Hatch Rates

[CDN-Cresties]

Hey, this question goes out to those with some breeding experience. I was just wondering if successful hatches goes down as clutch number goes up.

Im asking because my last two hatclings were not able to break completely through the egg, they made a slit with their egg tooth but couldn't break themselves free. These hatchlings were from first year breeders approx age 14 months.

[little_dragon_]

Out of 10 eggs I have lost 2 from one female, One was infertile from her very first clutch and the second from her Third clutch. I haven't had any stillborns yet I have 8 more eggs incubating. Their 4th and 5th clutches.

[DragnDrop]

First and last clutch of the season do seem to have a slightly lower sucess rate, but it's not written in stone. Younger females might also have a lower fertility rate.
If you opened the eggs and saw fully formed but dead ready-to-hatch embryos, I'd look into husbandry instead of maternal age or clutch frequency. Some of the reasons I've seen mentioned for that kind of problem are over calcified eggs, maternal vitamin/mineral imbalance, incubation errors, and maternal health such as parasites. Of course, sometimes it's just plain rotten luck.

[Youkai]

My first guess would be over-calcified eggs.

A few years ago, when I first started with cresteds, I supplemented calcium heavily to avoid the 'crashing' I'd heard about.

This resulted in many hatchlings not being able to slit the eggs properly, or get out of the eggs once slit. It was heartbreaking to see these gorgeous cresteds that scratched the hell out of the inside of the egg but couldn't make a slit, and died as a result.

[CDN-Cresties]

I think that I may have done what Youkai did. I too was worried about a crash. Thanks for the help. :)

[CDN-Cresties]

Surprisingly, the clutch mates of those two cresties that failed to hatch completely hatched today with no problems. Is it possible for over calcified hypothesis is still valid or is it crummy luck... Im confused.

[StickyToes]

I think in this case I would look more towards the age of the adults as opposed to overcalcification of the shells. I would think that if the problem was too thick of a shell they wouldn't even be able to pip, and you would have ended up with stillborns. Especially if these females have already laid a few clutches this season it would seem unlikely that at the rate cresteds produce eggs that the calcium stores would still be high enough to cause this problem.
When I got my first pair I was anxious to see hatchlings so I put them together shortly after they hit a year old. No luck what so ever for that season! Now that all my females are over 4 years old I find that the success rate for this season is at 100%, and we still have 12 eggs incubating that all look fertile.
Could also just be crummy luck. :grumps:
Good luck with the hatchlings and with any remaining eggs you have! :)
James