iHerp Answers: Pipping, blood vessels, and full term egg death

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Pipping, blood vessels, and full term egg death

Posted By:

aaron

So I was talking to a friend today, about the classic "to pip or not to pip" question, and I was relating that the first time that I pipped an egg, I freaked out because blood started coming out, and I thought i wacked a tail or gouged an eye.

I hit a vessle, there were no complications, and the animal was just fine.

Which of course, gets me overanalytically thinking, what exactly happens inside the egg when you rupture a vessle?

I've prematurely pipped a number of eggs, and really haven't had any complications that I know of, but breaking that vessle can't be good. And with so many chondros going full term and dying in the egg, I wonder if there's some sort of heart attack, blood flow, oxygen delivery, when can/do the lungs kick in with respect to breathing, etc etc etc.

Blame part of this on my ignorance of egg development and what's going on inside, as well as my inability to remember 10th grade bio, which probably would have only skimmed this surface.


Points:	150
Topics:	Egg Laying , Pipping
Tags:	Death, Eggs, Neonate, Pipping
Administrative:	Show/Hide

Member Comment

7/9/2008 1:49:04 PM

Kaiyudsai

I remember reading about some anatomical feature in the umbilicus that prevets bleeding out in this way....mammalian blood vessels that attach to the placenta branching out from the umbilicus are commonly broken due to movement of the fetus, and they react to the breakage by shrivelling up to aid in coagulation; it seems that that would probably be similar in most vertebrates.......I know alot of breeders pip especially when breeding morph because the inbreeding will cause more babies to be born without an egg tooth......If one pips then I would think it would be safe to slit the rest of the clutch

Member Comment

7/9/2008 9:59:37 PM

CHUNK

I personaly dont slit the eggs until I see the windows or they have started to pip themselves. I take a small flashlight place it against the egg and check to see where everything is at then I find a soft spot and make a pinch in the egg and cut. This is the only way i have done it and was tought to do it. I havent personaly hit any vessels or anything but its all the risk we take.

Member Comment

7/11/2008 7:52:46 AM

MegF

I don't pip...ever. The only time I open an egg is if all the rest have hatched and I want to see why that one didn't. Every single egg that never pipped was because the animal was too deformed to live. There were no vessels to hit, because by that time, the animal was no longer alive and presumably, the egg would go bad at some point.

Author Comment

7/11/2008 9:24:02 AM

aaron

This is not so much "to pip or not," I'm more looking for the mechanics of what is going on, and what the physical damage is, if any. And if it potentially relates to issues with the neos or not.

Assisted Answer

7/11/2008 12:16:44 PM

Blueisola

I am by no means an expert on egg physiology, but from my basic understanding of how the whole kit-and-kaboodle of the egg mechanics works, the red blood vessels webbing out around the penumbra of the neonate is largely its source of oxygen, and hence why the finally get to the point where they hopefully pip the egg so they can start taking in O2 on their own as the blood vessels finally 'dry up'. I think at the point that one is manually pipping (perhaps on a given day or after the first ones have pipped on their own) there is little detriment to the neonate if a few vessels are snipped in the process of that initial cut. I manually pipped quite a few of my eggs this year, and as Meg said, the only babies I lost were from deformities or under developed babies.

Member Comment

7/11/2008 2:28:36 PM

Kaiyudsai

Well put Blueisola.....that's what I was getting at.......

Accepted Answer

8/31/2008 1:51:07 PM

John Romano

Breaking the blood vessels when pipping an egg is like nicking a nerve during an autopsy......it doesn't matter. Once you pip the egg you have essentially killed the egg. The evolutionary purpose of the egg was to provide an aquatic environment for the embryo to develop in when no aquatic environment is around. Because the blood vessels are on the inside of the shell the only way to nick them is if you have opened the egg, thus destroying the little embryo-friendly environment the egg provided. When you pip that egg it is essentially the same thing as the egg hatching except the slit came from the outside. Once the egg is opened from any direction chemical cues go off and it tells the embryo it's time to start using those lungs. You can liken this to natural child birth, to a C-section. We don't tell the baby to start breathing, it knows because the amniotic sac was broken and the fluid drained out, so the organism is forced to take air in. So Aaron, it doesn't matter if you nick, cleave, hack, or rip a blood vessel when piping, at that point you ended their career anyway so it doesn't matter. As for full term deaths? Well Darwin said it best "More offspring will be produced than will survive." Sometimes nature just has an "abort mission" call. Believe it or not we as multicellular organisms have a program to efficiently self destruct cells......google apoptosis and you will be amazed.

Member Comment

8/31/2008 4:23:21 PM

MegF

Well said John!

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