Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if anyone uses this method of incubation with their smaller pythons. If so, what do you do to prepare the cage? How warm should the laying box be?

if anyone has ever even tried it once I would like to here about it.

In the past I have always used incubators for all of my eggs. No choice really, most herps don't take care of them for you. This year i am living in a small apartment and I would rather avoid setting up an incubator if I can. I have to say, I am also extremely curious to see the proccess in action.

Okay, I've done a bit of this with success, so though I'm not great with explanations here goes...

I find that a couple of the main reasons that maternal incubation isn't done is that females don't feed for longer while incubating (but this can vary greatly depending on the snake), and then of course it's just not as easy to control the two main variables - temperature and humidity.

As far as temperature goes, keep the temps on the low end of the necessary incubation temps. The female can adjust her body to increase the temperature around her eggs, but there's nothing she can really do to decrease it. Where humidity is concerned just be certain that your not at 100%. Again, the female can help to adjust the levels reaching the eggs, but not of they're oversaturated. How frequent the spraying depends entirely on how you've got the cages set up anyway. With my racks I spray daily. Every now and again check the eggs, and if they are dimpling increase the spritzing.

I've only done this with ball pythons, and I haven't had any problems.

I have thought about letting my Womas do the work but feel guilty after they lay and reveal just how skinny they are. Also, for me and my Womas, the risk to the investment of time, energy, and resources is just not worth the husbandry observation IMO. Let the incubator do the work and let the female recoup some body fat for next year...

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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

>>I was wondering if anyone uses this method of incubation with their smaller pythons. If so, what do you do to prepare the cage? How warm should the laying box be?

Another thought besides the obvious that the mom takes that much longer off food and controlling the environment is ...
I had a BP just abandon her clutch about half way along. Then I had to rearrange and scramble along to find room in the incubator anyway.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

When I let the females incubate the following breeding season some of them would not breed and skip a season. Incubating in a incubator is better because you can control temp and humidity, and hatching outcome seems to be higher.