Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I want to breed african house snakes but want to know how to incubate eggs I know one idea but want a pic of it and how to properly keep temperature and how you do it. The idea I have is the eggs in a deli container with vermiculite(damp squeezed out)at the bottom and that in a show box with ater at the bottom and that at a temperatur of 75 to 85 degrees f. you open this a few times a week and if tehy are "sweating" ket it air and if they are drying or the vermiculite is mist it. Could you tell me what I would have to adjust and post a pic thanks josh

I've never had a house snake, but I've hatched a fair number of North American colubrids, which are probably similar. I can't post a picture because I have never taken a shot of my incubation setup. Doing a google search for "snakes" and "incubator" produces many hits. Mine is simple -- a wooden box (no windows) with a chicken egg thermostat. The heating tape I used isn't available any more, but I expect a drugstore heating pad or light bulbs would make an acceptable replacement.

Incubation Materials: plastic shoebox (without top), plastic sweater box (~16 x 12 x 8 inches) with top, Vermiculite (the grade approximately equivalent to coarse sand in grain size), water.

I weigh out enough Vermiculite to 3/4 fill the plastic shoebox (6 ounces, as I recall), added an equal weight of water to the Vermiculite (6 fluid ounces of water), and mixed well. I can't squeeze the Vermiculite dry because my hands do not have enough strength. Besides, I do not trust the reproducability of the amount of water left after squeezing.

Eggs are buried in the Vermiculite with just the top of the top egg showing. The topless shoe box goes inside the sweater box, which acts as the humidity chamber.

I'd keep house snake eggs much closer to 85 F than to 75 F.

Hope this helps.

Paul Hollander

W/ ringneck snake eggs...

In this pic, I was using soil as the incubating medium, some people may not recommend it, I didn't use it for that long, the eggs were in this particular container for around a month when a ton of spider eggs hatched inside and I had to dump everything out.

I had 15 eggs total in the incubator, a waterbowl on one side, a thermometer in the middle, and moss covering half of the medium(which was either perlite or soil). Some eggs were on the soil/perlite, some were on the moss. A heating pad placed on medium was under the side where the waterbowl was, and it made the water evaporate. There were no holes or openings in the incubator, so evaporating water could not escape, making it nice and humid in the container.

I took off the lid once or twice a week to check on the condition of the eggs and let some fresh air in, maybe add some more water to the water bowl occasionally.

The incubator was a 20 qt. rubbermaid container, I usually use a different container every year....
Here's the pic...

Mike

Michael's Place

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