Rolling eggs

[Darren86]

Hi everyone

Just a quick question, I understand most reptile eggs cannot be rolled as it kills the embryo. However, watching my female beardy lay eggs today, I noticed the eggs often roll into their final position and was wondering why this does not kill the embryo?

Any thoughts would be appreciated as i'm very curious now.

Thanks,
Darren

 

[Chrisreptile]

It takes (correct me if im wrong) up to 12 hours for the embryo's to attach.

 

[Darren86]

Wow, thanks, appreciate the quick reply

 

[Serpentes]

Or longer than 12 hours. Simple version is the reptile embryo attaches to the eggshell on the inside during early stages of development. There is a pocket of air it uses to breath inside the egg. If the egg gets turned upside-down, the embryo may no longer access it's little air pocket and drowns. Some species are more susceptible to this than others, and I have turned many reptile eggs into their later phases of development and had them hatch successfully.

Interestingly if bird eggs are not turned the embryo will adhere to the inside of the shell (sort of like how reptile eggs do as part as reptile egg development) but this is either fatal or results in malformation to the bird embryo.

 

[Darren86]

So should you identify where the embryo is in the egg when placing the eggs in vermiculite and turn it down? or does it sort all that out itself?

 

[Chrisreptile]

So should you identify where the embryo is in the egg when placing the eggs in vermiculite and turn it down? or does it sort all that out itself?

Just place the egg in the vermiculite the way it was layed. Alot of people will mark the egg with a pencil so they can place it in the vermiculite correctly.

 

[Darren86]

Thanks guys, appreciate the info.

 

[Serpentes]

Sorts itself out. If you want to be super careful you can mark the top side of the egg with pencil (not pen) so that you don't accidently turn them, but it isn't usually a problem so early on.

I've seen a few egg trays dropped from incubators with no adverse affects

 

[JasonL]

I know of a whole clutch of bearded dragon eggs that was dropped some two weeks into incubation and all were thrown back into the cooker without any thought for a 100% hatch rate, though I wouldn't expect you could be that care free with all species.. Reptile eggs in general though are a bit hardier than people give them credit for