Gradual hatch

[BobS346]

It has been many years since I have hatched any chams, but I have a clutch of 36 Panther Cham eggs that have started hatching after 5 1/2 months. I have had 6 hatch so far, but only have 1 hatch on any given day, with one hatchling on day 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and yesterday on day 10. The eggs are all in one container, inside an incubator, with moistened vermiculite as incubation media. It has been almost 20 years since I hatched baby panthers, but I don't remember them coming spread out like this. I did have the occasional late hatching few eggs from a clutch, but don't recall ever having one each day, with skipped days. They are all healthy, eating, and drinking. Is this odd? Common? Any suggestions? Thanks for any input.

 

[BobS346]

And this morning I woke up to hatchling #7 on day 11.

 

[fluxlizard]

Not too odd no.

I've had clutches take over a month to hatch out to completion. Maybe a little unusual though.

My guess is that you might have your eggs spaced farther apart in your incubation containers than you did in the old days. Eggs closer together result in mass hatching. Eggs with a bit of space between result in spaced out hatch times. That at least was the theory 20 years ago. I used to space my eggs for fear of "mass hatching" effect, worried that some would hatch less ready than others. But now I have to wonder about the logic behind that- if a chemical trigger is getting them all to hatch close together, perhaps the same communication would be at work long before causing more synchronised development as well...