incubating substrate

Hm.. I had some trouble with a hovabator overheating my eggs last year after a power outage. I just go with Flexwatt hooked to a Helix thermostat.. works like a charm.
As for substrate, I mix perlite with larger-granule vermiculite (not the powdery stuff.) I got both at Lowe's last year and still have plenty left for this year (unmixed.) It takes some experimentation to see how much water to add in my experience. I make it just moist enough so that you can wring a little water out if you squeezed it tight, but not much. Towards the end of incubation, I had to spray a little warm water in (never onto the eggs! In a corner..)

IM a perilite/chunky vermiculite guy as well..and i add enuff water that is will barely clumpif i grab a handful LOL and i generally dont check on my egg boxes much til its gettin close to time to pip...I will check the incubator tho atleast weekly to make sure i dont have to much moisture tho..which basically means if it looks too foggy i open it up and shake the moisture off the lid LOL

I use a mix of perilite and vermiculite. Same as most on here. I was thinking of changing to the substrateless this year. I have seen a few videos on youtube, people hatching out snakes just fine. But once they come all the way out of the egg. Sometimes the little snakes can get there heads stuck in the grate. Any thoughts on this anyone have it happen how often and all that.

i use two parts perilite to one part verm. as coarse as i can find,usually at the garden center.

i ad water at the rate 1:1 by weight less 10%.if i had 200 grams of substrate i would add 180 grams of water,this amount has worked great,i have never added water during incubation.

Q: to those who use light diffusers on top of the substrate how do you cut it? seems like power equipment would send little pieces of plastic flying everywhere.have fun ! i mean hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by twh

Q: to those who use light diffusers on top of the substrate how do you cut it? seems like power equipment would send little pieces of plastic flying everywhere.have fun ! i mean hope this helps.

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I use a dremel with a 1 1/2" wafer cutter.

I use perlite,great stuff!!
Next year I'm going to try all three,vermiculite,Perlite and a mixed vermiculite/perlite to see how they all work and pick the best I like, but perlite has been good to me so far.:gj:

we ended up using hatchrite this year with one ventilation hole and opened the container once a week and had a 100% hatch rate on our first clutch i believe the eggs hatch around day 55 and only added a very small amount of water around day 52 it probably didnt need it but we were just being safe. so with great success and easy of use i think we will use hatchrite for all our python eggs from here on out :D

perlite

im using hatch rite on my first clutch ever right now... so far so good!

I use perlite only! :]