Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Having never bred any herps before, i was just wanting to find out what you all thought of the incubation process?

Obviously, if a person is a breeder, and is dealing with huge amounts of eggs, an incubator is preferred.

But if a person was just wanting to breed one pair of JCPs, do y'all think it's okay to allow her to incubate her own eggs?

What are the success rates of this compared to hatch rates in an incubator (as a general rule)?

I would just like to hear about any experiences with maternal incubation... i just think it's more naturall; it seems such a beautiful sight to see a mother wrapped around her eggs.

I have no actual experience with natural incubation, but here are my thoughts on it. When an animal gets put in an enclosure, you're limiting their choices for where the female decides is the ideal place to settle down and drop her eggs. She cant rightly say "It's a little toasty in here for my taste, could you crack a window please?"
So, I'd be apprehensive about where she drops her eggs and decides to settle on top of them. I guess if you have information about ideal incubation temperatures for the species though, and the cage is big enough, you could give her about a 5 degree gradient from one end to the other and let her choose her favorite spot. Overall, daily monitoring would be on MY list for maternal incubation, whereas in an incubator setup I'd only wanna check on the eggs every 3-4 days.
Just some brainstorming from me, not actual advice.......
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Tom
TCJ Herps
"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

>>Having never bred any herps before, i was just wanting to find out what you all thought of the incubation process?
>>
>>Obviously, if a person is a breeder, and is dealing with huge amounts of eggs, an incubator is preferred.
>>
>>But if a person was just wanting to breed one pair of JCPs, do y'all think it's okay to allow her to incubate her own eggs?
>>
>>What are the success rates of this compared to hatch rates in an incubator (as a general rule)?
>>
>>I would just like to hear about any experiences with maternal incubation... i just think it's more naturall; it seems such a beautiful sight to see a mother wrapped around her eggs.

Obviously one pro is not needing an incubator....sort of. I thought about it with both my BPs and my Children's. The BP abandoned her eggs for a day, went back, then left them for good. So I needed the incubator anyway.
The CP, I never left her with her clutches because she puts a lot into the eggs and I like to get her fed and back up in weight faster.
With mom on the eggs the more often you check the eggs the more stress you create for her. The incubator does not stress out. And I think it is harder to tweak temp and humidity with mom there. You had better have all that perfect ahead of time.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron