Hi mate. Thanks for the support. It never does get easier when something like this happens, but no sense in pretending it doesn't happen. My next clutch hatched on day 54 and was actually fine and I felt able to chat in that video about what might be the cause of issues such as these, and why I think in most cases "incubator issues" are actually inherent genetic issues (unless our incubators are so far off parameters they actually kill the eggs) and cannot really be differentiated. Excessive temperatures and rapid cell division during accelerated development can highlight genetic issues which would otherwise go unnoticed.
It is heart wrenching that the entire clutch was lost. But what concerns me further is what does this mean for your Vanilla Scream project? Obviously you would not repeat this exact pairing.
Hi mate. This is such a great comment and so "forward thinking" it actually prompted me to shoot a video on where does this leave us in the project. I will document the project, the pairings and look at several generations of offspring and identify those with common DNA where there may be an issue in future. Moving forward we do need to carefully consider what gets paired to what, but as you'll see, I do have plenty of options. The parents of this clutch were not related and did not share any DNA, but its certainly a major consideration for future pairings. Hope you get chance to watch as it was inspired by your comment. Keep them coming!
Jared and I had a similar experience two years ago. We have 4 shark jaw ball pythons, one blind. We believe it was do with the family related pairings. We bought, two snakes from a hobbyist and did not realise they came from the same genetic parents. We had no incubation issues that year as the remain8ng clutches all hat+he’d fine. Jared patiently assist fed them all for 8 weeeks and they are all doing fine strike feeding by 5th selves. I don’t think they are as severely deformed as your clutch. We have decided to keep them as pets.last week the blind girl damaged her mouth when strike feeding. She had actually swallowed her lower jaw and Jared very carefully unfolded the jaw and she straightened it out her self, she now looks back to normal, if its due to a family related genetic issue then it make sense sense to not breed these animals as they grow into maturity. We have become very attached to these 4 and was able to find a home for one of them a couple of weeks ago. It’s such a shame that your babies have the same issue but a little more sever than our clutch. They are beautiful looking snakes and I am sure it’s very difficult to have to euthanise them. I hope the second clutch prove out to be as beautiful but with that the deformities. I look forward to learning more from your future videos.
Hi Paul. I think since the comments section has been so supportive and none judgmental, this might be a good opportunity to follow up with some videos discussing all these issues and the actual cellular level processes that cause some of these issues. I hope you find time to watch, comment and share your own thoughts on this less than savoury topic.
Hi Hamlin. Like publicity, there is no such thing as good and bad when it comes to experience. There is only experience. And we can and should learn from all of it. This is a great opportunity to follow up with some further videos and discussion on just these topics. I feel we far too readily just write these things off as incubator issues without really thinking about the processes involved. I hope you watch and comment on the next series of videos as you have a great way of distilling complex issues into brutal simplicity, a skill which I fail miserably at, as you can see from the length of my replies.
So sorry to hear this! I had a baby die in the egg in my second ever clutch and it was devastating. I can't imagine how are it is either dying or being deformed!
Hi Erica. Over the years and seeing so many clutches hatched at @ARP Constrictors as well, I have seen pretty much everything and it never gets easier. It's something I have thought about a lot in the last few weeks since this clutch hatched and I feel its worth both making a few more videos on it and discussing further.
Thats a rough one mate such pretty animals too. As always bad situations often promise opportunity to Learn, the mind races, which is typical after watching one of your videos. Sometime I wonder about genetic problems, and I wonder if we fall back on this too heavily or to literally (like how, as a hobby we blame incubation problems). The fact that every snake in this clutch had a deformity makes me think its not bad gene simply inherited. I wonder about the condition of the sperm/eggs, being sub optimal due to either environmental/hormonal/follicle age or maybe even a combination of all of the above plus some other unforeseen factors at the precise moment of contraception. Maybe this is not simply bad genes inherited from either parent, and more a perfectly good gene/genes that are more susceptible to deterioration due to other factors that i mentioned?? Your thoughts on this?
Hi Joe. I have already shot a couple of follow on videos so please watch and comment. More food for thought. I too feel that we as a hobby fall back on that ill defined and obscure "incubation issue" excuse without really understanding the processes involved or what exactly those "issues" are. Lets dive into cellular genetics one more time and try and figure it out. See my rather lengthy answer to user-gu6nj8lf3w above as well. There are no easy answers to this one.
Wow Sorry about the losses. You said they were out at day 56. Is it possible the deformities are due to temps getting too high? Was there a malfunction? Or do you think it was something about the parents?
Hi Acacia. Yes would be a short answer to this observation, but it's not the whole story. Two other clutches hatched within days of this one and they were both fine. My incubator runs with minimal additional heat and I could even switch it off and the eggs would still hatch. Its actually rock solid and stable but I did turn it up a little this season to shorten incubation times, but I did not want to push it to the extreme of deformity, which accelerated cell division and faster embryo development can do. Please watch and comment on the follow on videos where I will try to go into a lot more detail on these issues and in particular the history of this pairing and project. Both parents are proven breeders with no issues previously so I wasn't expecting this at all.
Hello Rob nice video...sorry about the clutch...but as you say ...it is part of the hobby...hate to see that happen...but it is part of life.. vanilla fire Enchi clown is quickly becoming your Nemesis better luck next try
Sorry, my brother! I was missing you on the Tube! I was going to message you today… My shark mouth clutch, parents had no relation. I think it might be a recessive gene…..just my thought…explain why I’m wrong…
Hi mate. I'm doing a couple of follow on videos discussing this. When you say recessive gene, I actually read this as a defective gene that causes issues when its in a homozygous state. If both alleles are defective, the animal has an issue. If only one side of the locus is defective, ie the heterozygous condition, the none damaged side can compensate. So yes I do think many of these deformities are "recessive". I also think that these are often just written off as "incubator" issues when actually they are not.
Hello Rob, long time I came here to say few words ! First, I am very sorry for your loss, it's always emotionally hard I know what it is. As you know I am not a reptile breeder at all but Life is Life and it works the same for everyone. I was wondering if the general "willing" to breed genes+++++++ in an only indiviual (especially with recessive) could lead to such disaster. I watch several ball python breeders on yt and it seems to me that those who mainly work with recessive genes have some "difficulties" to take fresh blood (from african import for exemple) to "break" some kind of inbreeding. I understand that this also breaks a time of work but maybe this could be good for the animals life. What do you think about that ? Thank you very much !
Hi mate. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I will be doing a couple of follow up videos on this topic and discuss cellular genetics again. Your observation on recessive genes being more susceptible is I think more an observation that the homozygous state is more susceptible and I believe this to be true. If both sides of the locus contain the genetic mutation and its a defective mutation then yes it's much more likely to show up as a defect in the animal itself. So visual recessives, super forms and allelic combinations are certainly more likely to have issues than their heterozygous counterparts. Fortunately reptiles in general and ball pythons specifically are very resilient and seem not to suffer as badly from inbreeding and other faulty genetic traits than most animals would.
Hi mate. I have actually done a couple of follow up videos discussing just this. You have managed to sum up in a single sentence the full content of two or even three follow on videos!
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls A poke test is also what #Emily from #snakediscovery does when they have new clutches arrive they cut open the egg and they just take like the scissors and they just gently poke the snake to see if it moves in the egg and if it moves in the egg they know it's successfully alive and it's developing fine they call it the "Poke test"
@@CatNip379 ah ok i understand. Since most of my eggs pip themselves, its obvious they are alive. When eggs are cut i only poke them if i havent seen them move during the cutting. 99% of the time its already obvious. I'm going to say a poke test is one of those totally unnecessary things people do for some reason. Doesn't help deformed snakes either. They may look ok and respond when poked but they are unable to survive once out of the egg. Three of this clutch hatched. Three were dead in the egg. None of them will survive. An unpleasant experience every breeder will encounter occasionally.
I would have them all tested to see what is the thing they all had in common that may have caused this and which parent is the one to get rid of. A whole clutch makes me suspect an incubation issue even if they were inbred.
Hi mate. Genetic testing! The fast and easy, shake and bake solution to all things genetic. And the answer, get rid of the problem snake? I blame the genetic labs for this recent trend in the hobby and for pushing the commercial aspects of genetic testing ahead of the actual science. Let's take a look at this in a bit more detail and unpack it into its component parts. Have them tested for what exactly? Genetic labs only currently test for colour and pattern mutations which are a very tiny percentage of the genetic material involved in the DNA of a snake. This pairing is a relatively simple one and the genes are easily identified without genetic testing. It would need a lab to be able to unpack the whole genetic code and see what bits are shared. This would be familial DNA that often gets used in forensics to identify a family tie to a perpetrator where the actual DNA doesn't match anything on criminal files. Beyond that, identifying which parts of the DNA code is defective I think we can't even do this for humans, much less Ball Pythons. Both of these snakes are proven breeders with several none deformed clutches between them. The female is one of my first snakes and has a long history of successful clutches. The male I produced myself and also has perfect clutches under his belt. Both snakes have no discernable issues or deformities which means their cell division processes are functioning perfectly. This does not mean that gamete production (meiosis as opposed to mitosis) doesn't have a problem, but they have no history of this in other pairings. I have detailed breeding records over several generations which I consider to be every bit as good as genetic testing in terms of knowing which snakes share DNA, not just the colour and pattern mutations. The parents for this clutch are not related and share no DNA, but obviously some snakes in the project are now F1 and F2 generations and do share some DNA. Future pairings of F1 and F2 generations will need some consideration to avoid common DNA issues but to date this has not been a problem. I have just finished shooting a video that documents this because it's worth discussing. Incubation issues? Again another popular fallback explanation. I have an incubator with several different clutches in it and 2 clutches hatched within days of this one. All were perfect. The rest of the clutches hatched this year in this incubator have all been fine. I am keeping snakes in the tropics in none heated ambient tropical conditions which are very stable. I could incubate at room temperature and eggs would hatch. Many people do incubate in their bedroom cupboards out here, but I use an insulated drinks cabinet with a Habistat pulse proportional thermostat and a very small amount of heat cable just to nudge the temperature up a fraction and to keep it even more stable than it otherwise would be. It is rock steady stable and has functioned perfectly for years. Unless our incubator is running too hot, isn't stable and is spiking too hot or our egg boxes are not humid enough and dehydrating the eggs, all of which are fatal, or our incubation protocols are actually killing the eggs some other way, I have found that eggs are remarkably hardy and will stand quite a bit of temperature fluctuation and still hatch. I have incubated at room temperature with fluctuations between 27C and 29C and eggs hatch just fine. They just take a bit longer. So I'm often puzzled when incubation problems are mentioned. What exactly is the incubator doing that is a potential issue that doesn't actually kill the eggs outright and how does this effect embryo development? How does it cause deformity in an otherwise perfectly good embryo? I feel that "incubation issues" especially with experienced breeders and well set up incubators, are actually nothing more than predisposed genetic issues that are either covered up or made worse by our incubation temperatures, which controls the speed of cell division. Either a gene fires up at the right time and controls specific hormone production in the right amount or it doesn't. A hormone receptor is receptive or its not. Specialised proteins required for specialist organs to develop are either produced in sufficient quantity or they are not. All an incubator does is control the rate of cell division and makes sure its not fluctuating wildly so the hormones and protein synthesis during embryo development can do their job. In many cases, slower incubation can compensate for inadequate hormone production from defective genes (especially if the defective gene is in heterozygous state and the other allele is not defective) by slowing down cell division to a rate where the hormones and specialised protein synthesis can keep up. Cell division commences at fertilisation, which is often 50 plus days before eggs are even laid. The female is gravid inside her tub with developing embryos inside her oviduct for almost half the total incubation period. Eggs are laid with a blood vein network, a beating heart, an umbilicus and various other specialised organs already developed before the eggs are even laid. Things are just as likely to go wrong at this stage, even before eggs are laid. What I think could have happened here is possibly the small tweak in incubation temperature I made this season to try to reduce incubation times to less than 60 days has caused an otherwise unnoticed genetic issue to be magnified due to accelerated embryo development. Two other clutches incubated in the exact same incubator at the exact same time both hatched faster than 60 days but were perfectly ok, which might indicate something else as a problem. I also suspect this late season clutch was during the time the male was actually winding down from his hormonal peak and his sperm production had possibly shut down and he was using the last tea leaves in the cup to sire this clutch. I think certainly premature to even consider getting rid of either snake. Fortunately deformed babies are quite rare for me, but over the years I have had females come good after bad clutches and in fact the last clutch to hatch was from one of these females, so her clutch would certainly be more "at risk" than this one, yet turned out absolutely fine. I will be dialing back my incubator a bit back to last years settings. I feel slightly slower incubation is actually better and certainly commercial snake ranches in West Africa report an increase in deformed babies with incubation temperatures in excess of 30C. Please do watch the next series of videos as they are released because this is an opportunity to discuss all of these "unsavory" topics and share experiences.
All those babies looks so nice. Sorry about those beautiful animals mate.
Hi mate. Hope you are well. Not always plain sailing in the hobby.
I appreciate your transparency. Never gets any easier. I look forward to the video on dominant and incomplete dominant
Hi mate. Thanks for the support. It never does get easier when something like this happens, but no sense in pretending it doesn't happen.
My next clutch hatched on day 54 and was actually fine and I felt able to chat in that video about what might be the cause of issues such as these, and why I think in most cases "incubator issues" are actually inherent genetic issues (unless our incubators are so far off parameters they actually kill the eggs) and cannot really be differentiated. Excessive temperatures and rapid cell division during accelerated development can highlight genetic issues which would otherwise go unnoticed.
Tough video to make I’m sure. Sorry for the unfortunate outcome. Thanks for bringing us along. Appreciate you
Hi mate. Yes a tough one that was. Thanks for your support and for commenting. It helps when I have such an empathetic and none judgmental audience.
Minus the 3 no good ones Rob great video and awesome clutch 🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💪🏽
Thanks Patrick. I'll do a follow up with more genetics in it.
It is heart wrenching that the entire clutch was lost. But what concerns me further is what does this mean for your Vanilla Scream project? Obviously you would not repeat this exact pairing.
Hi mate. This is such a great comment and so "forward thinking" it actually prompted me to shoot a video on where does this leave us in the project. I will document the project, the pairings and look at several generations of offspring and identify those with common DNA where there may be an issue in future. Moving forward we do need to carefully consider what gets paired to what, but as you'll see, I do have plenty of options. The parents of this clutch were not related and did not share any DNA, but its certainly a major consideration for future pairings. Hope you get chance to watch as it was inspired by your comment. Keep them coming!
I'm so sorry!
Hi Barbara. No words. This was a tough one to make and share.
Jared and I had a similar experience two years ago. We have 4 shark jaw ball pythons, one blind. We believe it was do with the family related pairings. We bought, two snakes from a hobbyist and did not realise they came from the same genetic parents. We had no incubation issues that year as the remain8ng clutches all hat+he’d fine. Jared patiently assist fed them all for 8 weeeks and they are all doing fine strike feeding by 5th selves. I don’t think they are as severely deformed as your clutch. We have decided to keep them as pets.last week the blind girl damaged her mouth when strike feeding. She had actually swallowed her lower jaw and Jared very carefully unfolded the jaw and she straightened it out her self, she now looks back to normal, if its due to a family related genetic issue then it make sense sense to not breed these animals as they grow into maturity. We have become very attached to these 4 and was able to find a home for one of them a couple of weeks ago. It’s such a shame that your babies have the same issue but a little more sever than our clutch. They are beautiful looking snakes and I am sure it’s very difficult to have to euthanise them. I hope the second clutch prove out to be as beautiful but with that the deformities. I look forward to learning more from your future videos.
Hi Paul. I think since the comments section has been so supportive and none judgmental, this might be a good opportunity to follow up with some videos discussing all these issues and the actual cellular level processes that cause some of these issues. I hope you find time to watch, comment and share your own thoughts on this less than savoury topic.
Very sad position to be in.. credit to you for sharing mate
Hi Hamlin. Like publicity, there is no such thing as good and bad when it comes to experience. There is only experience. And we can and should learn from all of it. This is a great opportunity to follow up with some further videos and discussion on just these topics. I feel we far too readily just write these things off as incubator issues without really thinking about the processes involved. I hope you watch and comment on the next series of videos as you have a great way of distilling complex issues into brutal simplicity, a skill which I fail miserably at, as you can see from the length of my replies.
So sorry to hear this! I had a baby die in the egg in my second ever clutch and it was devastating. I can't imagine how are it is either dying or being deformed!
Hi Erica. Over the years and seeing so many clutches hatched at @ARP Constrictors as well, I have seen pretty much everything and it never gets easier. It's something I have thought about a lot in the last few weeks since this clutch hatched and I feel its worth both making a few more videos on it and discussing further.
Sorry about the 3 bad ones. Too bad, they were very pretty
Hi Samantha. Yep this one was painful. We will rebound.
❤
Thats a rough one mate such pretty animals too. As always bad situations often promise opportunity to Learn, the mind races, which is typical after watching one of your videos. Sometime I wonder about genetic problems, and I wonder if we fall back on this too heavily or to literally (like how, as a hobby we blame incubation problems). The fact that every snake in this clutch had a deformity makes me think its not bad gene simply inherited.
I wonder about the condition of the sperm/eggs, being sub optimal due to either environmental/hormonal/follicle age or maybe even a combination of all of the above plus some other unforeseen factors at the precise moment of contraception. Maybe this is not simply bad genes inherited from either parent, and more a perfectly good gene/genes that are more susceptible to deterioration due to other factors that i mentioned?? Your thoughts on this?
Hi Joe. I have already shot a couple of follow on videos so please watch and comment. More food for thought. I too feel that we as a hobby fall back on that ill defined and obscure "incubation issue" excuse without really understanding the processes involved or what exactly those "issues" are. Lets dive into cellular genetics one more time and try and figure it out. See my rather lengthy answer to user-gu6nj8lf3w above as well. There are no easy answers to this one.
Wow Sorry about the losses. You said they were out at day 56. Is it possible the deformities are due to temps getting too high? Was there a malfunction? Or do you think it was something about the parents?
Hi Acacia. Yes would be a short answer to this observation, but it's not the whole story. Two other clutches hatched within days of this one and they were both fine. My incubator runs with minimal additional heat and I could even switch it off and the eggs would still hatch. Its actually rock solid and stable but I did turn it up a little this season to shorten incubation times, but I did not want to push it to the extreme of deformity, which accelerated cell division and faster embryo development can do.
Please watch and comment on the follow on videos where I will try to go into a lot more detail on these issues and in particular the history of this pairing and project. Both parents are proven breeders with no issues previously so I wasn't expecting this at all.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls i see
Hello Rob nice video...sorry about the clutch...but as you say ...it is part of the hobby...hate to see that happen...but it is part of life.. vanilla fire Enchi clown is quickly becoming your Nemesis better luck next try
Hi Charley. Yep we are so close to the goal it just never quite happens for one reason or another. We'll get there!
Sorry, my brother! I was missing you on the Tube! I was going to message you today…
My shark mouth clutch, parents had no relation. I think it might be a recessive gene…..just my thought…explain why I’m wrong…
Hi mate. I'm doing a couple of follow on videos discussing this. When you say recessive gene, I actually read this as a defective gene that causes issues when its in a homozygous state. If both alleles are defective, the animal has an issue. If only one side of the locus is defective, ie the heterozygous condition, the none damaged side can compensate. So yes I do think many of these deformities are "recessive". I also think that these are often just written off as "incubator" issues when actually they are not.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls I will send some additional info in DM.
@@coachsroyalreptiles yes please.
Hello Rob, long time I came here to say few words ! First, I am very sorry for your loss, it's always emotionally hard I know what it is.
As you know I am not a reptile breeder at all but Life is Life and it works the same for everyone. I was wondering if the general "willing" to breed genes+++++++ in an only indiviual (especially with recessive) could lead to such disaster. I watch several ball python breeders on yt and it seems to me that those who mainly work with recessive genes have some "difficulties" to take fresh blood (from african import for exemple) to "break" some kind of inbreeding. I understand that this also breaks a time of work but maybe this could be good for the animals life. What do you think about that ? Thank you very much !
Hi mate. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I will be doing a couple of follow up videos on this topic and discuss cellular genetics again. Your observation on recessive genes being more susceptible is I think more an observation that the homozygous state is more susceptible and I believe this to be true. If both sides of the locus contain the genetic mutation and its a defective mutation then yes it's much more likely to show up as a defect in the animal itself. So visual recessives, super forms and allelic combinations are certainly more likely to have issues than their heterozygous counterparts. Fortunately reptiles in general and ball pythons specifically are very resilient and seem not to suffer as badly from inbreeding and other faulty genetic traits than most animals would.
It's like snakes with no eyes something went wrong with the DNA when it switches on and off thing,no not a incubator problem at all
⚡💥🔥💧💦💯💙🇬🇧
Sad when this happens in this hobby 😮
Very sad!
Hi mate. I have actually done a couple of follow up videos discussing just this. You have managed to sum up in a single sentence the full content of two or even three follow on videos!
DO POKE TESTS
Poke tests? I'm not sure I understand. What's a poke test?
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls A poke test is also what #Emily from #snakediscovery does when they have new clutches arrive they cut open the egg and they just take like the scissors and they just gently poke the snake to see if it moves in the egg and if it moves in the egg they know it's successfully alive and it's developing fine they call it the "Poke test"
@@CatNip379 ah ok i understand. Since most of my eggs pip themselves, its obvious they are alive. When eggs are cut i only poke them if i havent seen them move during the cutting. 99% of the time its already obvious. I'm going to say a poke test is one of those totally unnecessary things people do for some reason. Doesn't help deformed snakes either. They may look ok and respond when poked but they are unable to survive once out of the egg. Three of this clutch hatched. Three were dead in the egg. None of them will survive. An unpleasant experience every breeder will encounter occasionally.
I would have them all tested to see what is the thing they all had in common that may have caused this and which parent is the one to get rid of. A whole clutch makes me suspect an incubation issue even if they were inbred.
Hi mate. Genetic testing! The fast and easy, shake and bake solution to all things genetic. And the answer, get rid of the problem snake? I blame the genetic labs for this recent trend in the hobby and for pushing the commercial aspects of genetic testing ahead of the actual science. Let's take a look at this in a bit more detail and unpack it into its component parts.
Have them tested for what exactly? Genetic labs only currently test for colour and pattern mutations which are a very tiny percentage of the genetic material involved in the DNA of a snake. This pairing is a relatively simple one and the genes are easily identified without genetic testing. It would need a lab to be able to unpack the whole genetic code and see what bits are shared. This would be familial DNA that often gets used in forensics to identify a family tie to a perpetrator where the actual DNA doesn't match anything on criminal files. Beyond that, identifying which parts of the DNA code is defective I think we can't even do this for humans, much less Ball Pythons.
Both of these snakes are proven breeders with several none deformed clutches between them. The female is one of my first snakes and has a long history of successful clutches. The male I produced myself and also has perfect clutches under his belt. Both snakes have no discernable issues or deformities which means their cell division processes are functioning perfectly. This does not mean that gamete production (meiosis as opposed to mitosis) doesn't have a problem, but they have no history of this in other pairings.
I have detailed breeding records over several generations which I consider to be every bit as good as genetic testing in terms of knowing which snakes share DNA, not just the colour and pattern mutations. The parents for this clutch are not related and share no DNA, but obviously some snakes in the project are now F1 and F2 generations and do share some DNA.
Future pairings of F1 and F2 generations will need some consideration to avoid common DNA issues but to date this has not been a problem.
I have just finished shooting a video that documents this because it's worth discussing.
Incubation issues? Again another popular fallback explanation. I have an incubator with several different clutches in it and 2 clutches hatched within days of this one. All were perfect. The rest of the clutches hatched this year in this incubator have all been fine. I am keeping snakes in the tropics in none heated ambient tropical conditions which are very stable. I could incubate at room temperature and eggs would hatch. Many people do incubate in their bedroom cupboards out here, but I use an insulated drinks cabinet with a Habistat pulse proportional thermostat and a very small amount of heat cable just to nudge the temperature up a fraction and to keep it even more stable than it otherwise would be. It is rock steady stable and has functioned perfectly for years.
Unless our incubator is running too hot, isn't stable and is spiking too hot or our egg boxes are not humid enough and dehydrating the eggs, all of which are fatal, or our incubation protocols are actually killing the eggs some other way, I have found that eggs are remarkably hardy and will stand quite a bit of temperature fluctuation and still hatch. I have incubated at room temperature with fluctuations between 27C and 29C and eggs hatch just fine. They just take a bit longer. So I'm often puzzled when incubation problems are mentioned. What exactly is the incubator doing that is a potential issue that doesn't actually kill the eggs outright and how does this effect embryo development? How does it cause deformity in an otherwise perfectly good embryo?
I feel that "incubation issues" especially with experienced breeders and well set up incubators, are actually nothing more than predisposed genetic issues that are either covered up or made worse by our incubation temperatures, which controls the speed of cell division. Either a gene fires up at the right time and controls specific hormone production in the right amount or it doesn't. A hormone receptor is receptive or its not. Specialised proteins required for specialist organs to develop are either produced in sufficient quantity or they are not.
All an incubator does is control the rate of cell division and makes sure its not fluctuating wildly so the hormones and protein synthesis during embryo development can do their job. In many cases, slower incubation can compensate for inadequate hormone production from defective genes (especially if the defective gene is in heterozygous state and the other allele is not defective) by slowing down cell division to a rate where the hormones and specialised protein synthesis can keep up.
Cell division commences at fertilisation, which is often 50 plus days before eggs are even laid. The female is gravid inside her tub with developing embryos inside her oviduct for almost half the total incubation period. Eggs are laid with a blood vein network, a beating heart, an umbilicus and various other specialised organs already developed before the eggs are even laid. Things are just as likely to go wrong at this stage, even before eggs are laid.
What I think could have happened here is possibly the small tweak in incubation temperature I made this season to try to reduce incubation times to less than 60 days has caused an otherwise unnoticed genetic issue to be magnified due to accelerated embryo development. Two other clutches incubated in the exact same incubator at the exact same time both hatched faster than 60 days but were perfectly ok, which might indicate something else as a problem. I also suspect this late season clutch was during the time the male was actually winding down from his hormonal peak and his sperm production had possibly shut down and he was using the last tea leaves in the cup to sire this clutch.
I think certainly premature to even consider getting rid of either snake. Fortunately deformed babies are quite rare for me, but over the years I have had females come good after bad clutches and in fact the last clutch to hatch was from one of these females, so her clutch would certainly be more "at risk" than this one, yet turned out absolutely fine.
I will be dialing back my incubator a bit back to last years settings. I feel slightly slower incubation is actually better and certainly commercial snake ranches in West Africa report an increase in deformed babies with incubation temperatures in excess of 30C.
Please do watch the next series of videos as they are released because this is an opportunity to discuss all of these "unsavory" topics and share experiences.
Such a shame.
Hi mate. This one hurt! We will bounce back.