Candling Panther Eggs?

ChameleonAlley

New Member
I've scoured both the forum and the interwebs about this subject without finding out too much about the subject. There is way more info about candling veiled eggs than anything out there about panthers.

Normally I wouldn't consider doing this at all, but after realizing that the internal thermometer in my incubator was off by 10 degrees, I'm really wondering about the current development of my eggs. One of the 27 eggs completely sweat, shrank, and shriveled. I cut it open, and it was like a solid mush. It did look to me to have slight signs of development, but I'm not completely sure.

So, I guess my question is, has anyone ever candled a panther egg and then had it successfully hatch later? Does anyone really know any definitive things about candling panther eggs?

When it comes down to it, if there is more risk in candling, I'll just need to suck up the situation and keep waiting. The other eggs look good, but I know that doesn't mean they've developed well. I would love to hear if anyone knows anything/or has candled their own eggs? Thanks a ton all. :)
 
candling can be very low risk.

I have a penlight egg candler kind of thing that works OK- can just hold it up next to the egg without even removing the egg from substrate. It was made for eggs, but the little lights you see on keychains are very similar- only difference is the plastic extends in a short tube beyond the light. Could be easily recreated with any penlight and a bit of aluminum foil for the extended sleeve.

Another thing I have done in the past- a flashlight covered with aluminum foil with a small hole poked in the foil. place the egg on the foil over the hole. Again, very low risk- shouldn't hurt the egg.

Both of these are pretty low power solutions though- will probably only work to see vessels developing and stuff kind of early on, later the development in the eggs become too dense for these methods to work. At least for me.
 
You are the man! The tin foil method is exactly like a different method I was thinking of doing. You're suggestion will work much better. They are too white for me to candle inside the substrate, so I would have to pick one up. Is there much risk in this? Should I just be extremely careful and try not to move the egg from it's original laying position while I pick it up?

These eggs are at 6 months. I'm hoping at this stage I might be able to see the embryo development? Also, at this far along, your pretty sure that picking up the egg, as long as I am careful, will not hinder it from hatching if it is one that is going to hatch?

Thank you Fluxilizard! I have read lots of candling threads, but they all seemed like speculation with no solid evidence with actual experience of doing it and the outcome.
 
This was a post I got from Kingsnake forums. Don't know how true it is about egg durability as I'm just reading away, but if it is true, it's worth putting on here for reference.


"PRAT,
Turn off the room lights and hold a pen light against the egg. You should see great vein work. Sometimes you need to move the pen light to a different angle to catch the lighting just right to see the veins. Good veins only mean that it is fertile and not that it will hatch. Something else, usually genetic, may happen during the process that will make the egg go bad. I have had veins not show up for 2 weeks after being laid which is unusual since they usually are there in a few days. I took perfect looking eggs that had no veins for 2 weeks to a show for kids to touch, pick up etc to feel a real egg and then when I got home I was going to go ahead and throw them out but something told me to re candle them and they had veins and all hatched. All the eggs were touched by a hundred people and not put back in the position as laid and they all hatched. I always candle eggs to know if the female and male are fertile. If you don't candle and the eggs look nice and white and then the go bad you will start to question what might have caused it when maybe they weren't fertile to start with. I have had perfect looking snow white eggs with no veins go past the expected hatch date and still be snow white even though they never had veins , didn't hatch and were never fertile. In my opinion you should leave the eggs alone as much as possible since there is no reason to bother them. However, I have done experiments with misting, turning eggs etc and have noticed no problems with these hatching. Eggs are tough and not as fragile as some people think. Not recommending you move them or turn them only saying if an accident happens don't panic. I have had eggs a week from hatching that were turned and still hatched. A friend of mine dropped a whole tray of eggs and they hit the floor from 4 feet off the ground and rolled around and there was no way to know in what position they originally were in and they all hatched. Good luck. HDEAN "
 
Use a non toxic pen to mark the visible side of the eggs. Then you know which side goes up.
 
Yeah- just be careful and try not to turn them. Picking them up to candle should be OK. If you are squeemish about it- get a penlight and make a little extension past the light with aluminum foil and hold that up to the egg while it remains in the container.

You can use a marker or pencil to make a little dot on the top of the egg like pssh suggested, no problem. I used to do that when setting all my eggs. I don't bother with it any more.

Like the guy in the post, I have dropped eggs or knocked them accidentally and rolled whole containers before and didn't know which sides were up when resetting them and it hasn't effected hatch rate. I'm not sure if I've done that with chameleons or only other lizards though- I've done it a few times over the years pulling containers in and out of my incubators. :eek:

Like I said though- in my experience with the tools I mentioned, after development reaches a certain point, candling doesn't work because the development is too dense to allow the lighting that I have to pass through the egg. Until that point, you can see blood vessels form, etc. Infertile eggs will just never develop and just glow yellow in the light. Good ones will show the embryonic disk as a dark spot, then after a while go pink under the light, then you will see vessels forming.
 
Though I take every caution when handling/candleing reptile eggs as a rule, it never ceases to amaze me how nature sometimes breaks her own rules.
While collecting skink eggs once to go in the incubator, after being so careful not to turn them, I was tripped up by one of our dogs and the eggs went flying from my hands to the kitchen floor where they rolled around like marbles, bouncing against the bottom of the counter etc.
Naturally I wasnt happy and assumed they were goners, and being late for an appointment, I swept them all up and just tossed them in the incubator till later.
I forgot all about them and in due time every single one hatched healthy bubs!

There are exceptions to every rule! I guess science has much to learn from nature yet! :)
 
As fluxlizard said late in devlopment you probably won't see anything.

I candled some panther eggs, a week before hatching. I could see nothing, no veins, no shaded mass, nothing just light clear yellow all the way through. I even picked them up with the light behind it and turned them. I swore there was nothing in them and they weren't going to hatch. I was wrong.

Don't get bummed if you don't see anything.

As a side note I have an older book that have incubation temps for panthers at 82 with durations of 150-320 days.
 
This is really reassuring. Thank you for the response. I was starting to get down. That yellow is exactly what I'm seeing. The eggs look very very good, but after candling a few tonight I was afraid that they where showing the signs of a healthy egg but really had no development at all. Thanks for posting your experience. This gets my hopes back up that things may go alright.

That's also great news about the incubation temps. I'm guessing after all the temp measuring I have done that the incubator was just about 10 degrees off, but could have been a little less. That would have put the eggs right at 80 to 85 degrees. Thank you for the response and reassurance. :)



As fluxlizard said late in devlopment you probably won't see anything.

I candled some panther eggs, a week before hatching. I could see nothing, no veins, no shaded mass, nothing just light clear yellow all the way through. I even picked them up with the light behind it and turned them. I swore there was nothing in them and they weren't going to hatch. I was wrong.

Don't get bummed if you don't see anything.

As a side note I have an older book that have incubation temps for panthers at 82 with durations of 150-320 days.
 
Thank you Fluxlizard and Jo Jackson. That's some pretty interesting knowledge there. From the threads I've read, it seemed that the eggs were durable, but that's amazing to hear about eggs hatching even after being dropped/turned/etc. I have been under the impression that eggs where extremely delicate. It's good to hear these stories and makes me feel a little bit better about my situation.

Thanks pssh for the marking idea. :)
 
As fluxlizard said late in devlopment you probably won't see anything.

I candled some panther eggs, a week before hatching. I could see nothing, no veins, no shaded mass, nothing just light clear yellow all the way through. I even picked them up with the light behind it and turned them. I swore there was nothing in them and they weren't going to hatch. I was wrong.

Don't get bummed if you don't see anything.

As a side note I have an older book that have incubation temps for panthers at 82 with durations of 150-320 days.

I just wanted to see if anyone else experienced what Scott has when candling eggs?

My eggs look healthy, large, and white. They are on the 6.5 month mark. When I candle them, I mainly see the light yellow throughout...no veins..no shadows. This is also the same case with a clutch that is 5.5 months old and still looking healthy and strong.

Thanks for any replies.
 
I have candled my eggs recently. Initially when during diapause the eggs were light yellow through out no veins.

After a month and a half the show a dark patch at the bottom of the egg and veins around the eggs.

I also have some eggs going 5 month+ and when you candle it is very hard to see anything just like you mentioned mainly yellow however usually if you look around there will be one area on the bottom that will be a slightly darker patch especially if you candle from the top down.

Hope that helps?

Cheers

nam
 
Hey thanks a lot for the reply. I've been watching tons of videos on egg candling. There isn't much on chameleons, but there's a lot on geckos. Most of the videos say that if the egg is yellow, it is no good. These eggs have a yellow hue, but they all look visually great. They all look like you would think a fertile egg would look like. I guess it's possible that they are still in diapause, but at six months??

Do you remember what month you looked at your eggs and they had that yellow hue?

I do see at least 2 eggs in my 6 month clutch that have veins, but the others just have that yellow color inside. I just think it would be really strange to have 2 out of 25 eggs to be fertile and the others not.
 
Sorry mate, cant remember.

I think from memory.. the very yellow hue is no good but lighter yellow is still good then once development begins the whole colour changes more pinky or darker as more blood vessels develop, but then again like fluxlizard says sometimes you may not see anything.

This could be due to a lot of factors such as stage of development, and brightness of the light source etc.

An embryo is likely to remain pink and translucent to the very last stages of development right before hatching when the skin actually takes on some pigmentation and as for the light source if you put a bright light on the end of your finger you can still see the light pass through and light up your finger tip.

Consider a chameleon embryo the light would still past right through it except dense areas may cause some shading.

If the eggs look good thats a good sign I would just keep cooking!
 
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