I had a thermostat malfunction with my incubator about 3 weeks into incubation- it just blew a fuse and stopped letting heat in. I broke the fuse holder trying to fix it.
I decided (since it was a small clutch of Kayuadi eggs- my female slugged out most of the clutch of 54 eggs) to try a very simple incubator- covered large rubbermaid tub with a little standing water on the bottom with an uncovered inner plastic tub with fairly wet (when clumped into a snowball i could just wring out some free water) 4 inch deep vermiculite substrate with eggs inside. I twicw weekly replaced a few sheets of dry newspaper over the eggs to keep condensate from driping on them. I put the tub on top of two 1/4 inch rods to keep it just above a non thermostated or dimmed 12 inch wide flexwatt heat tape under the tub.
The ambient room temp was 71- 87F and the high low remote temperatre probe wedged betwen the eggs ranged from 82F to 97F (for short periods of time). If it got down to 70F in the room, and the eggs were in the low 80s, I boosted ambient room temps with back up room heater. Average temps probably 85/6F.
Last three clutches incubated at 90F hatched in 68 days. Day 80 came with this clutch and i figured low probability of hatch this time but the eggs still looked good and candled with good blood vessels so i just tried to ignore the clutch and wait for the eggs to start to turn funky.
Day 90 and all the fertile eggs had hatched and very plump healthy babies awaited.
anyone else observe 90 day incubation periods?
Winslow
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