Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My rodent suppliers had an incubator go bad...it got stuck in the "on" position and the alarm failed. It kicked the heat of the snake "shed" up to 160 degrees. Just got back from taking pics of the tragedy to help them with insurance and tax stuff. They lost all but 1 snake in the accidental oven... about 30 odd snakes.

The worst thing in my mind was to see the Eastern Indigo female they had gotten from me 3 years ago and the male they just picked up from me had died also. the female had just reached breeding age.

They had 1 survivor. Sitting in a cage between 2 snakes that litterally had cooked was a Ball Python, completely fine, completely normal. Go figure.

Anyway, Just a sad story.

Doug T

Terrible.

Like you said...especially the indigos.

You know, this is the exact reason I don't, nor have I ever, used incubators / t-stats...etc I don't trust them to not malfunction.

I have a little room that I can keep very close to the right temps for incubation of eggs, and I have to look at it every day ...make adjustments when needed, I can avoid tragedy.

i stay away from anything that plugs in! i employ controlled ambient air in my snake room and hatch all my eggs in plastic boxes on a high shelf in my laundry room. i do not want to come home one day and see firetrucks in front of my house! i hear this story all too often! all these lamps, lights, incubators, heat pads, hot rocks, thermostats, etc, etc. are just bs. way too dangerous and just completely unnecessary......john cherry of cherryville farms lost over 650 snakes this spring [over 300 gravid females] due to a malfunctioning thermostat in an air conditioner!!! another guy burnt half his house down [and lost everything] because he had so much wiring and crap in a closet where he kept his animals. such a sad, sad waste.....

Agreed, a great loss. So most of you out there use temp controlled rooms vice incubators? Bear with me I'm still learning. How's about those animals that need differing incubation temps? Different rooms, or does it not make much of a difference so long as you don't exceed the high end?

Regards,
J.

sometimes i gota move stuff around [as in higher] but big deal! no sticker shock from the electric co. and i've noticed that the animals adjust if necessary....esp. the ones that were born here. safety first.......

N/P

I can't speak for anyone but me though...there are a lot of different folks having success in different ways.

I have a small sectioned off area in my snake room...for incubation.

I use an electric heater (the oil heat type...they don't "blow" heat, just slowly generate it). It never goes off...but it never produces enough heat that it continues to build up.

I have a rack system from floor to ceiling with rubbermaids.
So...I experiment with thermometors long before the snakes lay the eggs. I put a thermometer in various rubbermaids from floor to ceiling. I'll adjust the heater strength until the lower rubbermaids are about 76-78 and the highest levels are about 80-82. Indigo eggs go on the lower levels...

I alternate rubbermaids every few days (ie the containers of indigo eggs that were at 76 for a few days go to 78...and vice versa)

Spilotes eggs and other colubrids go to the top.

As the weather changes...I may get flucuations of a few degrees either way from day to day, but it's gradual enough that I can make the adjustments.

Once in a while I may have a container of indigos eggs dip to 74 or go as high as 80...but I catch it within a day.

And I never have to really worry about a total breakdown and cooking the eggs. It's more high maintenence than using an incubator, but since I try to check the eggs daily anyway, it's not really a big deal.

Sounds high maintenance but anything worth doing is worth doing right. That's kinda what I had in mind after I realized that incubators were not the end all be all they seem to be. So long as one is able to monitor at least daily (or more often) adjustments can be made. Intensive, but at the same time safer.

Thanx,
J.

I use an electric heater (the oil heat type...they don't "blow" heat, just slowly generate it). It never goes off...but it never produces enough heat that it continues to build up.

I know someone who lost a large part of his snake collection to one of those oil heaters. It overheated (during the winter when it was on low!) and killed every snake in his snake room that was higher than 2 feet from the floor.

I would use a back up thermostat with that heater, just in case.
-----
Chris Harrison

...he was beginning to realize he was the creature of a god that appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers - W. Somerset Maugham

I control each cage individually with either Helix or baseboard thermostats, and 50-65 watt bulbs as the heat source. Doing this has good points and bad points.

Good: If a thermostat malfunctions, you aren't going to bake an entire room.

Bad: You end up needing more wires and electricity running everywhere increasing the risk of fire. You also run an increased risk for loss of individuals.

I have an incubator that I incubate eggs in. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it gets cool enough after the eggs are dropped, for the first 2 months, that I have to use a heated incubator. If I heated ambiently, it would just be one more thing to plug in and poetentially fail, so I might as well use the device that was made for that.

No system is perfect, but there are safety devices out there to back things up that can help. My friends, who kept their snakes in a shed, outside their house, should have had a thermocouple or even thermostat shutoff to keep their critters from being cooked. Because they kept their snakes outside their main living quarters, they wouldn't have noticed something wrong until they went out of their way to look. I'm sure most of us keep their critters inside their house, walking past the snake room many times, you're more likely to notice something wrong.

I'm having my electrician run more power to my snake room. I'll be sure to make it clear I need GFE outlets and a thermocouple or thermostat that can shut the power OFF in the room.

There have been 2 other folks locally that have had catastrophic overheating of their collections over the years. I never saw the results of those. Both were due to failure of room heater sticking in the ON position and NO backup shutoff.

Just more stuff to digest.

Doug T

jeff, concerning lower incubation temps.....if your eggs get a little cool sometimes [as mine did this cold and rainy spring] the only effect will be a slightly longer hatch time. my cribo eggs took 117 days this year. that's about 10 days longer than normal but the hatch rate was still 100%.....24 for 24. i did lose some turtle eggs this summer but i think those were infertile anyway. anyway.....my point being that the hatch rate for eggs that exceed optimum temps is closer to 0% combined w/ birth defects. it does take a little longer [leaving them on a shelf] but that is fine w/ me and i never worry about what may go wrong because nothing can.

I read the account of John cherrys huge loss. I cant even fathom what it it is like to have a collection the size that he did, with the quality therein and loseing most if not all of it due to malfunctioning equipment. I HAVE used incubators, a wide variety of them, from Lyons incubators to Hovabators(Dont laugh, the best hatch rate I ever had came from a simple no circulation-air model Hovabator, mebbe it was luck or gods blessing,I dunno)
I have ALWAYS wondered however if I would come home to a fried house or a burned up snake room. As you know I dont have the best luck,so I do think that the people(Dean) that mentioned heating the entire room versus heating a cage displayed wisdom. This is the same type of Wisdom that causes friends of mine to ALWAYS have a spare set of keys for their car in a magnetized container under the front bumper of their car, versus paying a locksmith $$$ to come out and make new keys(My prehistoric method) So, Deans method seems prudent, I have never used it, I have always used the "Ill worry about my house burning down when I get home method" Works for me. I know, one day I'll EAT my words.Hope I have milk to wash them down with...

*Cheers*

Fred Albury
Aztec Reptiles

I always incubate my eggs in a sterilite shoebox with vermiculte/water medium on a shelf in my snake room. They stay right around 79 to 80 f. and that seems to work just fine. They may take a little longer to hatch but it doesn't seem to be a problem.

Thanks all,

Kinda supports what I thought the answer would be. "May take longer, but they'll never hatch if you cook 'em". The different techniques seem to all have their pro's and con's. Seems to be whatever fits best to achieve the desired temp/humidity range given the breeders locale and acceptable level of risk.

Thanks again,
J.