Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my female has layed 2 eggs and the first i took to a pet store they where willing to incubate. the second she layed a week later but i decided to incubate it myself my boyfriend and i looked up information online and researched a bit and we decided to incubate it in this manor:

Box Turtle Egg Incubator
Things you will need:

10 gallon tank
Plastic container with lid
Vermiculite
Submersible fish tank heater
Two bricks
Glass jar
Two thermometers
Heat lamp
Spray bottle
Heavy blanket
Steps you will follow:

1) Get a clean 10 gallon tank and place two bricks on the bottom of it. The space between the two bricks should be about the same as the plastic shoe box’s width.

2) Punch small holes on the bottom of the plastic container.

3) Fill the plastic container with vermiculite mixed with water deep enough to burry 3/4 of each egg. Make sure it is very moist. Leave some vermiculite under the eggs to prevent the eggs from touching the bottom of the container. (If you are using a plastic veggie drawer, line it with paper towels before putting the vermiculite in.)

4) Place a thermometer on each side of the plastic container. This makes sure that all sections in the container are the correct temperature.

5) Fill the glass jar up with water, making sure that the water is high enough that it covers the entire heater. Set the temperature on the heater to the 85 degrees. The size of the jar depends on the size of the heater.

6) Place the container on top of the two bricks.

7) Fill the tank with 1/4-1/2 in. of water.

8) Put the heavy blanket on top of the tank leaving one corner uncovered. This creates darkness and keeps the temperature consistant.

9) Place heat lamp on the outside of the tank facing one end.

10)Spray fine mist every day.

the only thing we did different was we used a rubermade tub due to not having a 10 galon tank and we only placed the blanket over half the tub that way it didnt catch the blanket on fire and we also had to use peatmoss because we couldnt find Vermiculite at our local walmart...

i am a bit concerned due to never trying to hatch an egg before and my boyfriend seems to think that im freaking out to much that i need to calm down im just scared we didnt do something right and i really am wanting to start breeding my turtles. so what im wondering is what everyone feels about the situation and if they feel we did things correctly enough that this egg will hatch.

I have not incubated eggs before, as I raise my boxies outside (I live in central TX). They lay outside and we just let nature take its course on incubating the eggs naturally.

Good luck with your setup.

Hmm, the directions are a bit confusing...what is the purpose of the jar? A buddy of mine keeps a ton of ball pythons, and he incubates them using a method similar to yours.
He fills a 10 gallon tank with water just deep enough to place a submersible water heater. He then places the bricks in and lays the plastic sweater boxes with vermiculite on the bricks. The lids are secured and a few holes are drilled on the sides along the top edge, just an inch from the top. That way, he can stack boxes. The tank is completely covered with acrylic. He vents it a few times a week. He plays with the temperature of the heater until he gets the desired temperature throughout.

Beware of keeping the eggs too wet. The substrate shouldn't be soggy. It shouldn't be completely dry, but more dry is better than too wet. The misting shouldn't be necessary. If you purchase a container of nightcrawlers, the average moisture content of substrate in one of those containers is a fair mark of what you are shooting for.

If you can spare $40, you may just want to get a Hovabator. They're handy dandy.

Agreed.
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