Frillies dead at full term, any ideas???

[GreggMadden]

The thing that is not sitting well with me, and I have no idea how I missed it, is the fact that the dead in egg neonates had no egg teeth...
I would assume that the issue was with either the genetics of the parents or malnutrition... That defect is not cause by incubation... Well not the humidity factor anyway... Also the fact that they were fully formed suggests that the incubation was proper... They were obviously not deprived of fluid if they went that long...

Again Andy, I am very sorry you lost your clutch... It is a crappy thing to go through that all of us breeders go through... However, I do not think your incubation or the SIM container is the factor for your eggs not hatching... If you look at the facts you have infront of you, it is clearly pointing to the situation I pointed out above... While it may be fustrating, pointing the finger at the product is counter productive... You should look into why egg teeth fail to develop and go from there to fix the issue...

 

[miss2]

everything else aside i just wanted to say andy, so sorry for your loss, it must have been devostating. and nicole, serious amazing pictures, well done on the snaps.
that is all

 

[JasonL]

The thing that is not sitting well with me, and I have no idea how I missed it, is the fact that the dead in egg neonates had no egg teeth...
I would assume that the issue was with either the genetics of the parents or malnutrition... That defect is not cause by incubation... Well not the humidity factor anyway... Also the fact that they were fully formed suggests that the incubation was proper... They were obviously not deprived of fluid if they went that long...

Again Andy, I am very sorry you lost your clutch... It is a crappy thing to go through that all of us breeders go through... However, I do not think your incubation or the SIM container is the factor for your eggs not hatching... If you look at the facts you have infront of you, it is clearly pointing to the situation I pointed out above... While it may be fustrating, pointing the finger at the product is counter productive... You should look into why egg teeth fail to develop and go from there to fix the issue...

Teeth / bone development is part of the calcium issues I pointed to, in mild cases the lizard dies and from all accounts looks perfect, though will usually have no or a soft egg tooth, medium cases the lizard will be very soft, soft skull, rubbery jaw, and in extreme cases the lizard will fail to form past an embryo..
Snakes have the same heating issues, though they usually suffer from poorly developed and kinked spines, deformed heads ect..
Most keepers think "incubation problem" when their eggs don't hatch, yet fail to think further back to the animal(s) that created the eggs in the first place.... a vital mistake as a keeper imo.

 

[CarpetPythons.com.au]

Itbites: you mentioned that manufacturers are expected to test their product extensively? How do you propose they do it in this hobby? People use old fridges to turn into incubators! Even we use commercial fridges to incubate our eggs in. A photo of your incubation setups along with incubator might shed some light on the situation?

 

[Mrs I]

JasonL makes some very good points !!

 

[richardsc]

i think this shows the importance of no matter what method u use to incubate, things can go wrong

weather you use fancy top of the line incubators and methods or even incubate in little cricket tubs with vermiculite in a snake cage,its always good to keep an eye on eggs,to correct the conditions they are in if need be

eggs are pretty hardy if in good health and kept with in certain conditions,some clutches may not be though for any number of reason.

i dont think its entirely fair to take this out on the tubs,its to easy to put the blame elsewhere

 

[Colin]

This happens all the time with Friled Dragon eggs, and personally I don't think it has anything to do with incubation, but more so how healthy (ie the calcium level) level of the female who laid them and what temps she was kept at during and before she was gravid. Just because she looks healthy and eats OK doese not necessarily mean her calcium levels are great, and she will pass them onto the eggs, the same thing happens with Oedura geckos, esp when over or under heated.

do you think they would benefit from a supplementary small amount of liquid calcium sandoz before the breeding season Jason? I used to use this many years ago with pythons and know some well known breeders use it for their female breeding pythons both before the breeding season and after (to replenish lost calcium during egg laying)

and what temps would you recommend for the frillies?

Yes she triple clutched this year, 2nd clutch only has 6 fertile eggs though. The 3rd was all unfertile. so fingers crossed on the 6 from the 2nd (due in 3 to 5 days).

sorry for your loss andy and kristy. when I read Jason's post I went back to your earlier post and just thought maybe triple clutching and the calcium levels that Jason is talking about may have more to do with the situation than first thought? I have no experience with frillies so really dont have anything to offer personally but am just trying to piece information together to maybe help and find a solution. take care guys.

 

[Bryce]

Your case is a hard one, there are alot of diffrenet factors that could have caused the deaths (Incubator,tubs, parents, temps, humidity) JasonL does make some very good points about the health of the parents.

But as for the supplier, i think that any supplier should have a clear set of instructions or guidlines on how to use there product and how not to use the product, if you know that your product needs some tweaking or adjusting of the lid it should be written down on paper and supplied to the end user.

Do you say to use water as the prefeered incubation choice or vermiculite or do you leave it up to the individual? I have noticed all your tubs have vermiculite! I'm in no way having a go at you.

You must supply this info that way when circumstances like this happen you are covered as all proper instructions where given then you cant be held liable in this unfortunate event.

Sorry for th e loss.

 

[richardsc]

yes excellent point to jasonL

 

[JasonL]

do you think they would benefit from a supplementary small amount of liquid calcium sandoz before the breeding season Jason? I used to use this many years ago with pythons and know some well known breeders use it for their female breeding pythons both before the breeding season and after (to replenish lost calcium during egg laying)

and what temps would you recommend for the frillies?

Yes, possibly... it depends on the paricular animal and how it is being fed and heated really. I certainly think a good dose of calcium before egg development can't hurt anyway.
The issues here are quite complex though, and just because you dust their food once a week or give them a dose of liquid calcium before the breeding season does not mean at all that calcium problems won't occur..
Also, it is quite amazing how different species use their bodies to make eggs, even similar species have a vastly different hatch rate.. for example, Oedura tryoni and Oedura castelnaui, tryoni take longer and create much larger healthier eggs with bigger hatchlings than castelnaui, castelnaui when over heated create heaps more eggs, yet none of them hatch, yet tryoni when over heated are much more resilient to faster egg development and still maintain a better hatch rate than their northern castelnaui cousins...
In general I have observed that tropical species are knocked around by calcium / heating issues much more than temperate climate animals, that have evolved to handle a broader range of temeratures. Getting the correct artificial heating requirements for tropical species may initially seem easier than it actually is, especially if you don't live in the tropics....
Though it is vital to get your food intake / heating correct..... I generally opt for the blast and freeze method for desert / and non rainforest tropical species, heaps of heat during the day, then down to 16-18 at night (unheated in Sydney) though if night heating is used it is best as only a general ambient and observations should be made that the reptile isn't using it to heat itself as such.

 

[Colin]

thanks for that Jason. great advice as always

 

[CarpetPythons.com.au]

These tubs are so simple to use, its not rocket science. I tried various mediums last season. I used very wet vermiculite, very dry vermiculite, lots of water, little bit of water etc. I hatched whatever I had in the on whatever medium I was using. Fortunately I was using these tubs before anybody else was using them. I did not use any other container this year. I sacrificed hundreds of eggs to test these out and from record lost only a couple of eggs. I thought this would be enough testing. I can guarantee you there was nobody else in the world that took such a gamble. I opened one of the first tubs I got and saw the lid was a little warped. I checked every tub I sent out from then. Andy ordered 10 so this tub must have sneaked through. To have a set of guidelines mean that every possible variable has to be taken into consideration. This is not possible when every breeder has his own way of doing things!

 

[Bryce]

Guidlines are simple to come up with, if you know what doesnt work put that on paper and supply it with the units. Very simple.

 

[GreggMadden]

Just to recap here... The lid issue was a facory error... We are replacing the lids that were defective... It is not a design flaw that needs tweaking... Again, we just found this issue out recently and it was only about 1 in 5 lids that had this issue...

As far as the container not working right in Hovabator or top heated incubators goes, we never tested them in these units because, #1, we do not use them and no breeder we know uses them and #2, quite frankly, they are not proper reptile incubators and we do not promote using bird incubators to hatch reptile eggs.... A very small % of people use these top heated incubators... However, for the people who already bought a SIM and are using that style incubator we are beta testing a fix... After beta testing and all is well we will be replacing the current lid with the modified lid so they can be used in the Hovabators... That is something we do not even have to do... We want to do it for our customers... Again, we want everyone to be successful with this product...

 

[FAY]

For what it is worth...I hatched childreni eggs...some died in the egg.
I used the SIM tubs.......same tub...washed out...hatched 100% hatch rate...22eggs..22 lovely healthy beardies.
I doubt it had anything to do with the tubs.

 

[itbites]

Not meaning to sound sarcastic here but anyone who doesn't know that reptiles (lizards in particular)

need calcium is pretty silly! I can say from personal knowledge that the parents in particular the mother

was definitely not lacking in calcium & every measure was taken before breeding even began.

Also we shall see what happens with this second clutch whether or not they hatch..

After realizing the lack of humidity in the first clutch (although too late) whether this improves the chances

of them hatching successfully?!.

Perhaps FAY you may have been one of the lucky ones who did not receive a faulty lid??

Gregg a chicken incubator was not used for these eggs this has already been mentioned!

As for "solely blaming the tubs"that is not the case & it is just a suggestion due to the HUMIDITY issues we encountered.

And Nicole Andrew DID speak with you very early on about this problem with the product & no advice was given!

Further more although the eggs were "spoken" for we in no way believed 100% that they were "already sold"

Names were put down yes but no deposits were taken & no guarantees were given out

of course that would be naive to assume once the mother lays thats it instant hatchlings!

I've not once said the SIM tubs are at fault 100% here we are merely speculating,

in fact I believe the distributor was the one who mentioned faults?...

 

[CarpetPythons.com.au]

Greg and John will organise something with you guys. I will look through our correspondence with each other and see what was discussed.

 

[geckodan]

JasonL has raised some very good points. Humidity issues in early incubation will not cause late failures. If the damage to the embryo in early incubation is significant, it will fail to grow i.e. you don't get to the late stage issue as the embryo dies. Late failures are most commonly associated with temperature spikes (either high or low), weak hatchlings or excessively high humidity at hatching. These can happen in any incubation method. I have discussed this with a number of breeders and overall we are seeing a higher rate of late dead in shell lizards this year than in previous years. Why ?? Buggered if we can pinpoint a particular thing.

 

[Chris1]

really sorry to hear u lost all those eggs/babies, thats such a shame.

just wondering if its possible to pip the ones that are due to hatch now like that albino carpet thread to ensure it doesnt happen to the remaining 6?

(not getting involvied in the incubation debate since i have absolutely no idea about it)

good luck with the remaining eggs.

 

[andyscott]

One thing you can never do is count your 'chickens' before they hatch!! No offence but that shows your inexperience right there.

Its not a fact of inexperience, I am bursting at the seems here, I have no room to keep animals that cant be moved on to new homes.
How many breeders are freezing animals that cant be sold as the market is flooded?
Thats why I have a list, because if I cant place animals, then I wont create animals.

CarpetPythons.com.au. Andy ordered 10 so this tub must have sneaked through.

All 10 of the tubs I got from you had ill fitting lids, they all needed to be tweaked. They have all been tested now after adjusting the lids and I cant see a problem with them.(they now even get humidity in them, just left on the kitchen bench).
As I said, I will use them again.

My issue is that you were told at the start and wanted to blame everything else but the tubs.
Yet you now admit that there was an issue from the start.
If your CUSTOMER service was correct from, there would be no problem.
All you needed to say was the lids are soft plastic, they may need to be warmed to stretch over the hard plastic tub, left to cool so as to form a better seal.

You were way to busy defending the tubs to listen to your customer.
Even when I posted this thread (read my 1st post), I asked for opinions.
I never went on a witch hunt.
You were the one that got defensive, it wasnt until Gregg (your supplier) came on and said that yes there is a small issue, did you change your tune.

You have contradicted yourself a few times on this thread alone, not to mention the chats we have had in the past.
Once again, I do not wish to condemn the product, I hope you sell many more, just let future users know that it takes 10 seconds in the microwave to adjust the lid before use.