Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Jeremy Thompson
Captive Born Investments inc.

That is amazing! It looks just like a human slit it with a scalpel. What is going to come out of this egg?
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Cool!

Interesting incubation setup. I usually set my eggs directly on top of the perlite. What does the grate help with?

LOL! Yea after they all pip i make sure I cut large openings so that there is no chance of them getting stuck... that has happened to me before. It also seems to prevent them from leaving the egg prematurely without absorbing the yolk. Why? I don't know but the only ones this year that have vacated their egg without their yolks have been ones that hatched while I was asleep, that were not "slit assisted"

And I use the drop down celing grate to help prevent the growth of fungi on the eggs and the separation between the perlite and the eggs seems to help. It also helps keep the eggs doing well even when the perlite becomes too dry or starts off too damp. It mostly helps with those eggs that are laid with windows, not fully calcified. Those eggs always seem to go bad on me at some point through the process, but this year none have "knock on wood". The last reason is a play off of the "SIM Containers" that are catching on for incubation. It seems that more oxygen "potentially" can reach the egg, and at all points of the egg, even the bottom, and it results in larger, more fully developed hatchlings at the point where they pip. For me, it has meant that my incubation period has drastically gone down from 60ish days to the low 50s and even 40s. This snake I posted "pipping" was laid on 4/31/2011, so it's been around 49 days instead of 60 days. Yes, it is even more unnatural, but with some projects, every egg counts and if I can "save" one egg that is iffy from the start, I will try and do that.

sorry for the rant lol,

Jeremy Thompson
Captive Born Investments Inc.

Your success with the grate is very interesting. I may try that with some of my clutches to see how it works out. What ratio of water to perlite are you using? I typically do 1:1 by weight.

My typical hatch time for kings is usually about 50 days at 84-88 degrees. I've heard cooler temperatures result in bigger/healthier babies, so this year I'm incubating at 76-84, but of course that will lengthen the incubation period... hopefully they still hatch in under 60 days.

It seems to save those iffy eggs. The ones that are plump, pearly white, and perfect will do well no matter what its seems like. And I don't really measure but next time I set some up I will. I just do it so that it barely clumps, err on the side of more moisture than normal though because the eggs can only absorb airborn moisture. Some people using the sim container use just water and no substrate below their eggs. Goodluck and post your successes when they hatch. What are you working with this year?

Jeremy Thompson
Captive Born Investments Inc.

I picked up a plastic grate at the hardware store today, so I will try it out on some of my up and coming clutches.

This year is mostly locality stuff... Hillsborough County Sulfurs and normals, Pinellas, Levy, F1 Miami-Dade Brooksi and Floridana types, Taylor County Easterns, and misc other stuff. Having a good year overall production-wise, but a bad year for some of my favorite projects.

Having a good year overall production-wise, but a bad year for some of my favorite projects.

Just curious. What are your favorite projects.

I will want to get some of your Hillsboro co Sulfurs this year. i will email you.
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www.Bluerosy.com

It's the Pinellas locality animals and the Hillsborough Sulfurs. With the Pinellas I produced a good number of eggs, but the most important female threw a full clutch of slugs. I can try for a second clutch, but I haven't been able to get anything here to do that reliably.

One of my sulfur females ended up egg-bound with a bunch of infertile eggs. I got them all out, so she should work out next year. My other female produced only 5 good eggs. She's back with the male, and he has been showing interest in her, so we'll see. Just a frustrating project.

When you give a range of temps, are you controlling it? In others words, is the range you give the natural fluctuation within your incubator (if you're even using one), or do you manually alter it? Thanks!

If you were asking me, I live in FL and just have all my eggs on shelves in my snake room. Goes from 78-88 naturally and I do not control it.

Jeremy Thompson
Captive Born Investments Inc.

No I don't control the temps. I have them in a walk in closet that fluctuates with day time temperatures. The closet also houses our water heater, so it stays a little warmer than the rest of the house at night.