Keep Her w/ Her Clutch OR Incubation

New to the Forums and curious about Breeding...
I work At Petco and have asked around and no one seems to have the right answer. Can you let the mother keep her clutch and just keep the temperature of her pen the same as you would an incubator. I personally thing the mother with her clutch seems more NATURAL and FUN to watch... Let me know what YOU think and ALL the Y's & Ynot's...

...THANX...

Mr. Tre3

most everyone on here is gonna tell you to incubate.

and so am i.

:-)

but i have heard of some success stories about maternal incubation
and they turned out just fine.

its really up to you. and no offence but since you work at petco, buy a book.

if i had the money i would.

but honestly i think incubation is the best way. constant and uninterupted incubation i think makes for better cluthes.

If you provide an acceptable environment for her to incubate in then by all means the choice is yours.
It's more work for you and maybe more stress too, but that's all to be taken into account when making the decision to let her maternally incubate.

This was my first clutch, and I incubated. I got 8 out of 9 eggs hatched and thought it was just as cool to watch as I think maternal would have been. I like the incubator cause you can keep a close eye on them and watch them every minute of the day if thats your choice :) With maternal incubation, I have read that you have to keep the humidity very high and the temp just right. Now I dont know what kind of set up you might have, but in my tank, that would be nearly impossible. My snakes are very happy in their environment with the humidity they have, but there is no way I could keep the humidity up in the 80's living in Las Vegas. So I guess it also depends on where you live. For me, incubation was the way to go. Good luck :gj:

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Originally Posted by sookieball

its really up to you. and no offence but since you work at petco, buy a book.

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This forum is for asking questions and getting in depth responses that NO book would give you.

It was an unnecessary comment to say the least

^ Agreed.



This question has been in my mind for quite a while. My thoughts are that we, as care takers, would likely hatch more eggs and produce healthier babies in an incubator than if we let the mother snake incubate them, as between her body, movement, and other variables, it's not constant like an incubator.

Just my thinking.

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

This forum is for asking questions and getting in depth responses that NO book would give you.

It was an unnecessary comment to say the least

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I agree with you 100%

We are here to help each other and give our opinions and advice so the person can make an informed descision. I have gotten so much good advice to help me make my informed choices that I could NEVER have gotten from any book. I think it all boils down to experience, not what you read.

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Originally Posted by sookieball

its really up to you. and no offence but since you work at petco, buy a book.

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Rudeeee :colbert:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...light=maternal

i myself have had eggs hatched both ways and honestly there wasn't no difference in time it took or how many hatched but i was there everyday to mist and make sure stuff stayed perfect (now if you got tons of breeders like alot of people do it is allot easier to put all your eggs in one basket so to speak and keep track of them all at once. or if lets say you are getting ready to go on vacation and your snake lays the eggs before you leave they would be dead before you got back or very close to it. so you'd want to put them somewhere where you know they will be safe. ie in a bator

also if i worked at petco why buy a book when nothing to do read as many as i could when i could no since forking out cash when the books are there ready to be read

Thanks Everyone... Very quick responses & and Very Helpful... Also Appreciate the Attention towards the 1st Comment... There's No room on this site for SmartyPants' ... I have only a female Ball named GRIMLIN and a male Red Tail named Creeper... Both are 2ft long and my current situation only allows these 2... At the end of the year I will be in another apartment that allows Animals(mine are currently hidden in my bottom two drawers of my dresser... Put up pics of my set up another time) and I plan to purchase two 100% het pieds for sure and some others... Start off small... I plan to raised all of my stock and to Never Inbreed so starting off it'll probably be a year or two until my first clutch... Going by yall advice I think Id like to let GRIMLIN have her clutch and all my clutches after that will most likely be incubated....

THX Again

Mr. Tree

Just make sure you keep an incubator set up in case she abandons them or something else goes wrong. It happens all the time and you want to be prepared for the worst! There are some pretty good tutorials on how to make cheap but reliable incubators on the site. Just do a forum search!

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Originally Posted by sarahlovesmiike

keep an incubator set up in case she abandons them

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Great Point... ThX

I've incubated eggs both ways but prefer maternal incubation for my own, especially now that I know my females WILL (if they choose to) continue to feed regularly on small prey animals while brooding their clutches. That was a pleasant surprise because I had assumed the year before that maternal incubation meant that the female would be forced to continue fasting for an additional 2 months. Glad that isn't the case. I do keep an incubator running as a Plan B because it's always wise to be prepared for worst case scenarios but so far I have not had to rescue eggs from a neglectful mother.

There isn't a whole lot of information available in popular snake books and care sheets if you choose maternal incubation. Artificial incubation is the norm for most breeders. However, there are several breeders here who have had success with it. Do a search here on the forum for "maternal incubation" and you'll find plenty of information to look through.

Either way, good luck with your future clutches. :)

I'm for maternal incubation also. I'm not a breeder though. Just a mother with a husband and 2 kids who really like snakes.

I don't trust myself enough to properly incubate eggs. I trust the snake more to know how to keep the eggs at proper conditions even when things aren't exactly correct. I'm thinking if I ever mess up the incubator, that's it, eggs are dead. If I mess up in maternal incubation, there's still a chance mama snake was able to adjust the egg conditions to keep them alive.

My one and only attempt at breeding, we maternally incubated until day 60 when mom left the eggs, so we moved the eggs to our back-up el cheapo cooler incubator to hatch off. So yeah, back-up incubator is a requirement. So, one could ask, why bother maternally incubating when you still have to have an incubator anyway? Good question.

On feeding - I've done it two ways - leave the mom in the egg box and put the rat in the tub with her. She uncoiled half her body from the eggs, grabbed the rat, swallowed, then coiled right back. We've also done it where we uncoil her from the eggs ourselves and moved her to her feeding tub (our usual process before she laid eggs). We put her back with the eggs and she coils right back around the eggs.

Really interesting - for the 60 days she was incubating, she never pooped! Wierd.

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its really up to you. and no offence but since you work at petco, buy a book.

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Why is everyone bashing this comment? We all know petco's reputation with husbandry. And isn't it always sound advice to have a book on hand for general husbandry? Yes this site is for advice, and that is exactly what he gave. Almost everyone on here would recommend a book when they get their new herp.

Some may think this comment was "rude", but in my opinion, not unneccessary.

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Originally Posted by redstormlax12

Almost everyone on here would recommend a book when they get their new herp.

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On this part I would agree, and even have a recommendation if it is at your store (if not, try a big bookstore like Barnes and Noble if you have one in your area). the book is Ball Pythons in Captivity by Kevin McCurley. Its part of the Professional Breeders Series. now this is not an all end all type of book, but it does cover quite a bit of information and my boyfriend and I have found it incredibly helpful.

As for the question at hand, I actually asked that same thing and the general reason I was given as to why incubation was better had to do with the feeding issue. Generally, most females will not feed until the clutch is hatched which means an extra 2 months of fasting. now if your female will eat, then go for it. :)

Just my 2 cents. :cool:

Books can be helpfull. You dont have to wait for a response from a book. ? Its like a forum but most of the answers are already there. I used a book for my savannah monitor, and hes going on 9 years. ^^ healthy as can be.!

I left my eggs with mommy till day 58 when I got the urge to cut. I got my incubator later on too. They are all PERFECT. I had one that she kicked out and it was fertile; I had to send it down to my distributor, but it hatched just fine.

As long as you keep it in the 83-85 temp span you should be fine. I had them on back heat too vs. belly heat, so it was def. more of a challenged, but they are just fine and very snappy ;) Good Luck to you on either way that you decide.

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Originally Posted by Quiet Tempest

I've incubated eggs both ways but prefer maternal incubation for my own, especially now that I know my females WILL (if they choose to) continue to feed regularly on small prey animals while brooding their clutches. That was a pleasant surprise because I had assumed the year before that maternal incubation meant that the female would be forced to continue fasting for an additional 2 months. Glad that isn't the case. I do keep an incubator running as a Plan B because it's always wise to be prepared for worst case scenarios but so far I have not had to rescue eggs from a neglectful mother.

There isn't a whole lot of information available in popular snake books and care sheets if you choose maternal incubation. Artificial incubation is the norm for most breeders. However, there are several breeders here who have had success with it. Do a search here on the forum for "maternal incubation" and you'll find plenty of information to look through.

Either way, good luck with your future clutches. :)

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^^^Thats awesome your girls would feed on her eggs. I gotta try that next time, I felt so bad that my girl was skinny after I removed her from her eggs. If I can get her to eat smaller and steady meals that she would do better too.

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Originally Posted by Evilme5229

^^^Thats awesome your girls would feed on her eggs. I gotta try that next time, I felt so bad that my girl was skinny after I removed her from her eggs. If I can get her to eat smaller and steady meals that she would do better too.

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Mine looked just pitiful when she was off her eggs the first year because after she refused the first meal, I didn't offer food again until after the eggs hatched. I now know that one refusal doesn't mean that they'll skip meals throughout the process but they can be more fickle about what they will eat. My females' regular meals consist of small or medium rats and they never showed interest in those while brooding. I've had good luck offering live and fresh killed rat pups, though.