Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I REALLY APPRECIATE THE HELP! I'M LOOKING FOR A HIGH QUALITY, DEFENDABLE INCUBATOR, AS IVE RUN OUT OF INCUBATOR SPACE! ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED! STAN AT THE SNAKE LAB

(PS- I PURCHASED A BIG APPLE INCUBATOR LAST YEAR, AND COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE DISAPPOINTED.)

Stan, I wish I could help you out. Outside of building your own, I haven't seen any that would satisfy someone looking for a SERIOUS incubator for large production. I have looked over some of the Lyons incubators that are several hundred dollars only to realize they used the same waffle type thermostats found in 40 dollar hovabators. I was extremely surprised when I noticed it. It seems most incubators are just dressed up hovabators from what I've seen. Good luck on your search.

Paul

I know that you want to buy a professionally built incubator, but take my word for this...its quite easy and inexpensive to make a large high quality incubator.

I have never bred ball's but I have bred other species with this type of set up very successfuly.

get any kind of large aquarium like tank (im going to use a 40 gallon in this explination)

-cover the glass with double thickness black paper
-buy roughy 3 to 4 TEN GALLON sized heat pads
-place the heat pads at each corner of the tank
-put roughly 1.5 inches of substrate on the bottom of the housing
-place the eggs about 2 inches away from the sides of the tank (make sure they dont touch the glass)
-This will make the temp inside about 87-90 degrees (should be optimum for balls i believe)
-Place anything on the top of the tank to keep it nice and dark, and make sure its tight fitting (not air tight) so that heat does not dissapate

just an idea to try..has always worked well for me

Stan,
From what I can gather, it seems to be that the best and most inexpensive way to build a reliable incubator is to build your own. There's some links below that have great how-to pages and the first link that shows an incubator made from a cooler is my favorite. Not sure if the pictures are showing up or if it's my computer. But this idea seems great to me...I'll be building one here shortly since my hovabator is full!

www.moreliapythons.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1410

members.aol.com/TheWyvernsLair/incubator.html

www.raintreeherp.com/incubate.htm

www.froggieb.com/ReptileMisc.html#incubat

Hope that helps!

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Michael

The first incubator shows bottles of water being placed over "hot" wires. If any water were to spill, you could have a serious problem - far worse than dead eggs.
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Jay A. Martin

I used one of the "professional" incubators this year, it cost $480 and used 2 waffle thermostats. It cooked 3 clutches of eggs. After working fine for about a month the temp spiked up to 125. So looks like I will be going back to homemade. Craig

Stan,

I don't produce enough eggs to worry about a commercial incubator. I did see some interesting ones at the last Daytona show, however, they were expensive. I have used Hovabators without incident and will continue to do so until, probably next year. If all goes well, I'll have too many clutches for what I have.

You might want to do a search on the net to see what you can find.
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Jay A. Martin

how many eggs does your hovabator hold?
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0.1 Leos
1.1 Corn snakes (1 Lav & 1 Ghost)
0.1 Banan California King
0.0.1 Childrens python
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow boa
1.0 Rat (as pet not food)
1.2 Ball pythons (1pastel 2 normals)
"whats with you and all those dang reptiles?"

I can comfortably fit 20 eggs.
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Jay A. Martin

np
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0.1 Leos
1.1 Corn snakes (1 Lav & 1 Ghost)
0.1 Banan California King
0.0.1 Childrens python
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow boa
1.0 Rat (as pet not food)
1.2 Ball pythons (1pastel 2 normals)
"whats with you and all those dang reptiles?"

This Incubator is 72” x 36” x 36” made out of ¾” oak plywood and a tempered glass top for easy viewing. The inside is lined with Styrofoam and for heat retention and I’m using light bulbs as you can see for heat. I also have a fan to circulate the air and I’m using a Helix Thermostat to control the inside temperature.

np,
Steve


www.serpentsden.com

This Incubator is 72” x 36” x 36” made out of ¾” oak plywood and a tempered glass top for easy viewing. The inside is lined with Styrofoam and for heat retention and I’m using light bulbs as you can see for heat. I also have a fan to circulate the air and I’m using a Helix Thermostat to control the inside temperature.

np,
Steve


www.serpentsden.com

I use the same kind of thing with an old 6 foot Cagemaster melamine cage. Remember them? lol
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Mark Kennedy Reptiles