Artificial vs. natural incubation

So, I sat myself down tonight and worked out the logistics of building my own snake rack. Im pretty happy with The schematic I drew up, but I moved on to the idea of building my own incubator. After watching quite a few youtube do it yourself videos and seeing one or two mothers tightly coiled around their eggs I started to wonder why we dont just let them hatch all by themselves. Unfortunately I didnt find very much information on the subject via google. I was curious as to whether you guys allow the mother to do what she does or incubate them yourselves, and the pros and cons of both. = P

Basically it's difficult to control the environmental variables to a degree that most people would feel comfortable doing that. I personally do substrate-less incubation similar in style to what a lot of Chrondo breeders do and have had fantastic results from it.

No substrate really? How do you give them the proper humidity? Just have water within the incubator?

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Originally Posted by Riv

No substrate really? How do you give them the proper humidity? Just have water within the incubator?

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Basically yes. They sit on elevated egg crate which has a pool of water below it. If you look up Chrondo incubator videos on YouTube you'll see what I'm talking about.

Maternal incubation is possible and the female will eat, f/t is definitely preferred. But most prefer to remove the eggs so they r set up in an egg tub where temp and humidity can be controlled and kept more stable. This relieves stress from the female and provides a better environment for eggs. See the sticky in BP Breeding of setting up an egg tub

Check out this:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...nal-incubation...

And this:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...nal-Incubation

I'm considering doing it because of a space/electricity issue.

I read through your entire thread as well as quiet tempests. I found both of them very informative and useful. Im opting towards maternally incubating, and just running an incubator just in case something goes awry. Unfortunately my fiance and I have opposite views here. He doesnt necessarily believe the incubator will do a better job, just a more consistent job, and he wants to ensure the female starts eating better sooner rather than later. So we're probably going to wind up incubating after all. I am going to be stubborn about maternally incubating AT LEAST one clutch though. I really want to try it.:taz: