incubators...which is the best?

[twodogs]

i am gonna need an incubator soon,and having been caught with me "pants down" so to speak with my snow laying 15 eggs in the viv,a quick call to a mate solved the problem,but i still need to buy one,what do you guys recomend,i have looked at a brinsea hatchmaker r,its expensive about $400 over here,any feedback would be greatfull,or do you know of others that will ship to the uk?

 

[cornmorphs]

that sounds like a familier story lol.

 

[twodogs]

sounds familiar should do......it was you.....saviour and nice clutch too

 

[snakes4ever]

I local petstore owner a while back was breeding Bearded Dragons and Giko's, ehhehe
He made a incabater out of a fridge.

Find a broken fridge, strip out everything in the back and then drill a hole and cover the bottum with flexwat or I have seen one with a lightbulb mounted to the floor of the fridge. And there you have it. I made one with a thermostat and a electronic fan to move the air from the bottum to the top. And when the door is closed it also helps move air around inside.

The man at the petstore said that the problem with smaller styrofoam containers is that when you open the lid... All the heat is released, make temp changes greater.

I hope this helped you. And answered your question. Not to menchon it is a whole lot cheaper and easyer to work with.

 

[DavidM]

I'm in the UK, and I've got one of these http://ascott-shop.com/item2818.htm

It does the job just fine. It's quite big, so not much of an issue with heat loss, and the electronic thermostat is great.


David

 

[twodogs]

I local petstore owner a while back was breeding Bearded Dragons and Giko's, ehhehe
He made a incabater out of a fridge.

Find a broken fridge, strip out everything in the back and then drill a hole and cover the bottum with flexwat or I have seen one with a lightbulb mounted to the floor of the fridge. And there you have it. I made one with a thermostat and a electronic fan to move the air from the bottum to the top. And when the door is closed it also helps move air around inside.

The man at the petstore said that the problem with smaller styrofoam containers is that when you open the lid... All the heat is released, make temp changes greater.

I hope this helped you. And answered your question. Not to menchon it is a whole lot cheaper and easyer to work with.

great idea,how do i get the humidity?

 

[twodogs]

I'm in the UK, and I've got one of these http://ascott-shop.com/item2818.htm

It does the job just fine. It's quite big, so not much of an issue with heat loss, and the electronic thermostat is great.


David

nice one,first impressions look good,youve got one,what are the results youve had,are they easy to use?any probs etc

 

[DavidM]

I've used it for one season - last year - with no problems at all. I have the eggs in a sealed sandwich box using vermiculite as the substrate. I did have to mist the eggs every four days or so if dimples started to appear, since it seems to be just about impossible to achieve 90% plus humidity in UK conditions without adding moisture from time to time. I just used a garden sprayer (cost about £2) containing WARM water (to avoid heat shock) and sprayed directly onto the eggs (which did not appear to harm them).

I got a 50% hatch rate - 7 hatched out of what looked like 12-14 viable eggs out of the clutch of 17. Two more were stillborn, so I don't think the incubation conditions killed them. I don't brumate my snakes, preferring not to take the risk to the adults, so was quite happy with this hatch rate. I guess if I were a commercial breeder I would not be, but as a hobbyist I am quite happy to get any hatchlings at all.

My eggs hatched rather early - day 53 - despite the fact that I had the incubator set at 84%. I suspect that may be why a couple of the hatchlings were weak, so with the eggs she layed last night I've got them in at 80% and am hoping they take closer to 60 days to hatch. The moral is - calibrate the thermometer they send you with the Ecostat, if you get one.


David