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Egg incubator rack
- Thread starter Rich Z
- Start date
Yeah. My adults are kicking in about a month early this year. Thinking about the workload when the babies begin hatching is giving me heart palpitations.............. :eek1:
Got our load of vermiculite in for the season. 12 bags stacked on the porch.....
I guess all I've got to say about this is ....... Here we go again..........
Got our load of vermiculite in for the season. 12 bags stacked on the porch.....
I guess all I've got to say about this is ....... Here we go again..........
djfreebase
wayne
Good Luck Rich, you'v certainly got your work cut out.
Jessicat
All Pied Everything
Heh, Rich, I remember another picture of your rack that you posted using your Fisheye lens. The shot was upward, so the rack seemed to go on and on and on forever!
Which.. I suppose it really does!
I'd just like to say a little thank you that you bring your camera into the room at all. I love seeing your pippies and the occasional shot of some adults. I know how much time can be lost to going camera crazy! Thank you for taking that extra bit of time.
Which.. I suppose it really does!
I'd just like to say a little thank you that you bring your camera into the room at all. I love seeing your pippies and the occasional shot of some adults. I know how much time can be lost to going camera crazy! Thank you for taking that extra bit of time.
LindsayMarie
Been here awhile
need help????
Awesome rack and system you have going on. As far as the workload for one person, I dont envy you there! I would be willing to help out for free, just fly me there
I would finally get to see florida, work doing something I love and all I ask for is maybe a 1.1 pair of corns of your choosing! Just an idea :crazy02:
Thanks for bringing up the thread. This year I only will have 2-4 pregnant females, so far 2, so the incubator should work! Nice thread for the future though.
Awesome rack and system you have going on. As far as the workload for one person, I dont envy you there! I would be willing to help out for free, just fly me there
I would finally get to see florida, work doing something I love and all I ask for is maybe a 1.1 pair of corns of your choosing! Just an idea :crazy02: Thanks for bringing up the thread. This year I only will have 2-4 pregnant females, so far 2, so the incubator should work! Nice thread for the future though.
Hosting the video isn't a problem. Someone willing to download and watch a 50+ megabyte file, IS.
reptiledoc
Embryology Rules
Insanity!!!!!
:smash: How many people do you have helping you maintain and feed all these animals? There is No Way one person can do that all alone. (Is there?)
Do you cover your eggs with Paper Towels? Do you leave your Hatchlings in the Vermiculate after they hatch? It appears that you do. I always wondered if it increases their risk of getting the substrate all over them and in their mouth and nostrils.
Take Care.
Doc
:smash: How many people do you have helping you maintain and feed all these animals? There is No Way one person can do that all alone. (Is there?)
Do you cover your eggs with Paper Towels? Do you leave your Hatchlings in the Vermiculate after they hatch? It appears that you do. I always wondered if it increases their risk of getting the substrate all over them and in their mouth and nostrils.
Take Care.
Doc
Right now we have three part time workers doing about 35 hours of work. They take care of the larger animals. The wife and I take care of the smaller ones that require a more gentle touch.
Yes, I cover the eggs entirely with vermiculite, then put a dampened paper towel over the vermiculite. I used to used ventilated lids on the shoe boxes but went to unventilated a few years back.
I change the paper towel when checking for dampness of the medium about half way through the incubation period. Then when I guestimate hatching is about a week away, I uncover the vermiculite from the eggs, and put another new dampened paper towel directly over the eggs. When they begin to hatch, I will put in a water dish and leave them there until they have all shed their skins for the first time. Then I sex them and set them all up in deli cups.
Never had a problem with them ingesting vermiculite or otherwise having problems with it. It is best to not have the vermiculite too damp as it can get them kind of messy and adhere to their skin. If I can't move them into deli cups right away because of the numbers that have hatched out, I will swap out the shoe box lid with a ventilated one to keep the humidity level inside from getting too high.
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pgr8dnlvr
An obsolete oldie...
Have you got any data on how light can effect incubating eggs? I've been putting off turning a walk in bathroom into a dark incubation room and for now my eggs are in shoeboxes with hatchrite, but I haven't covered with moss or paper towel. The oldest eggs are about a month and a week along, all seems fine, but I'd sure like to know from someone with experience, how important darkness is?
Rebecca
Rebecca
Hunter2011
The fun begins!
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.
Lol, well if you need to get rid of some snakes, I would be glad to take some
Except for providing a daily heat cycle, I doubt light itself has any effect whatsoever. Eggs are all completely buried by the female laying them. They are not going to be exposed to any direct light at all.
pgr8dnlvr
An obsolete oldie...
But with my eggs this year, I take them out of the nest box the female lays them in, bury them 3/4 in the hatch rite which is in a rubbermaid shoebox and put on the lid.
So my eggs are exposed to the ambient light in the room, which is a fair amount due to the large window, but there cetainly aren't in direct sunlight. Do you think I should go through and cover all the eggs with a paper towel or can I just leave them.
The first clutch was laid on March 9th, and so far all the eggs in that clutch seem to be in perfect health.
Let me know what you think?! Have you ever done anything like what I'm doing? I appreciate it!
Rebecca
So my eggs are exposed to the ambient light in the room, which is a fair amount due to the large window, but there cetainly aren't in direct sunlight. Do you think I should go through and cover all the eggs with a paper towel or can I just leave them.
The first clutch was laid on March 9th, and so far all the eggs in that clutch seem to be in perfect health.
Let me know what you think?! Have you ever done anything like what I'm doing? I appreciate it!
Rebecca
No. I cover the eggs completely. The only time having a portion of the eggs uncovered and exposed to air may be beneficial (in my opinion) is if you are concerned that you may have the incubating medium far too moist.
But bear in mind that nature has given eggs quite a bit of latitude with the parameters that will allow them to hatch successfully. If the requirements were way too narrow, many of them would not be able to meet the requirements and likely that species would go extinct. Think about what a female snake has to choose from to lay her eggs and the number of things that could go wrong. And they don't even have a 70 day weather forecast to help them.....
But bear in mind that nature has given eggs quite a bit of latitude with the parameters that will allow them to hatch successfully. If the requirements were way too narrow, many of them would not be able to meet the requirements and likely that species would go extinct. Think about what a female snake has to choose from to lay her eggs and the number of things that could go wrong. And they don't even have a 70 day weather forecast to help them.....
Yeah, designed and built the racks myself.
Not sure those sweater and shoe boxes are available any longer. Used to be Hugh H. Phillips (I think...), then Party Plastics that sold them. Haven't needed to order any more for a long time, so I don't know if they are still being made.
Not sure those sweater and shoe boxes are available any longer. Used to be Hugh H. Phillips (I think...), then Party Plastics that sold them. Haven't needed to order any more for a long time, so I don't know if they are still being made.