Bad season, or did I screw something up?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I am curious how warm do you keep you BP both males and females?

[SamO]

Oops, maybe no Press & Seal but a tight sealed lid?

[bondo]

I am curious how warm do you keep you BP both males and females?

Yup exactly that was why I was wondering about the temps the snakes were kept at.

[Darkbird]

Sealed containers, no wrap required. All my bps are maintained at 90° hotspot with 80° cool end.

[bondo]

Sealed containers, no wrap required. All my bps are maintained at 90° hotspot with 80° cool end.

My hotspot stays around 88 year round 90 is fine. My room temp is 75-77 in the summer and 72-75 in the winter (which is my breeding season). So those temps are basically my cool side temps. I kept hearing 80 is fine there is no problem breeding them with that high of a cool side temp from individuals. Even though many people I know cool things down. So I tried it after years of cooling with great results. With the higher temps my results were so bad I wanted to cry. Between slugs, infertiles and eggs that died in the incubator I bet half of what was layed got thrown out. Not to mention the lower then usual amount of girls that laid. I rarely have eggs die in the incubator. Unless they went in with no veins and I was praying lol. Many say no need to cool things down. They are right balls will breed and lay without cooling it down. However the amount of bad eggs probably go up. It went way way up for me. I have had 1 slug this year, zero infertiles, and well over 100 healthy eggs so far. 3 males that were used were 2014 virgins and there were 6 virgin girls that laid so far this year. One of the virgin girls gave me the slug. People keep telling me those temps will give them RI. Yet I have not ever had one in my collection. In my old house the room temp use to get down in the upper 60s. I would have girls in the front of the tub even at those temps trying to cool down. They would be cold to the touch. We don't give these critters the credit they deserve. They know how to regulate their temps. They don't just crawl into a cold spot and die. They have a warm spot and a cold spot to figure out themselves what they need. Everyone does things different. Everyone needs to figure out their own method. Just sharing my experience and how I do it.

[Darkbird]

I have wanted to try lowering the cool end temps at least but haven't really had the chance yet. The room they were in was so small that it was hitting the mid to upper 70s without any other heat, even in the winter, which was giving me the 80° cool end temps. It may be easier now in the new snake room, it's a bit bigger, but better insulated too, so I'll kind of be starting over.

[TheSnakeEye]

Very interesting... I think you have a problem apart from incubation if you only had 2 of 7 total clutches not slug-out. I would strongly recommend you check out your setup and make sure everything is 100% fine. I have had years where my females only gave me 3 clutches and I've had years where I've had 10+ clutches and I've never had a clutch go bad. Does this mean that it's impossible for that to happen? No. It happens and that's life. But to have more than 50% of your females lays slugs, something has to be off. I would double and triple check the temps of every square inch of every single enclosure with a couple temp-reading devices just to see if your having heat spikes of some sort. You could, very well, have a heat spike in the males tub causing his sperm to go bad.

Now once that issue is taken care of, I would make sure your incubation method is 100% on point before trying to incubate again. Artificial incubation (which is what the majority of us do (pulling eggs from mom)) is VERY simple! Many people often over-complicate it and make it worse than it should be. My first year breeding, I had 3 clutches. My incubator was a Coleman 120qt cooler bought at Walmart. I laid a strip of heat tape on the bottom and added a small computer fan to it. Placed my 3 egg tubs and 60 days later had healthy babies. Not a single egg went bad. The following year I upgraded to a large, single door, Coke fridge with glass front and applied the same concept. Heat tape on the back, small fan for air movement and viola 100% hatch rate. This year I'm using a Hotbox incubator because it looks nice and I wasn't able to build one, but as pretty as it is, it works the same as my previous ones.

Incubating is very simple. All you need is a box of some sort (cooler, fridge, home-built box) that will hold heat well, a heating element (heat pad, heat tape, heat cable), a small fan to move air & a GOOD thermostat to make sure temps are spot on and you will be successful. Egg tubs are also very simple. Everyone I know, myself included, uses Container Store shoe bins (any tub the closes good will work just as well) for eggs tubs. I have always used vermiculite and never had a problem. I put just as much water as I do vermiculite on a weight basis in each tub. So if I use 300 grams of vermiculite I mix in 300 grams of water. Then I bury the eggs a bit in the mix and put in the 'bator. No press & seal, no opening the tubs every 2 days for air, nothing. I literally leave them there until they hatch and are ready to put in the rack.

With all this being said, this is NOT the only way of doing things, this is NOT the only right way of doing things. This to me is the most simple way to do it and will help you learn some basics in hatching eggs. If you want to try other methods, such as, substrateless, by all means go ahead. Just do your research so you know what you're doing. This whole process is fairly simple and overthinking or stressing can hurt you more than help you. Good luck my friend!