Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I made an incubator out of a 30 gallon cooler for my RES and Painted turtle eggs. It has a few inches of water heated to 86 degrees with an aquarium heater. I've read online that the eggs will require 90 to 100% humidity to succsefully hatch but the best i can get is around 80%. The eggs are in a mixture of peat and perlite and seem to be doing well though they are not very old yet. Is 80% enough to hatch them? If not how can i raise the humidity?
Thanx.

I think 80% should be fine. Just watch out for the eggs "dimpling". If this happens just mist around the egdes of the container that is filled with the media (perlite/verm). Also, 86 is pretty hot. You will get mostly males with that temp. For females incubate at about 78-80 and for a mix about 82, then anything higher than that will mostly be males.
Chris
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Hey whats up, I'm Chris and I currently have 0.1 Midland Painted, 1.0 Western Painted, 0.0.1 RES, 1.0 Bearded Dragon

Thanks Chris...I'll lower the temp a bit.
Tim

NP
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Hey whats up, I'm Chris and I currently have 0.1 Midland Painted, 1.0 Western Painted, 0.0.1 RES, 1.0 Bearded Dragon

>>I made an incubator out of a 30 gallon cooler for my RES and Painted turtle eggs. It has a few inches of water heated to 86 degrees with an aquarium heater. I've read online that the eggs will require 90 to 100% humidity to succsefully hatch but the best i can get is around 80%. The eggs are in a mixture of peat and perlite and seem to be doing well though they are not very old yet. Is 80% enough to hatch them? If not how can i raise the humidity?
>>Thanx.

80% humidity is fine. The recommended range for most turtle eggs is 70-80% humidity. There are some exceptions(ie Florida Box requiring 90%). 86F has the potential of frying the embryo at that temperature. If you do hatch out any eggs at that temperature, they will all be females. Males are produced at the lower end of the scale, with females being produced at the higher temperatures.

A good temperature for incubation is 80-82F.

I incubate all my turtle eggs at 81F right now.
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Jeff H.
http://www.jandsherps.com
http://www.pareptile.org

Thanx for the help!! It's hard to find any decent help when searching for incubation info..Too much contrasting info.
I got the temp down between 80 and 82. Can i have hurt any of the eggs? They were at those temps(85-86) for the first five or so days in the incubator...they still look good? or is it still too early to tell?
Thank you!
Tim