help with homemade incubator please...

[darksidemike]

so I have this little 5 qt cooler that I want to turn into an incubator. I see lots of info on how to make one with a water heater but I have lots of heat tape and I'm sure there must be a way to use that as my heat source instead. any suggestions?

 

[Duae]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsXe0iNR4gM

Basically bottom of cooler, flexiwat, wire rack of some kind, egg container, lid of cooler. Thermometers as needed, probably one for the flexiwat and one for inside the egg container.

 

[rrowdy]

You can use any heat source you want. Flexwatt, Tape, Mat. Probably the most important thing is an accurate low differential thermostat to control the heat. You would want a proportionat thermostat, a good thermometer, a Hygrometer and something to maintain humidity.

I used a Broward incubator but you can cirtainly make your own.

Best of luck!

 

[HerpsOfNM]

overkill, somewhat, but it dials in excellently with a Herpstat ND regulating it.

http://www.kingsnake.com/salceies/Incubator.htm

My 'bator is a modified version of Damon Salceies' designed linked above. His was built for incubation of green tree python eggs. Mine has thus far incubated Lygodactylus williamsi, Heterodon kennerlyi, Coleonyx mitratus, and leopard geckos. I've done containers with both incubation media (bed-a-beast, aka eco-earth, aka coco coir) and no-substrate. Eggs incubated on a media appeared to hatch larger babies, but that's only with 1 year of incubation trials.