Best practice of cleaning eggs before incubation?

[Ramirezm2]

I recently moved into a new property and within a week my female sulcata dug her first hole and laid 30+ eggs. Unfortunately she did brake about 8 of her eggs and egg yoke and dirt was clumped all around the other good eggs. She is fairly young and still getting the hang of egg laying.

I wasn’t too sure what the best practice is with cleaning up eggs since I am still new to breeding tortoises.

Any recommendations on properly cleaning the eggs without any harm before incubation?

I am using a C Serpents incubator FYI.

Thank You!

 

[wellington]

I'm not a big breeder, so didn't have many clutches. However, the ones I did have, leopards, I just wiped most of the clay/dirt off with a wet paper towel, not scrubbing or wiping too hard. Being careful not to turn them but leaving them in the same position I retrieved them from the nest.
@Tom has had many, including sulcata, he can help if more should be done.

 

[Tom]

I recently moved into a new property and within a week my female sulcata dug her first hole and laid 30+ eggs. Unfortunately she did brake about 8 of her eggs and egg yoke and dirt was clumped all around the other good eggs. She is fairly young and still getting the hang of egg laying.

I wasn’t too sure what the best practice is with cleaning up eggs since I am still new to breeding tortoises.

Any recommendations on properly cleaning the eggs without any harm before incubation?

I am using a C Serpents incubator FYI.

Thank You!

I usually don't clean them at all. Dirt on the shells doesn't hurt anything.

For the broken egg yolk and mess, you can just rinse them in luke warm tap water and rub the mess off with your fingers.

 

[Ramirezm2]

I usually don't clean them at all. Dirt on the shells doesn't hurt anything.

For the broken egg yolk and mess, you can just rinse them in luke warm tap water and rub the mess off with your fingers.

View attachment 364201

Good to know. Thank you Tom!

 

[Yvonne G]

I don't clean them, other than to gently wipe off the dirt with a paper towel. When mom pushes out the egg she deposits a protective slime barrier around the egg. You don't want to remove that.

 

[Maggie3fan]

I am a Sulcata person that's why I ask a question...not an argument ...why would you breed common Sulcata when there are so many...especially on the West Coast...I repeat, no argument...just wanna know..
Mary Knobbins;

 

[turtlesteve]

Eggs can safely be washed and disinfected with dish detergent. There are valid arguments both for and against doing this. However, it’s becoming more common that captive bred hatchlings are infected with various diseases, including austwickiosis and TINC, in the US.

These diseases can most likely be carried by adults asymptomatically, and the possibility of transmitting diseases to babies via egg shell contamination should be considered. Several issues are causing diseases to spread:

- Most breeders won’t guard against vertical transmission at all.
- Breeders house hatchlings in large groups. If even one hatchling is ill, all of them will be exposed.
- Re-use of enclosures without sterilizing
- Breeders selling hatchlings quickly (within a month or two), which is too fast to know they are disease free.
- resellers buying wholesale and selling retail, without good biosecurity, compound all of these problems

My opinions is that our expectations for responsible/ethical breeding need to be raised, or these issues will keep getting worse over time.

 

[dd33]

Eggs can safely be washed and disinfected with dish detergent. There are valid arguments both for and against doing this. However, it’s becoming more common that captive bred hatchlings are infected with various diseases, including austwickiosis and TINC, in the US.

@turtlesteve you should add Cryptosporidium to your short list of diseases that are becoming more common. It is a problem in young/hatchling Radiated and Egyptians in Florida now. It is likely extremely widespread though. It is expensive to diagnose and it can take a long time for the hatchlings to die from it so they will probably never suspect the breeder. I wonder how many of the losses that are attributed to improperly started animals, or failure to thrive are Crypto, Austwickia or TINC.

 

[Tom]

@turtlesteve you should add Cryptosporidium to your short list of diseases that are becoming more common. It is a problem in young/hatchling Radiated and Egyptians in Florida now. It is likely extremely widespread though. It is expensive to diagnose and it can take a long time for the hatchlings to die from it so they will probably never suspect the breeder. I wonder how many of the losses that are attributed to improperly started animals, or failure to thrive are Crypto, Austwickia or TINC.

When I dealt with crypto back in 2011, it was near impossible to diagnose without a necropsy. Has that changed?

 

[dd33]

When I dealt with crypto back in 2011, it was near impossible to diagnose without a necropsy. Has that changed?

University of Florida has a qPCR test for Cryptosporidium. I believe it is generic Crypto screen initially but a positive result can then be sequenced to determine the actual species of Cryptosporidium. I believe that RAL can also perform a Crypto PCR test but I have not used them.

The test only requires a stool sample, sometimes that is easier than getting swabs but getting poop from a sick tortoise can be hard, and getting poop from your whole collection for a complete screening sucks. I haven't spent as much time working with UF on this one but if I recall it can impact different species of tortoise in different ways and it may be easier to detect in some species than others. A positive test would require that the animal has crypto genetic material in its feces but that is not always the case, even with an infected animal. It is an expensive test too, $100 per sample just for the lab fees, most vets would at least double that.

Cryptosporidium ducismarci is being found in Radiateds and Egyptians and likely many other species. Fortunately this species of Crypto has not been reported to be zoonotic making the jump from reptiles to humans. With our animals the only symptoms were shyness, slightly soft shell and a total lack of weight gain. When we discussed these symptoms with a vet who had a great deal of experience with Crypto they were able to guess at the diagnosis before we completed the sentence listing the behaviors we saw and they were correct.

There is a potential treatment for it but it is unproven and difficult to administer to hatchlings. Euthanasia is the best course of action to prevent further spread. This is another disease where surviving animals will likely shed and infect others in perpetuity.

It is extremely persistent in the environment but can probably be cleaned from some surfaces with high strength peroxide.