Quote Originally Posted by anatess View Post
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound defensive or anything. I was just stating facts according to my experience. Trying to give you a "first hand" account of maternal incubation to hopefully dispel any pre-conceived notions that you have about it.

And yes, the enclosure can fluctuate - that's exactly my point - the mother snake can adjust the environment within her coils to provide the optimum conditions for the eggs even when the enclosure fluctuates - to a certain extent, of course... I mean, if the power cuts out and you lose your heat and it's 60 degrees in the room, the mother can't do anything much about that. Or if the thermostat breaks and the temperature spikes to 120, the mother can't do anything much about that either (but that's the same risk with artificial incubation). Therefore, the egg can survive at less than optimum condition overall (within reason) because the mother makes the proper adjustments within her coils. You lose this flexibility with artificial incubation - because, technically, you are the mother, so it is completely up to you to provide the optimum condition for the eggs - therefore, the eggs are completely sensitive to the conditions you put them in.

I maternally incubated for 60 days and the mother snake continued to eat every 10 days the entire time. Quiet Tempest's snake did the same.




No, I didn't at any time call your proper care for snakes into question. If you read the post again, you will notice that I mentioned glass tanks only to refer to maternal incubation as "harder to maintain". Because, generally, glass tanks are harder to maintain with or without eggs.

I have my snakes in decked out glass tanks (see my avatar). When the snake laid eggs, I moved her and the eggs into a plastic tub to avoid having to mist/add moss/etc. etc. to counter fluctuations in humidity.
Fair enough. I suppose its just up to the breeder on how they want to incubate their eggs. I have just heard more about the positives about incubation. I wasnt trying to down on anyone that lets their snakes do the incubating, theirs nothing wrong with it in my opinion and it has worked for them for a long time.
Have a good one.