Any tips on successfully incubating corn snake eggs?
Answers:
I know 1 thing for sure about snake eggs, they are laid in a certain position, if they are moved, you must not turn them, they must be picked up and set down in the same direction they were lain in, with out turning them, or they will die for sure. best way to do this is put a small X on the top of the egg, and when you move them, be sure the "X" does not change positions.
You should contact a specialist or a vet to ask. Also, if you can find a herp breeder online, I'm sure they could offer you some good advice. Try looking around kingsnake.com
I have had the same problem you have. My corn snake laid thirteen eggs toward the end of April, and are currently hatching. When she first laid them, I was able to talk to a local breeder I got my Male Snow from. He told me to NOT turn them. If they are standing on end, you stand them on end in the incubator.
Next, I was told that they will be just fine using the room temperature method. You just let them sit at room temperature until they hatch. I actually just placed mine on top of my female's cage. It was around 80-83 degrees the majority of the incubation period. I would shut the heat lamp on my snake cage off if the temperature hit 84, and then turn it back on later (the lamp was on one end of the cage for the snake warm spot, the eggs on the opposite end of the cage. The lamp never really affected the eggs.). I would never let the temperature go above 85. If it does, while the eggs hatch sooner, they are more prone to babies born with 'kinks' and you probably won't even be able to give away a kinked one. At the same time, temperatures below 80 degrees can cause longer time for incubation, and the closer it gets to 100 days, the higher the mortality rate will probably be.
The other concern is the incubation material. The breeder I talked to uses moist vermiculite, set in a hard plastic container, with a hole in the lid to ensure that he puts it tight and just watches the eggs. He doesn't like it damp, just moist. If they dimple in, he sprays them. If they look ready to burst or have fuzzy white molds, he opens it and lets it air out for a couple of hours. He uses the room temperature method.
I originally started with vermiculite, but when all my eggs dimpled inward severely, I switched to sphagnum moss, also called sphagnum peat moss. I still lost one egg out of thirteen. I put my second clutch in Sphagnum and am happy with how they look. I took it, rinsed it in water, ringed it out, and put about an inch or two in my container. Then, I put my eggs in it, and put another inch of sphagnum on top of it. Sphagnum is light and airy, so oxygen gets near the eggs, and they have higher humidity. I also had a thermometer in with my eggs to see the temperature. A word of caution, Sphagnum leaves harmless brown stains on the eggs. They aren't bad. I had two eggs go bad for no reason, which happens, and they had weird colors creep in behind the stains. When you look at the eggs, be careful to SLOWLY dig down, to ensure you don't turn an egg on accident. I actually left for a month and had someone lightly mist the eggs every couple of days. When I got back, the top of the sphagnum looked dry, but the area around the eggs was fine, and the eggs actually expanded, like they should have during incubation. With sphagnum, you really only HAVE to mist them when the top feels drier than the stuff nearer the eggs, but I check on my eggs every other day, misted them afterwards, covered them up, and misted the top of the Sphagnum to my liking.
My eggs actually started hatching on July 17 and are still hatching. I had one pip late Wednesday night, and another one some time at night. The next one pipped on July 20 and 5 others on July 21. I wasn't here over the weekend, but after I saw the first pip, I removed the sphagnum to only covering the bottom half the eggs, so I could watch the eggs as the babies slit them open. Do NOT attempt to remove the babies, until they themselves have climbed all the way out of the egg. A friend of mine had a baby three quarters of the way out, and because it was the last one, dragged it out.. with the yolk sac still attached. It died.
If you have city water, you first need to put it in a bottle without a cap on it and let it sit in the sun for 24 hour at least. Cities and Towns put chlorine in their water, and in that dose can easily kill snakes of all sizes. That may be why your eggs went bad last time.
The only other thing I can think of is to not worry if one egg goes bad in a clump. I like sphagnum because the harmless brown stains are caused by the tannic acid it contains, which retards bacterial and mold growth. I had three eggs attached together, and two went bad, but the snow corn snake in the third has pipped. I hold with the assertion that good eggs don't go bad.
My only other suggestion is to get the book The Corn Snake Manual by Bill and Kathy Love. It was VERY helpful to me.
I hope I helped.
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