This is indeed an interesting thread.... For what its worth, those taking note of this cutting episode for their own reference and future application, tread carefully.... there is a big difference between knowledge, and the application of said knowledge, furthermore in scenarios such as this thread, its another leap to know when to take action....
It must be said that CP.com did a good job of the cutting, though fell well short of judging the date of application, for no matter how its sliced and diced, since the cut date, the first set of picturess, the eggs have dessicated quite dramatically compared to the downward spiral a normal un-cut eggs would have taken over the same period prior to hatch date.
An argument bought to the fore often, though swept aside every time, is what should be the duty of every breeder in the hobby, removing inferior specimens from the gene pool. A moot point to argue, hell even in defence of cutting eggs, Derek Roddy wrote that to hatch a BHP in the US, you have to cut them. To me the statement itself infers that their lines are somehow unable to hatch themselves, a step in the fundamental design of an egg, that quite possibly by the pipping of the eggs, from what is a small gene pool to start with, that they have perpetuated animals of weak genetic integrity, by circumventing one of the first physical tests of natural selection. Anyone willing to debate that all snakes are not created equal, is a fool, and that first mechanical barrier, escaping the egg, is the first in a miriad of trials, that in the wild selects for the strongest individuals, to become an adult and in turn pass on their superior genetics. Breeding in captivity, we have marked success raising hatchies to adult, generation by generation our success is leading to the downfall of the genetic integrity of our charges, the least we could do is let hatching take its course to seperate some of the wheat from the chaff.
