incubating substrate

I use Hatchrite, plastic grate, add some water and cover with press and seal and the lid.

Last year, I used Hatchrite, as it was my first season, and I wanted something "foolproof", at least to me.

Hatchrite performed beautifully for me. However, it wasn't very cost effective for me - it would be nice if they'd sell larger bags at a discounted rate.

This year I anticipated at least five clutches (which would have been 5 bags of Hatchrite at $15 each) and that just didn't make sense to me.

I visited Albey, since he's local to me, and he uses just Perlite for his ball pythons and geckos. He told me where he got his HUGE bag from (4 cubic feet of it) locally, and I picked up a bag for $24.99. It will last me a lifetime, quite literally. It's important to pick up Perlite without other additives (like Miracle Grow) and so this local nursery was the one place I could find straight Perlite.

Very easy to mix - slowly adding water and making it slightly moist to the touch (I mean, almost barely noticeable). It's working great for me so far and very easy to prepare.

I'm using Hatch Rite. I like the foolproof-ness of it, just open the bag and dump into the tub. For now anyways, the $13 or so per bag isn't that big a deal for me and worth the not needing to stress about mixing things perfectly. One less thing for this newbie to mess up. At some point I may switch to the substrate-less method, but for now I got a case of Hatch Rite to use. :)

This is a great thread for us newbies. This is my first season breeding ball pythons and I'm anticipating two clutches. I'm leaning towards the substrateless method due to being worried I may make a mistake mixing the others.