I've left all my ball clutches with the mothers and let them maternally incubate. I haven't had any egg losses this way but I've only had a total of 4 clutches in the past two years. The only issue that I had while maternally incubating was last year when I had a clutch of snowflaked eggs and one rolled out of the pile twice when the mom would leave to eat or drink. I put the egg back in the pile and it hatched out along with its siblings without any problems.
I have learned, however, that the age old assumption that females will not eat while maternally incubating is complete rubbish. The first year I tried maternal incubation, I didn't feed my female because of all the misinformation out there. I corrected my error last year and of the three females I had maternally incubating, one ate on a weekly basis and the other two ate more sporadically every 2-3 weeks (feeder size I offered while they were brooding was rat weanling to sm rat). Contrary to popular belief, the females don't exert a great deal of energy while brooding so there isn't a great deal of weight loss in females who choose to eat only a few meals or none at all and weight gain can be expected of the females who continue to eat regularly while maternally incubating.
Maternal incubation isn't for everyone but it has worked consistently for me. I've found I have lousy luck using artificial incubators. I've lost eggs in incubators whereas I haven't lost any eggs yet while maternally incubating. I plan to allow all of my girls to maternally incubate their clutches again this year. Once I have a decent camera back in my possession I'll be taking pics of the girls on their clutches and candling the eggs throughout the process again like I did last year.
Reply With Quote