Moldy Eggs: NEED HELP ASAP!!! :(

[Chiichan]

So our veiled laid a clutch of 59 eggs on jan 3rd. The medium I used was 50/50 perlite and peat moss because that was what I had on hand. As I read up on incubation and techniques, I noticed most people use vermiculite.

I noticed quite a few of the eggs are starting to mold and its only been a little over a week! BUT I also noticed the eggs that had more yellow are the ones molding. SO... My questions are:

1) Can/should I remove the ones molding and consider them infertile and/or duds?

2) Should I change the medium to vermiculite?

3) Should/can I separate the whiter eggs from the yellowish eggs?

Obviously its not a good thing to handle them after setting them in the medium as to avoid turning them or potentially dropping them. I just don't want to lose them all!!! PLEASE HELP

 

[Katrinaa]

Can you add a picture this may help. I'd personally change to vermiculite. That's what I use while incubating. Sometimes an egg will mild a bit but then be saved. If it's heavily molded it's probably infertile. But if your switching to vermiculite it wouldn't hurt to divide them to keep the mold away from the good eggs!

 

[Chiichan]

Container 1

 

[Chiichan]

Container 2

 

[Chiichan]

Container 3

 

[Chiichan]

Can you add a picture this may help. I'd personally change to vermiculite. That's what I use while incubating. Sometimes an egg will mild a bit but then be saved. If it's heavily molded it's probably infertile. But if your switching to vermiculite it wouldn't hurt to divide them to keep the mold away from the good eggs!

I know that some condensation in the container will occur, but because of the molding I got worried and wiped off the excess water that was on the lids. :/

 

[Kath44]

I'm no expert, but it looks like the substrate is moldy, not necessarily the eggs?
Kath.

 

[Chiichan]

I'm no expert, but it looks like the substrate is moldy, not necessarily the eggs?
Kath.

If that's the case then how do i remove the mold and can i?? I went to buy vermiculite so I can change the medium. And ill separate the molded/yellowy eggs from the healthier looking ones.

 

[Adashek123]

i would switch to vermiculite but its not good to move the eggs much:/ they might still be fertile so don't throw out yet.

 

[Chiichan]

Okay, so I changed the medium to vermiculite and separated the "good eggs" from the moldy ones.

To be honest I used a q-tip to gently remove whatever mold I could from the eggs that had it before putting them in the new medium. I'm hoping that will kind of "reset" everything and if they really are duds and no good then they will continue to mold.

I also read that touching them with your hands is not good because of the oils from our body potentially clogging the pores in the eggs? So I used some padded plastic tweezers to handle them. (Don't worry, I made sure to control the grasping pressure to a minimum)

36 eggs had no mold and were larger and whiter than the 23 that had mold, were smaller, and yellowish.

The whole process took me about an hour to complete! I'm doing my best with Cami's first clutch and don't want to mess things up. :/

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice! I will check them in a week or two and do an update considering they started molding in a littler over a week from being laid.

If you have more input PLEASE don't hesitate! I'm learning so much from everyone as I am a pretty new cham owner. (2 veilds, 1male- 6months & 1female- about 1yr) Thanks again everyone!

 

[shaunaroxanne]

The smaller, yellow-ish ones were infertile, which is why they molded. Fertile eggs are resistant to mold, and they are rounder and whiter than the infertile eggs. You can touch the eggs, it won't hurt them as long as you are gentle. If you need to move them, you just want to keep them in the same position as they were, without rolling them around. I have incubated in vermiculite, pearlite, hatchrite, a mixture.... As long as they aren't too wet or too dry, they will hatch in any of those mediums.

 

[Chiichan]

The smaller, yellow-ish ones were infertile, which is why they molded. Fertile eggs are resistant to mold, and they are rounder and whiter than the infertile eggs. You can touch the eggs, it won't hurt them as long as you are gentle. If you need to move them, you just want to keep them in the same position as they were, without rolling them around. I have incubated in vermiculite, pearlite, hatchrite, a mixture.... As long as they aren't too wet or too dry, they will hatch in any of those mediums.

Cool thanks! So should I still keep the small yellow ones that are likely infertile?? Or just keep them until definitely gone bad since they're separated anyway.

Is it common for a ratio of that many eggs to be bad?? That's almost half! Did I do something wrong with her care while the eggs were forming for her to have that many infertile?

 

[shaunaroxanne]

Hold onto them until you know for sure. They will get worse-looking if they aren't fertile. That was a big clutch, and there are usually some that are infertile, If your female was old enough and healthy enough, there's nothing you could do to prevent it. But you can keep her clutches smaller by feeding less and keeping temps low.

 

[Chiichan]

Hold onto them until you know for sure. They will get worse-looking if they aren't fertile. That was a big clutch, and there are usually some that are infertile, If your female was old enough and healthy enough, there's nothing you could do to prevent it. But you can keep her clutches smaller by feeding less and keeping temps low.

Alrytie! Thank you! I'll make sure to prevent a large clutch next time around.