. I think the incubator fudged up the temperatures and something (probably their lung) didn't develop properly. Really the only good thing that has come out of this whole mess is that it does seem that I have a new trait here. The adult female didn't lose as much weight laying eggs this time, so if she decides to improve her appetite she might gain it all back by next year. It will kill me if she makes me wait another two years for another clutch. I may breed her to a different male too, just to get rid of all the variables. I've got a nice calico to breed her to.
Click to expand...

I would do the same pairing again. Dont give up on them yet. Looks like there might be something promising there, but as Dustin pointed out sometimes they look that way when not fully developed.
 
Dustin, these snakes weren't too terribly undeveloped. They were at day 53 and just a few days from due. When I said underdeveloped I meant that the egg yolk was still at a size that indicated the snakes pipped prematurely. I am pretty confident the the pattern of those snakes was locked in at that point, the snakes were fully developed.

One of the last eggs just pipped. The snake looks pretty good so far (and is another stripe!) and is showing a lot more energy that his three siblings did before they perished. I'm hoping this one makes it. I guess I'll find out in the morning, he/she is still absorbing the yolk sack now. *fingers crossed* Considering that every hatchling so far has displayed at least a partial stripe with minimal alien heads and railroad tracks along the belly, I do honestly think something neat is going on here genetically. Hopefully these two eggs will survive so I can experiment more. If not, I'll breed the female again next year if she puts on enough weight to do so. She tends to be a sporadic feeder and I had to wait two years for her to get to a good breeding weight this go-around.
 
Were you using a homemade bator or something else? I had a huge bator issue last season where the bator I was using for one clutch mustve been at too low of a temp cause I cut at day 60 something and the babies didnt even have their color yet! Luckily, I was able to keep most alive until they were ready to pip about a month later. I have a friend that had a issue similar to yours about a week ago. Two good eggs from her pairing and the eggs dented in how they do right before pipping and they pipped but they had a ton of yolk and were extremely underdeveloped, even lacking color. They did not make it. They were using a homemade bator which was made with a hovabator element. Poor things. :( I am very sorry about your loss and I hope you can do the same pairing again next season!
 
No, I'm using one of those minifridge incubators. I've found it to be completely worthless for incubating multiple clutches because the temperature differential is terrible between the top of the incubator and the bottom, but I've been having good luck with it with leopard gecko eggs, so I thought for one clutch of ball pythons it would be okay. I will be making a homemade incubator this year. The nice thing about ordering frozen rodents from Mice Direct is that they give you this really spiffy insulated box. I'll cut out some styrofoam from the lid, put in a plexiglass window, and then buy some 12" flexwatt, a thermometer, and a thermostat and work from there.

It looks like the two remaining eggs are going to make it. The one baby is almost fully out, and he/she is HOT looking. The other baby is hiding inside its egg but was doing good last night, so I'm hoping it will emerge when ready. I'll take photographs once they're both fully out, it should be sometime today, I hope.

I know I keep waffling on explanations for the ball python deaths so far, but now I realized I truly can't discount the possibility that the pied gene may be a fatal combination with this stripe. I bred my het male pied to this female, and probability says that 50% of the babies should have been het for pied. Guess what? 50% of the babies died prematurely. I won't be breeding my female to the pied again next year, I want to be absolutely sure that did not cause the deaths until I at least get a few more of these animals produced.
 
Wow sucks to hear the news Vanessa, and such promise! Good to hear the remaining eggs are doing ok!

You definetly are on to what looks like a new morph!
 
I used a mini fridge bator last season for that clutch I told you about that I cut. Those things are crap. I was told they work well for corn eggs..?
 
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