Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have two other nice photos, but was not able to upload them....

Thanks Robert -

Can you describe the incubation set up? Specifically, does the container have airholes, do you wet the perlite, do you monitor the temp, humidity? What temp/humidity do you shoot for?

Do you handle the egs to candle them?

Joe

Hi,

I use dry perlite and weigh out 2:1 perlite to water. I don't candle. There are tiny air holes in the top region of the box. I check the temperature in the beginning, and then every week or two. I usually move the egg boxes aroung the python room seeking 82 degrees, but this time I put the box into a warm python cage and just left it there. It started out at 82, but drifted down to 80.

Not all the eggs hatch. This clutch had 10 eggs, plus 1 slug that was discarded immediately. One of the eggs went bad part way through incubation. I suspect it was never fertile, but it could also be a fault in my incubation set up. No one knows the proper way to incubate indigo eggs.

Dean has the best shot at learning how they are incubated in nature because he is doing field studies on them. If his group could find a female depositing eggs, we could get some information on temperature, humidity, substrate and other factors.
Link

Congratulations, Robert. The adults mated well. Fertile eggs arrived. Embryos didn't die during incubation. Hatchlings came out without kinks. May they feed out of the gate on f/t pinks! Winter in New England sucks and it was heartening to hear of your early clutch back in February. There's a lusty chorus of spring peepers every night now. Heard first pickerel frogs snoring last night.

I was just thinking these baby indigos would like your spring peepers....