Retrospect on eggs, and hovabator..

I cut open the second-last egg, and I was very upset, it Did have veins. I can attribute the eggs' death to one thing: the incubator spike. I have been looking at photos of BP eggs all over the internet, and many had the small dots and indentations that I saw on my eggs here.. so I think that most of them were viable, fertile eggs and that incubator killed them by spiking. I am not sure why it spiked like it did.
I want to say this as a warning: hovabator-type incubators Need a backup thermostat, at least in my present opinion. I do not want this to happen to anyone else; it has been a horrible experience in what should be a happy time for our first clutch this year. :(
I ordered a Helix t-stat and will be getting flexwatt also, because I am just using a cooler and making my own incubator; these things are crap for this use in my opinion.

hovabators are great for one clutch, hatched my first clutch in one, 100% hatch rate.

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Originally Posted by jamesw

hovabators are great for one clutch, hatched my first clutch in one, 100% hatch rate.

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You are correct in this statement. But if I could have done things differently, I would not have used it with my clutches.
There are so many nice custom made incubators out there now, I would just save a few dollars and buy one of them or get the materials and build one of your own, just like Ginevive is doing.

Sorry to hear about your clutch. The best you can do is just use this as a learning experince and move on. I am sure that the other clutch will do fine as well as any subsequent clutches you have.

What are your thoughts on using the Hova with the Helix thermo? I am thinking of doing that because I cannot find any small old fridges around here; Mark works in neighborhoods that have roaches, and if we brought those into our house via a used piece of furniture or appliance, I would die. :) We actually passed up a free bigscreen HDTV because the house it was from was roach infested..
I will give him a few more days to find one.. I do have a normal-sized cooler that I could use too. I could get FWatt at a certain local pet store (a good one) and be all set in a few days.

What about using a cooler? Jamie has a good write up on how to make them here:


http://www.glassreptiles.com/articles/incubator.html

If you can set up a cooler as an incubator and run it on the Helix, I say go for it!!! However, using the Helix to backup the Hova will get you by this season and you will have more time to build an incubator for next season.

If all else fails, let the mother maternally incubate the eggs. I have had great success at this as well.

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Originally Posted by MPenn

If all else fails, let the mother maternally incubate the eggs. I have had great success at this as well.

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I have also had success with not removing the eggs.

If you are getting a Helix to use with the hova, you might as well just rig up a temporary, or permanent, incubator. Once you have the Helix and a couple of feet of flexwatt, you can use just about anything to incubate the eggs in, and will work just as good (probably better than) a Hovabator. I've had great success with thick foam coolers (the kind you get when you order steaks form Omaha Steak Co.), with a plexiglass window dropped in the lid. The total cost was about $12 and I would trust it over a hova any day.

I love my Omaha Steak box :) Many, many snakes transported in it.

Gin, why not try Craigslist and find an inexpensive or free cooler. Do you have a fish store that gets shipments in? You could always snag one of their big coolers and that would work great.

Last night I put in my order for the FWatt and connector.. should've just ordered it with the t-stat :)
I have a few styro coolers. My friend actually has a pet store; she might have a new one with a lid. Otherwise I will use the top and bottom of one.

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

What are your thoughts on using the Hova with the Helix thermo? I am thinking of doing that because I cannot find any small old fridges around here; Mark works in neighborhoods that have roaches, and if we brought those into our house via a used piece of furniture or appliance, I would die. :) We actually passed up a free bigscreen HDTV because the house it was from was roach infested..
I will give him a few more days to find one.. I do have a normal-sized cooler that I could use too. I could get FWatt at a certain local pet store (a good one) and be all set in a few days.

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Hey,

What about craigslist? I know in our area theres always apartment sized refrigerators for a hundo or two. I happened across a reach in cooler that was set out for the garbage man:eek: . But I was lucky. My next option was to make one in a small fridge with the flex watt. Keep looking, and I did find some plans in some books I have. When I get home today I will forward where I found them.

http://www.compactappliance.com/ has open box items on sale all the time. I bought a perfect 28 bottle wine refridgerator on there for $180 shipped. They change the prices depending on the condition of the item, I guess, so if you check weekly you can find one cheap. Here's a link to a 34 bottle fridge for $189. They use electric thermo units for cooling instead of freon, so you can just reverse the polarity to the cooling unit and plug the whole thing in to a Ranco or Johnson on/off thermostat and you have a working, heating incubator. I already had a Helix, so I wired some flexwatt, but it isn't neccessary. They have glass front doors, internal LEDs and an internal fan, plus they lock.

http://www.compactappliance.com/xq/J...WC491BG_OB.htm

That seems really cool. Mark has a friend who works for an appliance dealer and he is going to see what he has tomorrow; he didn't get there today unfortunately.