Allowing females to brood

[anatess]

Oh, ok then. No need to get defensive. Cage temps/humidity can fluctuate can they not? and what if she lays them on the hot spot and they get too hot? All Im saying is what I have heard others say on this forum and off. Oh and also the sooner you get her off the eggs and get her and her cage cleaned, the sooner you can get her back to feeding and up to wieght. And no its not that hard to keep the right conditions for your snake but I think eggs are a little more sensitive to conditions than full grown snakes.

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.

I forgot to mention as well that I have a rack system with tubs and a thermostat not a glass cage thankyou. I have 18 ball pythons and 2 BCI's I dont think I have the room for 20 glass aquariums. Just thought I'd mention that since it sounds like your calling my proper care for snakes into question.

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.