I successfully almost-maternally incubated my one and only clutch. Almost because at day 65, the mother decided to leave the clutch! So, I moved them all to the standby incubator and they pipped at day 70. I did not change any of the temp settings in the enclosure except that I bumped up humidity to 75-80% the same way I do when the snakes are in shed. The mother laid 5 eggs, 1 was a rotten egg which the mom kicked out of her clutch on day 1, and 1 choked on his umbilical so he didn't crawl out of the egg. I was not knowledgeable enough to recognize the umbilitical situation and try to save the baby.
I'll be maternally incubating if I ever go through it again (I can't house more than 2 additions so I have to go look for possible homes for the babies before I even contemplate breeding again). I like the idea that I don't have to be exact on everything as the mom has the ability to compensate for my errors. When we did it before, the mother never lost much weight because she continued to eat weekly while coiled around her clutch. So, we didn't see any untoward stress to the mom. It was a great experience.
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