Hovibator?

[reptidude1]

Some people say they are bad but others say its fine with a tsat, whats your guys take on it?

[snakesRkewl]

ooops, did I say that

[cinderbird]

ive seen and heard them used for chicken and colurbrid eggs.. Or "alright" if you take out the wafer thermostat/heating element thing and replace it with a reliable one, but i would -never- use one for anything i was doing (even chicken or colurbrid eggs).

i'm building my own incubator.

[WingedWolfPsion]

I have a couple of them, and hooked up to my Herpstats, they do an excellent job of maintaining temperatures in a narrow range and holding in humidity. It may be necessary to add water only once during incubation.

However: You must put the vermiculite and eggs directly into the unit, you cannot use a secondary container. This is because the units are just too short.

They can hold only about 2 clutches of ball python eggs.

You must be vigilant when babies hatch, or they can crawl up into the heating elements. I haven't had any harmed by this, but it can be a pain to get them out.

I put my more valuable clutches in these, rather than in a larger incubator, because they are more stable and I can monitor them more closely.

Assuming you didn't get one that is defective from the outset (rare, but can happen with any such device), they are extremely reliable. Do not use the wafer thermostats--they can work, but they are simple analog thermostats and the temperatures will not be as stable. They also take forever to set up properly, and would have to be readjusted if the ambient temperatures changed. It's not worth the risks.

[sunsetreptiles]

I use them for my geckos, my dragons, my king snakes, corn snakes and it works just fine for them. I wouldnt use them for ball pythons through.

[joepythons]

However: You must put the vermiculite and eggs directly into the unit, you cannot use a secondary container. This is because the units are just too short.

I used the hovabator for a couple years and was able to use containers with vermiculite in them.Here is a link to the thread with the container sizes i used.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...=1#post1210899

[PythonWallace]

I wouldn't risk any ball python eggs by using an incubator that's iffy at best. Crested or leopard geckos, or corn snake eggs are one thing, being fairly tolerant of incubation problems, but If you are breeding bps, there's nothing more important than having a very dependable incubator. Whether you build one yourself or buy one, it should have a reliable digital thermostat and hold a consistent temperature (within ±0.5° max) no matter what temperature or how much variance the room it's in gets. Why spend years and a lot of money to get to the point where you have viable ball python eggs just to skimp on the incubator? You might save a couple of hundred $$$ up front, but you lose that savings as soon as you lose a single co-dom egg to a temp spike or other preventable problem. If you are just messing around and have a single clutch of normals or normals/pastels or something than sacrificing the acceptance of a little risk for saving money is fine, I guess, but other than that it's too important, imho.

[SnakeGirl3]

I have been using hova bators since I first began breeding ball pythons, and I've had great success. The only thing I've learned in particular with ball eggs in them is that it helps greatly if you mostly bury the eggs in the vermiculite. Since the hovas are so short, the top of the egg pile is very close to the top of the incubator and heating element, and can dry out those eggs on top. Mostly burying them helps them to retain their moisture. In my own experience, I typically have to add water about once a week during incubation to keep the humidity where it should be. But they work just fine. I've hatched lots of clutches from them, including one large nine-egg clutch in which all 9 babies hatched.

[reptidude1]

Assuming all of my bps that i want to breed i will hopefully get 2 clutches of spider x norm and pastel x norm and being my first year breeding i dont want to loose any, so to stay cheep, yet still have a good incubator, i think ill use the styrofam cooler method because because its my first year, i dont wanna loose any clutches.

[Darkice]

I have 3 hovabators and i only use them for my Leachie eggs. ( Giant Gecko)
Leachie Eggs incubate close to room temp so the hovabators were perfect.
You have to add a t-stat though. The one that comes with it is straight up junk. But the heating elements are reliable.