plastic grids for egg tubs

Hello,
I have seen many youtube videos that breeders don't want their eggs to be in contact with vermiculite .. that's why they use plastic grids to separate their eggs from it
here is a picture of the grid: http://www.cultivatingconscience.com...oads/grate.jpg
and here is a video of the egg tub setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3peWWtwBwdg
my question is where can I buy such a plastic grid (would it be ok if it is aluminum instead of plastic?) .. I am located in Europe and it seems to be quite a problem to find a similar product here, since I can't order them from America
Thank you and best regards

It's called a light diffuser grate, and can be found in Home Depot or a similar type store. I'm not sure about using aluminum.

any hardware store, they seem to be about the best "reptile supply" shops around

Check lighting supply places i'm sure they could order it if they don't have it.

Home depot and Lowes both carry it. It about 15-20 bucks for a piece about 2ft x 4ft which makes a lot of egg tub size pieces. Look in the section with the industrial lighting.

Sometimes it is also sold as "egg crate". Look for plastic egg crate not aluminium or foam.

http://www.alpeurope.co.uk/pdf/Plastic-Eggcrate.pdf

Hopefully you can access the UK market or they are available in your area.

Here's an online link. You can buy single panels in the store.

White Egg Crate Lighting Panel

They have Home Depot in Europe?

Whoops, quickly browsed. My mistake.

we don't have Home Depot in Europe unfortunatelly :/ otherwise getting this wouldn't be a problem :D

I am still looking by the way .. will need dome hopefully European help :)

shouldnt we also discuss if it is needed at all? Putting the eggs directly on the substrate could be better or worse or could be the same, just easier to do. How do you place eggs at an angle onto such a plastic grid? Im a fan of having the eggs in exactly the same angle that the female initially places them in the clutch. With such a plastic grid, all are placed horizontally. Looks tidy, but is it good to move an egg from a standing position to a horizontal position?

please clarify. Maybe the best advice is to just forget about it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kurtilein

shouldnt we also discuss if it is needed at all? Putting the eggs directly on the substrate could be better or worse or could be the same, just easier to do. How do you place eggs at an angle onto such a plastic grid? Im a fan of having the eggs in exactly the same angle that the female initially places them in the clutch. With such a plastic grid, all are placed horizontally. Looks tidy, but is it good to move an egg from a standing position to a horizontal position?

please clarify. Maybe the best advice is to just forget about it.

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The reason most of us use it is because we can keep our incubation substrate VERY wet. You don't have to worry about getting the right mix of substrate:water and just add as much water as possible. With the grate the eggs can still be placed at the same angle they were layed at, you basically just grab the clutch and place it on top of the egg crate. The only time you may have to separate any eggs is if the clutch is very tall then you may have to remove an egg or 2 off the top so it isn't in contact with the lid of the tub.
As far as maintaining the orientation of the eggs, they can be moved alittle bit when they are first layed. Also I have read a couple reports that it maintaining the orientation of BP eggs isn't as big of a deal as it's made out to be. A member Muddoc(Bailey&Bailey Reptiles) on here did alittle experiement with flipping eggs over to see if it caused any problems.
Here is the link to that experiement.
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...%2Borientation

It wasn't a huge number of test samples, so not a "true" scientific experiement, but still worth knowing.

Do you have any friends state side that could cut a piece to the size you need and ship it to you? it's pretty light and cut up i can't imagine it would be to expensive to ship.

thanks, your response makes a lot of sense.

And a big thanks for the link, really interesting. So someone dared to try it and turning the eggs is maybe not as dangerous as most expect.

and i also have something to say about metals: i would stay away from metals. Aluminium is less noble than iron, under certain conditions it rusts and corrodes much faster than iron. Im not a chemist, but what will a bunch of aluminium compounds in direct contact with the eggs do? If nothing serious, at least some local discoloration. Zinc has the same problem. Metal with permanent high moisture.... there is a reason why people have gold teeth, to really be safe when metals touch your eggs you must go for noble metals, or at least a silver coating. Then again, plastics can also spew harmful toxins especially as they decompose. Like PET additives are now under suspicion of causing male fertility issues in humans. Or like certain tubs that can mess up sex ratios when breeding mice or rats in them. The way to handle this is to buy stuff designed for pets, and hoping the manufacturers take that purpose into account when selecting the plastic materials used. Or try to use more natural materials.

p.s.: send an email to http://www.ms-reptilien.de , you know, Stefan Broghammers company, they breed in southern Germany, maybe they can hook you up.

Sorry, I ddnt notice you are on the other side of the pond LOL, wasn't in your profile so I didn't think about it;)

shipping to my country from America would cost over 500 dollars :D so that is clearly out of the question :)

Hi,

I use this stuff.

Hopefully you can find that somewhere more local. :)


dr del

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kurtilein

shouldnt we also discuss if it is needed at all? Putting the eggs directly on the substrate could be better or worse or could be the same, just easier to do. How do you place eggs at an angle onto such a plastic grid? Im a fan of having the eggs in exactly the same angle that the female initially places them in the clutch. With such a plastic grid, all are placed horizontally. Looks tidy, but is it good to move an egg from a standing position to a horizontal position?

please clarify. Maybe the best advice is to just forget about it.

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No it is not needed at all...

It not that hard to mix some vermiculite and water together...I have done it for years with no problems!

yes, after reading all this i agree, do maintenance and refill water every 2 weeks and it will be fine. Its just that the professional breeders have so much to do that they do the vermiculate/water mixup just once, and it lasts through the whole egg development until hatching. And for that the plastic grids are required.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kurtilein

yes, after reading all this i agree, do maintenance and refill water every 2 weeks and it will be fine. Its just that the professional breeders have so much to do that they do the vermiculate/water mixup just once, and it lasts through the whole egg development until hatching. And for that the plastic grids are required.

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I have never used the plastic grate and I never checked/added water every two weeks...I mix the vermiculite, add eggs and I don't look at the eggs again until two weeks before they hatch...

do you guys think this could work?
http://www.bolha.com/avto-moto/tunin...lct=1358675703
it's a decoration grid for a car's bumper made out of black ABS plastic (here is the link to this type of plastic http://www.gopolymers.com/plastic-ty...s-plastic.html ) .. the holes are 30 x 15mm