About time!!!

After a VERY long wait (40 days post-PLS), Mona has finally laid her eggs!! :banana:

Final tally is 8 good eggs and one slug, with the good ones all candling nicely and weighing a total of 831g. These are some really big eggs, as I expected from my big girl! Here are some photos:

She was not happy about my intrusion, but let me get her off them without a huge fight.
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...4/IMG_2422.jpg

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...4/IMG_2425.jpg

8 + 1, and I'm saving the slug for my friend with an Indigo snake (who loves to eat slugs)
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...4/IMG_2426.jpg

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...4/IMG_2433.jpg

Just using a cheap Little Giant incubator, which worked fine last season... going with vermiculite and substrate-less this time, though, which hopefully works okay. Humidity hasn't been holding very well, so I'll have to add water weekly I think. (numbers are even lower here, since I had the lid off while preparing the eggs)
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...4/IMG_2432.jpg

WOohoo! It is about time! Congrats!

I would scrap the screen and just add another couple of inches of vermiculite. Place the eggs directly in it and you don't have to worry about humidity issues. What you have to remember is, vermiculite will absorb any humidity in the air to maintain the balance it needs. In order to keep this from happening you need to make it extremely wet for the no-substrate method. By using extra and adding the correct amount of water you can place the eggs directly in and they will remain full until hatching. I hatched 30 clutches of burms, indians, sri lankans, bloods and more in one season using the styro chicken incubators and this same method. Good luck.

congrats!! that's awesome!

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

I would scrap the screen and just add another couple of inches of vermiculite. Place the eggs directly in it and you don't have to worry about humidity issues. What you have to remember is, vermiculite will absorb any humidity in the air to maintain the balance it needs. In order to keep this from happening you need to make it extremely wet for the no-substrate method. By using extra and adding the correct amount of water you can place the eggs directly in and they will remain full until hatching. I hatched 30 clutches of burms, indians, sri lankans, bloods and more in one season using the styro chicken incubators and this same method. Good luck.

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Thanks for the suggestion! Last year I used the tub method, putting Hatch-rite & the eggs into a tub inside the incubator... but I kept hearing substrate-less is the way to go, so I decided to give it a shot. I'll see how the humidity holds up (it's at 99% right now), and will switch to your method if it's not stable enough.

Have they hatched yet!? LOL After waiting so long for her to lay I don't want to wait for them to hatch! Best of luck and I will be curious to see how they end up incubating for you with that method and may have to try it myself.

my god she took her sweet time, congrats.

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Originally Posted by gsarchie

Have they hatched yet!? LOL After waiting so long for her to lay I don't want to wait for them to hatch! Best of luck and I will be curious to see how they end up incubating for you with that method and may have to try it myself.

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Haha... I know, right?? Hatch already!! According to my calculations, they're actually due to hatch around September 19-22... but knowing her, they won't actually emerge until October. :rolleyes:

The incubator is holding quite steady thus far, so I'm not going to mess with the setup yet. If humidity drops again, I will try the method suggested above - and either way, I'll definitely let you know how it works! I used the Little Giant (with a tub) for Nerissa's clutch last year, and had a 100% success rate. Even the little "boobie egg" survived, and she's still small but thriving beautifully.

I had to use one of those for an emergency clutch from a female that retained from the previous year. I tried the same method that you have yours setup except I use hatchrite. I had major problems with dimpling after the first couple of weeks so I actually took the screen out and formed a pile of hatchrite and repositioned the eggs and they stayed plump full term.