Finally! HET albino eggs

Toddrickfl1

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I've been raising a 1.3 group of HET albino sliders from Hatchlings since 2016. Unfortunately the original male disappeared out of my pond last year. Recently though I was able to pickup another mature HET male. He's been spending time with the ladies for about two months and finally this morning one of my females nested and layed 8 eggs. IMG_20200626_084422157.jpgIMG_20200626_102914924.jpgIMG_20200626_102959197.jpgIMG_20200626_103615065.jpgFingers crossed they're fertile. This is only my second attempt at incubating eggs so any tips would be appreciated. Right now I've got them in vermiculite and the incubator set to 88F.
 

zovick

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I've been raising a 1.3 group of HET albino sliders from Hatchlings since 2016. Unfortunately the original male disappeared out of my pond last year. Recently though I was able to pickup another mature HET male. He's been spending time with the ladies for about two months and finally this morning one of my females nested and layed 8 eggs. View attachment 298417View attachment 298418View attachment 298420View attachment 298421Fingers crossed they're fertile. This is only my second attempt at incubating eggs so any tips would be appreciated. Right now I've got them in vermiculite and the incubator set to 88F.
Congratulations, Todd. The eggs look good so far. Hopefully you got your hets from trustworthy people so you really have hets. I know many people in the snake world who have bought supposed hets that never produced anything but normal offspring.

That being said, I have incubated Box, Spotted, Bog, and Wood Turtle eggs and I always kept the containers covered to keep the eggs from becoming too dry. I cannot tell from your photo if you plan to simply put that open container in your incubator with no cover or not. I would not recommend doing that.

What type of incubator do you have? If you have a Hovabator 1602N incubator, you can fit 4 round Rubbermaid #2 containers in it with the lids on them. They are 5.5" in diameter and about 1.75" tall with the lids loosely placed on them. I don't put the lids on tightly so it is easy to lift them off to look at the eggs or add water to the incubation medium without picking up the whole container and taking the chance of jarring the eggs or dropping the container.

Not sure about this, but 88 might be a bit warm for turtle eggs. You may get a lot of extra scutes on the offspring at that temperature. For the species which I have bred, I used to incubate the eggs at 75 or 80 degrees. You might want to ask a Slider breeder about the best temperature for incubation.
 
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Markw84

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I would recommend 85° - 86° for Tracheymys eggs which will give a bit of percentage towards female. 88° is a bit high.

Definitely a covered container. Looks like you washed the eggs. That is fine unless you used tap water with chlorine or especially fluoride. That can cause the eggs to fail ( destroys the adhesion molecules that allows the embryo to attach when it starts to develop. Also will lead to split scutes. Well water is great. Water too soft is not good.
 

Toddrickfl1

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Hey Bill, thanks for the words of wisdom. I've got them in the Hovabator you've mentioned and I am keeping them covered. I didn't seal the lid I just placed it on top of the container so there would be some air exchange. Do you think it would be better to close the lid tight and open it every couple days or so?IMG_20200626_175954658.jpgIMG_20200626_175827086.jpgI actually had second thoughts about the temperature too. I've adjusted it to 82F.
 

Toddrickfl1

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I would recommend 85° - 86° for Tracheymys eggs which will give a bit of percentage towards female. 88° is a bit high.

Definitely a covered container. Looks like you washed the eggs. That is fine unless you used tap water with chlorine or especially fluoride. That can cause the eggs to fail ( destroys the adhesion molecules that allows the embryo to attach when it starts to develop. Also will lead to split scutes. Well water is great. Water too soft is not good.
Oops, that's not good. I used tap water. Hopefully didn't mess them up. Good to know for the future though, thanks.
 

Markw84

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Oops, that's not good. I used tap water. Hopefully didn't mess them up. Good to know for the future though, thanks.
Not good if there is floride. How long ago was this? If less than a day, I would get some spring water and add a bit of calcium chloride or calcium carbonate and a bit of baking soda. Mix that up and then wash the eggs in that. If longer than 24 hours - hope for the best.
 

Toddrickfl1

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Not good if there is floride. How long ago was this? If less than a day, I would get some spring water and add a bit of calcium chloride or calcium carbonate and a bit of baking soda. Mix that up and then wash the eggs in that. If longer than 24 hours - hope for the best.
It was about 4 hours. I'll go do what you said right now.
 

zovick

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Hey Bill, thanks for the words of wisdom. I've got them in the Hovabator you've mentioned and I am keeping them covered. I didn't seal the lid I just placed it on top of the container so there would be some air exchange. Do you think it would be better to close the lid tight and open it every couple days or so?View attachment 298473View attachment 298475I actually had second thoughts about the temperature too. I've adjusted it to 82F.
I would not seal the lid down tightly, either. It is too hard to get them off without disturbing the eggs (at least with the Rubbermaid containers I mentioned). Just leave it placed on top of the container as you have done to keep the moisture in there. If the eggs start to get dry, you can mist them a bit or just add water to the vermiculite by lifting it up and not have to pick up the whole works as I said earlier.

Back in the old days (pre-Hovabators) I used to put turtle eggs in peanut butter or mayonnaise jars (remember real glass jars?) with damp sphagnum moss and put them on top of my refrigerator or my water heater depending upon the temperatures I wanted to achieve and the time of year. Back then neither refrigerators nor water heaters were that well insulated at the tops of both were nice and warm. I still incubate turtle eggs that way on top of my refrigerator. The temperature seems fine (though I don't know exactly what it is, I estimate it at about 75) and the eggs usually hatch in about 57-65 days.
 
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