How often do you check your eggs?

After you set your eggs up in a box with vermiculite and moss or whatever incubation substrate you use, how often do you check your eggs?

I check mine about once every five days. I was just curious how often everyone else checks their eggs or makes necessary adjustments such as making the humidity higher or lower...

Actually, I check them nearly every day just because I can.

They are in clear 9 inch deli cup containers and are easy to keep track of. The amount of condensation on the sides and top of the container give me a great idea of the status of humidity without every having to disturb the conditions within the box. The holes on the sides are taped, so air exchange is made only when the boxes are opened. I open the boxes more often if it seems a bit too humid in the boxes to let them air out a little. If I'm not getting condensation when the room is 82, I add a little water to the edge of the vermiculite. These boxes have served me very well and have been my favorite way to incubate clutches. I can tell early on if eggs are going bad and yank them from the box (although I don't think it makes a difference one way or another in the viability of the remaining eggs).

I don't use an incubator, just keep the room at an average temp of 82 degrees. They've been hatching this year at 63 to 69 days from laying.

Hi Hurley,
I see the air holes have been taped over . How often do you vent the tops?or do you vent them at all?
Jason B.

I really don't open the tops at all unless there's a problem. There's more than enough air in those containers for the entire incubation period. They do get opened to adjust for humidity if it's too dry or moist. If too moist, I open them daily or every other day and wipe off the condensation on the lids (nice way to gradually reduce moisture), if too dry I add a little.

They usually get opened at some point before hatching for some reason or another, but I don't purposely vent them for air exchange alone.

I used to use plastic shoeboxes with holes drilled in the lids to incubate my eggs in ever since I started doing this stuff. But last year I ran out of boxes with drilled lids and had to use my stash of new, undrilled, ones for a bunch of clutches of eggs. Well, it was a learning experience for me, because I thought some airflow would be best for the eggs. I figured I may have problems with those eggs set up in those sealed containers.

What I discovered, instead, was that the undrilled lids helped greatly in retaining the moisture inside those boxes, whereas I sometimes had trouble with some containers with drilled lids drying out if they were at the top of the rack and close to the edges of the rows where ambient temps were higher and air flow around the boxes greater. I didn't have to do a thing with the undrilled boxes the entire incubation period. Matter of fact, with most of them, they were not opened at all from the time they were set up until I noticed little corn snakelets crawling around inside them.

Even a YEAR later, the vermiculite in those undrilled boxes was still damp to the touch. So heck, that is the way I am doing ALL of them this year. And I am pretty confident I will not have to touch any of them the entire (average) 68 days of incubation.

I don't really check my eggs until around the hatchling time.

I have holes drilled on the top of the containers but then I am using the 'water incubation' method. I don't use room temp to incubate them because up here in Canada...the temp changes too much~~

since the 'water incubation' method provides the humidity and thus no need to me to look at the eggs too much. I am sure tha thte humidity is there and the temp is good. So why bother check until hatching date?

This has worked for me for many years. But I would love to try the method that Rich and Hurley is using, only if I have a room to put the eggs in though~

I check on mine once or twice a week. Mostly to make sure the humidity is ok. I just lift the lid on the Hovabator, look inside, and that's it. =)

This thread caught my attention when the discussion of sealed lids came about. I had a clutch of 20 that one of my local reptile stores incubated for me and I lost all 20 eggs. The container was sealed and apparently they never opened it. They called me and told me the eggs were hatching and when I arrived they opened the container and the snakes were all dead in the stage of getting out of their eggs. The manager at the store told me that it was my fault for not drilling holes in the container that I gave him.

They had incubated the previous clutch for me and had no problems. They did transfer the eggs to one of their containers.

After that happened I decided to incubate my own and I bought a hovabator. Its got a clutch in it at the momentm and Im hoping I dont have another mishap. Im using a shoebox with holes that I drilled on the side and sphagnum moss for the medium.