Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok i woke up this morning, and i had 4 eggs in the bottom of my enclosure.

i hurriedly set up my incubator ( the female wasnt showing any extremely visible signs of being gravid, and i was going to go with maternal incubation.)

because i was planning on maternal incubation, i didnt do as much research on artificial incubation as i probably should have...so i just want to check that my conditions are rignt.

temp is set at 31 degrees celcius, 88 ferenheit , and humidity will be between 75 and 100 %

they are burried 1/3 in vermiculite that clumps but doesnt drip.

they are in a small rubbermaid food storage contaier. i will be leaving the lid loose to allow the eggs to breath.

the bottom of my styrofoam box incubator is covered with very wet vermiculite, to try to bring up my humidity baseline (ambient humidity is about 35%)

is there anything i am doing wrong, of i am missing, any help is appreciated

I would jack the temp up just a little to 89-90, It probably will not hurt your eggs to be at 88 but they will probably take longer to hatch. Everything else you stated seems ok. what king of incubator are you using? Thanks David

thanks ill do that, i am useing a homemade incubator, i wasnt expecting eggs so soon, and i was planning on maternal incubation,so iwasnt really prepaired. i built a quick incubator out of a styrofoam box, and a 11 x 11 flexwatt strip, ill have to put a better one together, for now ill make do. temp and humidity are stable at 89deg, and 80%

I would leave them at 88. Better take to take an extra day or two than to end up with deformed or dead snakes. Also 88 gives you thermometer a few degrees in each direction to be 'off'

good luck
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

One degree higher than 88 is not gonna deform any of the babies, I personally know that the eggs can be hatched at way higher temps than 90. I had a clutch last year that went way above the 89-92 range, I had a problem with my incubator last season, and when I noticed it and checked my eggs with a temp gun the lowest egg temperature was 93 and the highest egg temperature was 95 degrees, and it was a 12 egg clutch, well they all hatched out just fine, I was scared as crap that I would have deformed snakes but they were all 100%. So I know for a fact that they can get a few degrees high and still be fine. I also had several other clutches in my incubator at the same time and none of the other babies were deformed. I wouldn't try that again but nothing happend when my temps did get messed up. Thanks David

Here is that clutch... they hatched in 52 days