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I am so incredibly against that first school of thought. In my opinion, it takes a lot of energy for babies to come out of an egg, and some just get tired. They simply cannot pip on their own. I feel it is up to the keeper to help in any way possible. How in the world, after putting your female though the stress of breeding and egg laying, and in some cases, maternal incubation, could you possibly let neonates die because they simply need a helping hand?

Many years ago, an experienced breeder told me he did not manually pip, and he ended up with full term, dead in egg babies, and he could see marks on the inside of the egg where the Chondro tried to pip on it's own and was not successful.

The whole "it isn't natural to manually pip" is a crock to me. Keeping these animals in cages, feeding them things they don't eat in the wild, and artificially incubating are not natural occurances either, but we do them.

I'd like to see actual proof that manual pipping makes snakes genetically weak. If that were the case, there would be a lot less Chondros in the world. Some are also of the opinion that if a baby does not eat frozen thawed pinks, it is too bad and they are going to die, because they must be "weak" animals.

These wonderful creatures deserve every chance at life, and I firmly believe that we, as keepers, are responsible for providing that chance. i know that some won't make it, despite our best efforts, and it seems obvious that those are the weak ones, and there is something going on with them that prevents them from thriving.

Btw..I don't feel this way about just Chondros. It makes no difference if they are from the most desirable bloodline Chondros, or a simple Corn Snake. They all deserve whatever we can do to help them thrive.

Kim