Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, first of all I live in Phoenix. I am beginning to think that a summer day in hell would be cooler than the temps here.

I'm incubating my apalachicola kingsnake eggs using the "shelf" method... you know, rubbermaid container, a few air holes, moist vermiculite, digital thermometer to keep track of temperatures. In the beginning it was great. I was incubating between 78 and 80 degrees. But now, even on the lowest shelf in the house, the temperatures have been peaking at 86 degrees in the incubation container. The eggs are originally due to hatch on the 26th of July, but I'm worried that the babies might get kinks or something. I don't know how I can cool the eggs off. The AC in our house has been working like mad to keep the house itself at 90 degrees (thermostats set to 78) but it only catches up in the wee hours of the night. by morning the eggs are at 78.

Other than just letting nature take its course are there any suggestions to how I can cool the eggs down a bit during the coolest time of the day? I have ice packs, but I don't want to do anything that will cause the eggs to suddenly die due to extreme temperature changes. I just haven't been able to come up with a good way of keeping the temperatures 4 degrees lower at a constant rate.

Any suggestions would be great. Just don't want to lose the babies due to temperature extremes.
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~Sasheena

Try placing an igloo cooler on the floor at night and leave it open. Then, in the morning place the incubator in the cooler and close it. During the warmest part of the day, check the temp. If it has creeped up past an acceptable temp, put a cardboard box over the incubator (so there's at least a 6" gap between the top of the incubator and the top of the box) in the cooler and place an icepack on top of the box, leaving the cooler open. Check the temp of the vermiculite periodically to make sure it doesn't get too cool. Most colubrids will do fine with a max daytime temp of 86 degrees F. or less and a night drop to no lower than about 76 degrees so I think you are probably still OK, but I wouldn't let it get any warmer than that.

Thanks I'll give that a try. The temperatures have been maxing at 86. We're going to reset our house thermostate to 86 in hopes that the AC unit can at least do that. If it can, I won't have any problems keeping the eggs at 84 or 82. Don't remember last summer getting this hot here! But the AC is a year older. Even though I wouldn't have raised the temps voluntarily, I'm sort of glad if it means they hatch out HEALTHY a few days earlier. Got the step kids here but they are due to fly back to their mom on day 60 of incubation. Would be nice if the eggs hatch before the kids return to mom.
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~Sasheena

>The AC in our house has been working like mad to keep the house itself at 90 degrees (thermostats set to 78) but it only catches up in the wee hours of the night. by morning the eggs are at 78.

That sounds like the conditions the eggs would have in the wild in Florida. IMHO, no reason to worry.

Paul Hollander