Here's a pic of my afrocks pipping out of my clutch of 80 eggs. Mother didn't crush any of these even though I had to feed her in order to lure her away from her clutch. As I'm sure everyone can imagine, her striking/constricting a rabbit while half of her body was still loosely wrapped around the clutch wasn't exactly a gentle motion. I was quite surprised to see that some of the hatchlings that were brutally smothered in the process survived without a mark...and I waited another day after this photo was shot before removing the clutch once there were quite a few more hatchlings that had pipped.
BTW - from the first pipping to the last stretched over 15 days!! The rule of thumb that urges keepers to manually pip eggs that haven't after 24 hrs doesn't take into account massive clutches that naturally have differing core temps vs. the outer eggs. This clutch weighed over 30 lbs...wish I could have weighed it when first laid as these eggs would have lost weight during their 70-85 day incubation (taking into account the 15-day pipping range there).
Nathan
Threaded Mode