Egg incubator rack

Just to give you an idea of the workload I have right now. All of the shoeboxes with red dots on them are clutchs that have hatched and need to be set up or shipped out. There have already been a fair number of clutches removed from what you see on the front side. The back side has more of the same, and most of those have red dots on them as well. This rack was built specifically to hold egg incubating boxes and holds two full sides of them.

Notice MORE eggs behind the rack on top of the shelves? That's even more. What doesn't show in the photo is even more shoeboxes filled with baby snakes and eggs behind the camera and to the left of the egg rack.

I am sending out shipments as quickly as I can, but there are only so many I can pack per day. Plus the Daytona Beach Expo is coming up weekend after next and I do need to have some baby snakes to take to the show with me. So those need to be set up, fed, sexed and labeled beforehand.

And people wonder why I don't have any time to play.....



Oh yeah, sorry about the distortion in the photo. I had to use my 16mm fisheye lens to get this thing in the photo. For some reason, I couldn't get my 15mm rectilinear lense (for you photo geeks) to work with my Fuji digital camera body.

Oh My!!!!

That is a lot of work

I don't know how you do it. I would go crazy trying to keep up with all that.

I wish you well and hope all those babies don't overwhelm you

now that is something that I am really impressed with.

With this amount of snakes at home all the time I would definately go crazy!

Really nice looking room with snakes!!!!

whoa that's a LOT of snakes - that's what I want to have in the future andthat being within emmm let's think aobut 20years lol I think I have plenty of time but my main question is how od heat the lot. Im in the process of having a shed built but we're not going ot put snakes in there for a bit but when we do it'll be stacked vivs and i'm just wondering do you need the heat mat for like every tank or is there some kind of display casing oyu can get to heat em all up with one flow I know this is kinda the wrong place but as there's a pic of kinda what i'm semi-thinking it seemed an idea to ask now


Rach

And people wonder why I don't have any time to play.....

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Rich,

I would never make light of your work load, however for most of us ------This IS play!

See all of those red dots on the show boxes? They mean the clutch inside has hatched. Just about ALL of the shoeboxes on the other side had red dots on them as well. See those shoe boxes up on top of the rack behind the egg container rack? THEY are beginning to hatch as well....

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

holy shiznit!

wow.. but you do know that all of us are drooling right now and wondering what strange corn creations you have in those boxes that we'd like to get our hands on...

we are setting up a propane wall mounted heater in a friends garage for his collection... have you ever done that? in Florida I am sure that you don't need to heat nearly as much as we do in Wisconsin.... just curious because we are new at all this...

You should put a mirror in there so after your long days with the snakes you can look at yourself and remember that you don't have scales!!!

WOW...that is impressive!

i am in heaven just looking at all of them, wow
got pic of where all the adults and grow on are homed too

Sorry Rich, I cannot possibly feel sorry for you - I'm just far too jealous!

OMG thats a lot of snakes :| imagine putting each tub into a box lol lucky dip of snakes imagine all the nice patterns theyll all have

Just think one of your little babies could be in that rack.

Wow that's a lot of snakes!

It must be really hard to keep track of how many you have, what kind, which one did what. I guess that's what the stickers on the boxes do, but still.

Just curious, do you even bother naming them?

I realize it is your job, and a lot of other people here have a whole bunch of snakes too, but it kinda seems like having that many makes it into like a collection of objects than pets.

Do you manage to handle them all regularly? Because it seems like that would take FOREVER to get to each of them.

I'm going crazy just thinking about all those snakes!

I know this one is old but I just had to dig it back up because it's egg laying season again and this rack is so impressive. This is by far the biggest egg rack I've seen. :eek1:

You're right Vinny...that's one helluva rack! :grin01:


I'd just love some facts and figures, like for example, I buy a pag of vermiculite and it lasts me 2 seasons worth of incubation...how many kilos at a time does Rich buy?? :sidestep:

I buy my mice 200-500 at a time...how many thousands of pinkies will Rich go through in a season? :bang:

Rich,
Do the racks work better for you than actual enclosed incubators? Are they more work? I am looking for something "bigger" than an incubator, but I don't want to have to worry about spraying it down ten times a day.

Arcanefate said:

Rich,
Do the racks work better for you than actual enclosed incubators? Are they more work? I am looking for something "bigger" than an incubator, but I don't want to have to worry about spraying it down ten times a day.

Click to expand...

Obviously I am not rich, but I have an answer for you. I use Ziploc rectangle containers for egg hatching. I put wet spaghnam moss in there and cover the eggs with it. Then I place the containers in my rack up against the heat tape and let them site. I check on them about once ever 2 or 3 weeks to make sure they are moist and to see that the eggs aren't molded. I have found that if you don't put holes in the eggs boxes, you don't loose moisture, and when you open them back up, you replinish the oxygen. I haven't lost any eggs hatching them this way. My first hatching season, I did an incubator, and lost all but 1 egg.

Just my 2-cents.

Actually I started using shoeboxes with undrilled lids a couple of years ago and found out I had much better luck with eggs not drying out. With the number of clutches I have, I just don't find the time to check on them all in a timely fashion. Generally with ventilated boxes, the clutches at the top of the rack and on the outside edges were much more prone to getting more quickly dehydrated. With the undrilled lids, this problem went away. At best, I may check on a clutch of eggs by opening the lid MAYBE once in the 68 days it takes them to hatch. So airflow for oxygen replenishment doesn't appear to be a problem. Quite likely the oxygen needed is extracted from the moisture in the medium.

The rack system in the open room works just fine for me. An incubator just is not necessary as long as the temps in the room don't reach extremes.

Indeed a very nice rack.. Happen to have some recent pictures? Happen to have any plans for such racks??

Regards.. Tim and Jen...