Proper temps and humidity for eggs

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Originally Posted by jamesa2580

I've seen it done both ways - substrate and the rack. I like a 6qt tub with hatchrite, the cling wrap over the top, then snap the lid on and pop in incubator at 89 and 100% humidity. Then, I just "burp" the tub every 3 or 4 days, which just basically means opening the lid of the tub and recycling the air. Seems to be the winning method for me, but good luck to you. There's also a sticky on setting up an egg laying tub that's pretty good.

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Yeah, I read the sticky. Backwards and forwards and upside-down!

Basically, I'm losing my nerve on doing maternal incubation. I live in the desert, and it's soooo dry here... I just don't feel like there's enough control over the humidity & temps with maternal incubation.

When you say maternal incubation, you mean with the female wrapped around? I would advise against that. The female only stays wrapped to protect the eggs (that's what they do in the wild.) They don't serve as an incubator - the external conditions provide that. When you incubate the eggs, you have 100% control over temp and humidity and leave nothing to chance. With a female that only produces once a year, I would want to do everything I could to see those eggs, which were hard to get into the world, hatch.
Also, after she lays eggs, your girl is exhausted and probably hasn't eaten in a couple months, so you can get her off those eggs, back in her tub, and back on feed. She'll bounce back quicker and regain weight if you can get her to feed and relax after laying those eggs.

This is a substrateless setup. Eggs never touch the medium thus you can keep it as wet as you want without soaking the eggs.
http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/s...5xphantom2.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jamesa2580

When you say maternal incubation, you mean with the female wrapped around? I would advise against that. The female only stays wrapped to protect the eggs (that's what they do in the wild.) They don't serve as an incubator - the external conditions provide that. When you incubate the eggs, you have 100% control over temp and humidity and leave nothing to chance. With a female that only produces once a year, I would want to do everything I could to see those eggs, which were hard to get into the world, hatch.
Also, after she lays eggs, your girl is exhausted and probably hasn't eaten in a couple months, so you can get her off those eggs, back in her tub, and back on feed. She'll bounce back quicker and regain weight if you can get her to feed and relax after laying those eggs.

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Well, no, she doesn't do NOTHING-- if she's big enough to wrap around completely, apparently she helps keep the humidity up. And her body will help regulate the temps you provide, in the same manner as the water bottles at the bottom of the incubator.

And it's possible that we're doing them a disservice in the long run separating them from the eggs. We assume that fasting for that long is bad, but that's what they do naturally. (Whereas they probably DON'T breed every year naturally...) But we really don't have any good statistics on female life expectancy vs. breeding practices. I've not even really heard any anecdotal evidence one way or the other.

But... still... the control in an actual incubator is much greater. And my girls are both hanging tough at 1400 grams, not 1500 grams. And and and....

So maybe I'll try maternal incubation? But NEXT year.

my incubators are like rich's set up, substrateless, all i did was lay down the egg create type stuff and drill holes in the bottom of the tubs. hatched every egg i've put in there so far. the humidity comes form the open trays of water in the incubator. i think my temps were 89. humidity was 100%.