Risk Assessment: Egg Incubator

To make a long story short, I am the caretaker of a ball python collection for a private owner. I am by no means an expert as I have only started this adventure 2 months ago, but in that time I have broken the 2 month fast on a live prey only snake and converted him to FT, have almost got all 13 snakes up from underweight, and got successful locks on two females for what I hope to be a fruitful breeding season, but I'm also dreading it.

Now that I know more about BP husbandry than I did in the beginning, I look at the owner's "brand new?"Exo Terra egg incubator with suspicion and skepticism. Both of the females i bred are very large (1,700+g) and I trust that they will both produce a minimum of four huge eggs. I see no way of them fitting in this tiny incubator, but even if they could, I've read bad things about this particular incubator:

1)Has problems maintaining temperature
2)Fans suddenly stopped working
3)Whole unit just turns off
4)Known to cook eggs

So I suppose my only real question is, should I not cave to other people's bad experiences with this incubator and trust it, or should I attempt to build an incubator with the help of YouTube University?

I would build or buy a better one. I've had large females lay over 10 eggs.

Those reviews wouldn't give me any confidence either...as bcr229 says, you can do better. Good luck!

Build or buy a better incubator (or farm the eggs out). From what the POS incubator is (kids had one), you would be better off letting the snake keep her eggs.

Good luck!

here's my detailed DIY thread on my incubator build from an old wine fridge: https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...ncubator-by-Ax

and here's a DIY vid from Will on how to make one from a cooler: https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...uild-breakdown

good luck and have fun w/ the build.

Build one. Some close relatives had a apartment fridge(not a full size but not a mini fridge) that died on them so I took it off their hands and it was rather easy to convert into a incubator. Now I just need some damn eggs to put into it and see how well it works! :rolleye2: