I am thinking of letting my leos breed. Since that would require I get some sort of incubator I was looking around. First I was thinking of getting one of those inexpensive hovabators. After doing some research I was hearing those are ok but some people have problems because they require a lot of maintainance to maintain humidity and some units just getting too hot. I kept looking around and saw some people just make them out of Igloo coolers or out of Mini Refrigerators full size refirgerators. I thought to myself I have an extra Mini-Fridge and a couple extra large Igloo coolers I dont use much. Since I am not looking to spend $500 or $750 on a fancy incubator I thought since I have a extra mini fridge or igloo cooler for the same or close to amount as buying a hovabator and haveing it shiped to me I could make one out of one of those. I have seen basicaly 2 types, 1 where you use a heat source and heat the air and one where you use a large or several pans of water and heat the water then have racks above the pans for your egg boxes. I guess the type you use is more based on the requirements of your eggs. Here is where my questions come in.

On finding instructions on makeing these when I see the instructions for makeing one out of a mini fridge I get multiple opinions. First is useing heat tape or heat lamps. From what I can tell heat tape is better than useing heat lamps because of something about the light bothers the lizards when they hatch.

Here is my problem. I see one instruction that says heat rises so you want to put the majority of your flexwatt or heat rope on the bottom mabie a little going up the sides but 80-90% on the bottom. Another instructions will say get some heat rope or flexwatt and plaster it all over the inside bottom and all sides of the walls all the way to the top basicaly covering the entire thing except the roof. A third instructions says get a foot long 11" wide strip of flexwatt and put half on the top and half on the back wall. Wich one is correct?

I was thinking this would be a better choice and easier to maintain temps and humidity for the amount of money since I already have a mini fridge I could use.

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