92 days later...

[Teal]

Some of you may remember my desperate post months ago, attempting to incubate a surprise clutch laid 7 days after capture from a WC Kingsnake.

I did my best with what materials I could get.

But keeping the temperatures consistent never happened... they fluxed from low 70s to mid 90s before I gave up trying to control them, and then fluxed that much and more in the ongoing weeks.

The eggs started to get moldy. Some dried out. But some remained plump looking...

So I waited...

...With a container of rotten smelling eggs next to my bed.

I couldn't separate the bad ones because she laid the clutch during the night and they were all fused together by the time I found them.

60 days... nothing.

70 days... nothing.

I stopped paying attention to how long it had been shortly after that.

Finally, yesterday, I accepted that my eggs weren't going to hatch and moved the wretched smelling set up outside to be discarded.

Except, when I went to discard them today...

There was a hatchling...

Dead.

The temperatures here are over 100F during the day. The poor lil critter was inside a tupperware tub in the heat.

ONE day sooner, and he would have hatched indoors and been fine.... ONE day. These eggs were laid on June 30 - that's 92 days ago. I stopped using a heating pad on them after 60-something days. But against all odds, this little hatchling came out perfectly fine... except that it was a little too late, because I'd given up on the eggs.

I sat there crying over this poor little hatchling... I am STILL crying over it. I don't expect sympathy from anyone... I just wanted people to know that despite everything, these guys can apparently be pretty darn hardy.

I've got the whole set up back next to my bed. There are two eggs that are still plump, and I can't stop glancing at them. I tried to talk myself into cutting them open gently... but I couldn't do it. Because the eggs are so moldy and discoloured (including the one that hatched), I can't see anything when I candle them and I don't want to cut open a hatchling.

So, I am back to waiting... waiting and HOPING I didn't accidentally kill the only hatchling to survive my horrible lack of snake husbandry skills