Maternal Incubation?

[AaronAshley]

What are the pros and cons of maternal incubation? Any past experiences?

[Wobbilly5]

I had one clutch maternally incubated last year and I plan on doing it again this year! 5 eggs laid and 5 eggs hatched perfectly.

Biggest Pros: Inexpensive. Don't have to buy an incubator or build one yourself. Sure they aren't that expensive, but FREE is also very nice.
Easy. Just let mama do her thing!

Biggest Con: My female wouldn't eat while she was on her eggs...therefore she probably didn't gain as quickly or as much weight for the upcoming season.

[Sama]

I did 2 clutches with maternal incubation this year and loved it! I am hoping for 3-4 clutches this year will do the same. 12 perfect eggs and 12 perfect babies, including my pied girl! Did I mention I loved it?

Pros: Free, I love seeing the mom's on the eggs and opening it the day they hatch to see babies with mom or piping!, I was able to pull my moms out to check the eggs if I needed to and they went right back when I put them back and often I was able to check the eggs with mom still on them, I am not as freaked out about controlling the temps and humidity, as long as mom's cage was right, she handled the rest, one of my mom's ate while incubating.

Cons: If your mom is cranky you do have to remove her to check on the eggs, first time or inexperience mom's MIGHT not try to incubate or might not return after being disturbed (one of mine was a first time, the second was a proven female but it was her first time incubating the eggs herself, both did great, the first timer is the one who ate), so a backup/emergency incubator is still a good idea, some people say you have less control of the eggs (I tried to avoid disturbing the mom's, especially the first 2 weeks, but never felt like I wasn't in control, after all, I still had to make sure mom's environment was spot on.)

Here is a great link, it is sticky-ed in the bp breeding section. It helped me a lot last year! http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...nal-Incubation

[TessadasExotics]

for us.
Pros: Fairly natural and really awesome to see mother hatching eggs.
Mothers will eat on eggs.
Don't have to worry about incubator issues.

Cons: None other than maybe new mothers not knowing what to do.


We started to maternally incubate last season. Had to use the incubator for one clutch as the mother was a first time mom and didn't know what to do. All of our females ate weekly while they were on eggs. By the time the babies hatched the females were back up to weight.