Pipping eggs

[garthy]

Does anyone do this? if so, right on the average incubation time?

 

[Cold-B-Hearts]

from what iv gathered you wait for the first egg to naturally pip then pip the rest, iv never bred snakes though.

 

[snakes123]

Firstly people will need to know what eggs they are from and what the temps are at.

 

[hugsta]

Most reptiles generally having no problem pipping an egg, you do have the odd one here and there that doesn't have an egg tooth so therefore pipping the eggs will assist these animals in emerging. Whether we are doing the right thing or not is a debate for another time with the whole 'breeding a weaker animal' arguement. So the main thing that can vary the actual 'hatch date' according to any reference material you may use, is the actual stability of the temps in your incubator. A degree here or there will either shorten or lengthen the overall incubation time. So you don't want to pip the eggs to soon or too late for obvious reasons, so the safe bet, as mentioned before, is to wait till the first one pips. Personally, I wait till I see the first egg pipped, wait over night or till the end of the day and then I pip the rest, peel the flap off egg back and gently prod the hatchies to make sure they are ok and then fold the egg back and leave them to emerge on there own. This has worked fine for many years and I will continue to do it this way.

Hope that helps a little.

Cheers
Daz

 

[garthy]

Most reptiles generally having no problem pipping an egg, you do have the odd one here and there that doesn't have an egg tooth so therefore pipping the eggs will assist these animals in emerging. Whether we are doing the right thing or not is a debate for another time with the whole 'breeding a weaker animal' arguement. So the main thing that can vary the actual 'hatch date' according to any reference material you may use, is the actual stability of the temps in your incubator. A degree here or there will either shorten or lengthen the overall incubation time. So you don't want to pip the eggs to soon or too late for obvious reasons, so the safe bet, as mentioned before, is to wait till the first one pips. Personally, I wait till I see the first egg pipped, wait over night or till the end of the day and then I pip the rest, peel the flap off egg back and gently prod the hatchies to make sure they are ok and then fold the egg back and leave them to emerge on there own. This has worked fine for many years and I will continue to do it this way.

Hope that helps a little.

Cheers
Daz

Thanks Daz, that was exactly the type of response I was after. Hopefully only as a fallback.