Frank,
I went with maternal incubation. The female showed all the classic signs of being receptive, ovulating and going through a pre-lay shed. I placed a nest-box in her cage after the shed and she entered a few days later. She laid her eggs on the morning of March 26 and seemed to coil around them nicely. I have a nice incubator tha I built out of a cooler and I fired it up just in case. But, the momma was doing so well, I decided to let her go at it on her own. During incubation I kept the nest box completely dry. Humidity was kept up in the cage by placing damp hand towels under the heat panel. I replaced these as they dried out. i didn't spray the cage down during this time. The mom was so tightly coiled around the eggs, I had no idea how many there were. On day 49, she started to loosen her coils. I think she probably felt something happening inside of the eggs. On day 50, the babies started to hatch. i noticed the first one had made it out of the egg but then died just inside the nest box. I decided right there to pull the female off of the eggs and them finish in the incubator. Once I saw that there were two more eggs pipped, I went ahead and pipped the rest of them. I set them up in rubbermaid shoebox with damp papertowel for substrate. i place the pile of eggs on a deli cup lid inside the box and set it in the incubator. By the evening of Day 50, most heads were out. It's now day 52 and all of the babies are fully emerged and perching quietly.
During the incubation process I monitored the inside of the nest box and tried to keep an ambient temperature of 86°. I think the mother generated any additional heat by herself.
Here's a couple more pics
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Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com
