Why are the babies dying from this clutch?!?! PLEASE HELP

Hatchrite WILL dry out! This could be your problem. Almost no or zero ventilation is the only way to keep it from drying out. Do you have any ventilation where your eggs are kept?
 
I do have some small pinholes at the top of the incubation container (the rubbermaid bin) for ventilation. With the humidity at 80-85% would the eggs still dry out if something did go wrong with hatchrite? I purchased it because it came highly suggested, and vermiculate is not readily available in my area. I went to all the hardware stores and garden centers. If this is the case, is there anything I can do at this point to fix it?
 
MusicCityExotics said:
I posted a previous thread about my eggs starting to act weird. They are panther cham eggs. She laid them on the 11th of November. They are in a LLL incubator. I have humidity and temp gauges inside. They are in hatchrite. No issues with electrical outages, or anything abnormal during incubation.

Well, recently four eggs started to sweat and shrink then stopped. They started back up again then stopped. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now. Well, they were starting to get very yellow, and I was certain four of them were gone. So I cut them open. Inside each was a fully developed baby, that even absorbed the yolk (mostly). I am so confused as to what is going on with this clutch. She laid 32, and the others are still white, but do have a tiny snowflake (on the surface of the eggs) all over them. No mold at all.

Please advise!!!!!!! I don't want to have the entire clutch die on me.
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I have been reading up on breeding/incubation the last couple nights and I came across a section in one of my cham books that said

"At term, egg permeability increases, beads of moisture form on the egg surface, and the egg dimension decreases noticeably. The neonate slits the eggshell within a few days of these events and ususally remains within the eggshell for one or two days resorbing the yolk sac. If the neonate does not slit the eggshell it will die."

Are the eggs that are experiencing the beads of sweat doin this multiple times or is it different eggs each time?
For the yellowish tint. I have read that it has to do with the Females calcium intake when gravid.
 
Switching to another substrate this late in the game could and probably will kill the rest. It is impossible to get the water level right. When you mix the vermiculite with water it is going to be too wet and drown the neonate. I have done this and it was a disaster. It will happen and I strongly recommend against it.

Do you have any holes in the cups? I see a lot of failures with geckos, snakes and chameleons when they have holes in the cups. I use hatchright exclusively for all of my animals from snakes to chameleons. Only time I have had a problem is holes in the cups. A hole is simply not needed.

Not sure if that is what is going on here but I thought I would throw that out there. Ditch the water in the incubator and keep humidity in the cup up by preventing its escape.
 
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Todnedo said:
The marks could be minerals from the hatchrite, that could harden the egg shells............
Click to expand...

Minerals from perlite? It is baiscally volcanic glass are there any minerals in perlite? I guess it may be possible but I have not seen any build up and have used both perlite and hatchright (perlite with water crystals). I have burried eggs and left them sitting on top without issue.

Verry interesting point though I never thought of.

My first thought is not enough water in the mix as I have quite often with Chameleon eggs added water at the start and none there after. Wonder if maybe it could be a combo of both minerals and not enough water so they harden. Interesting.
 
Ryan Jarosek said:
Switching to another substrate this late in the game could and probably will kill the rest. It is impossible to get the water level tight. When you mix the vermiculite with water it is going to be too wet and drown the neonate. I have done this and it was a disaster. It will happen and I strongly recommend against it.

Do you have any holes in the cups? I see a lot of failures with geckos, snakes and chameleons when they have holes in the cups. I use hatchright exclusively for all of my animals from snakes to chameleons. Only time I have had a problem is holes in the cups. A hole is simply not needed.

Not sure if that is what is going on here but I thought I would throw that out there. Ditch the water in the incubator and keep humidity in the cup up by preventing its escape.
Click to expand...

Ryan,
Why is it that people put holes in thier egg containers. When a human is pergnant the babies don't breath in the womb. So do people think the eggs need air? or is it because they think the humdity will be overkill!?
 
KatiLemons said:
Ryan,
Why is it that people put holes in thier egg containers. When a human is pergnant the babies don't breath in the womb. So do people think the eggs need air? or is it because they think the humdity will be overkill!?
Click to expand...

Exactly, Human emotion and lack of understanding that there is enough oxygen in the container to sustain the eggs. People are worried that the reptile or the egg can not breath. I routenly burp my containers to swap fresh air out. All the holes do is let out humidity.

Same reason people poke holes in a shipping box that is not a sealed container. Crazy humans. :D
 
pantherlover said:
Could be a weak clutch...
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I have experianced some weak clutches when it's the females first clutch and is larger than the norm. ie 32 eggs. May all be part of it. I would sit and wait. Make no changes they somehow made it this far.

The eggs are at a point where adding water could kill the rest. If any water was added, I would make it drops and only a few. Add water with extreme caution. I have killed more panthers with an eye dropper filled with water because i was impatient or desperate; sometimes a combination of the two.
 
When a human is pergnant the babies don't breath in the womb.
Click to expand...

I use sealed containers, but this statement cracked me up. human babies share blood with the mother. The mother breathes and oxygen is shared through the placenta with the baby.

LOL

The problem here could be one of a few things-

Incubation medium, nutrition of the mother prior to laying, handling the containers too much, incubation temperature, and so forth.
 
Thank you all for the advice. To answer a few questions, they all started out nice and white (the yellow ones just went yellow recently). The ones that have gotten that way are ones that have started and stopped sweating more than once. Prior to breeding this girl, I was giving calcium supplementation on a regular basis, and even administered liquid calcium when gravid.

I will refrain from putting holes in any future containers. Many are still big and white and haven't sweated yet, which is the strange part. It is like everyone that does start to sweat and shrink just does.
 
fluxlizard said:
I use sealed containers, but this statement cracked me up. human babies share blood with the mother. The mother breathes and oxygen is shared through the placenta with the baby.

LOL

The problem here could be one of a few things-

Incubation medium, nutrition of the mother prior to laying, handling the containers too much, incubation temperature, and so forth.
Click to expand...

LOL. I am quite aware that the oxygen travels in the mothers blood through the cord of the placenta which is attached to the uterine wall. I deliver babies for a living! But it is a VERY common misconcerption that babies "breath", which led me to believe that it is a common misconception that eggs need air!! Thats why I put it in such simple terms! :D
 
MusicCityExotics said:
Thank you all for the advice. To answer a few questions, they all started out nice and white (the yellow ones just went yellow recently). The ones that have gotten that way are ones that have started and stopped sweating more than once. Prior to breeding this girl, I was giving calcium supplementation on a regular basis, and even administered liquid calcium when gravid.

I will refrain from putting holes in any future containers. Many are still big and white and haven't sweated yet, which is the strange part. It is like everyone that does start to sweat and shrink just does.
Click to expand...

I would just let them be. If the neonate's are dying then the eggs would have molded. Your doin somethin right if they have gotten this far!! Good Luck.:D
 
Eggs do need air and they do respirate. Whether you need holes or not is a matter of two things: If you container is completely airtight you need holes (your typical tupperware is not airtight, my containers are). If your container is over 80% full with media you should have holes, particularly if you do not burp the containers regularly.

This may not have anything to do with the neonates' problems here. Again I say cut the next sweater an escape hole: https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/seeco/386-how-cut-open-egg.html
 
Whether you need holes or not is a matter of two things: If you container is completely airtight you need holes
Click to expand...

This is simply not correct. My tupperwares are as airtight a brand as I can get them and they loose no weight during incubation. I do not "burb them regularly - I only open if there is a problem with an egg or if eggs are hatching. A professional I knew at one time who has studied lizard incubation and published her research for many decades now used airtight sealed containers for many experiments to determine success under varying conditions such as differing CO2 levels and moisture content. Sealed containers were mandatory for these sorts of experiments. If gas exchange occurred it would have skewed the results...

edit- that's not to say they don't need air. Of course they do. But in most containers the air is enough to last until post hatching.

Prior to breeding this girl, I was giving calcium supplementation on a regular basis, and even administered liquid calcium when gravid.
Click to expand...

There is more to consider when considering the nutrition of the mother than calcium. Vit a is critical for example (I lost a *lot* (over 1000) of panther chameleon eggs in the late 90s after switching from reptivite to herptivite- I blamed it at the time on lack of vit a in the herptivite, but after frequenting these forums the past couple years, I see many successful with herptivite alone, so this is not always the case I realize).
 
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MusicCityExotics said:
I do have some small pinholes at the top of the incubation container (the rubbermaid bin) for ventilation. With the humidity at 80-85% would the eggs still dry out if something did go wrong with hatchrite? I purchased it because it came highly suggested, and vermiculate is not readily available in my area. I went to all the hardware stores and garden centers. If this is the case, is there anything I can do at this point to fix it?
Click to expand...

You can get vermiculate from home depot. Here is the link

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=202187625&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_sku=202187625&ci_kw={keyword}&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googleads-_-pla-_-202187625&ci_gpa=pla&locStoreNum=650
 
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