Looking for a good incubator. :o)

[MegF.]

The Herpstat is about $100 but if your house stays around 80 I wouldn't even mess with an incubator.

 

[Blue Apple Herps]

The Herpstat is about $100 but if your house stays around 80 I wouldn't even mess with an incubator.

Yeah, I personally have only ever used the top of my closet as an incubator. I've been doing it this way for about 8 yrs now and have never had a problem. But my house only ever gets down to 70 at the coldest and by the time eggs are being laid it's about 75-80ish in the closet for the rest of the year.

Ha ha! PWND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doh!!

 

[rockmonky]

I will be building a incubator out of a Mini fridge over the next month.
I used my rack to incubate last season and did good on all but one clutch that I had a glass tank with a UTH over it and the heat from the UTH soaked through the wood and cooked them.

So this year I figured I would spend some money and do it right.
I was going to go all out and build a full aluminum cabnet with anodized flames and all. But my free time is so sparse right now I figured I should just use a mini fridge, since I will need something bigger next year. Maybe next year I can have time to build the ultimate one with two separate temps for BP's and Corns.

Back to the Mini fridge-
Last week I walked across the street to the appliance store and got a nice mini fridge that is broke for $23.
So I got a start.
For heat it will have heat tape on one side with a wall 2" off the tape and a fan at the top to move the heat across the tape.
For the thermostat I am going to use a Helix with alarm and phone call option that calls you if the temp moves to much. I know there are quite a few people that will say I am waisting my money on a fancy thermostat, but how many people have you heard say "I had a heat spike" or " I had allot of kinks from heat" If the thermostat only saves one clutch of wholesale baby's it will pay for it self. Plus next year I will have a few BP clutches that need to stay at a steady temp.

If you are interested I can take some pics when I am putting it all together


TIM

 

[tricksterpup]

Casey Hulse at Natures Spirit Reptiles makes a nice incubator. I'm pretty sure I'm picking one up before egg season.

Incubator

I am with you on this..
1. I am lazy on building stuff like this.
2. it has a clear door to look into.
3. again I am very lazy at building things and i am not very good at it.

 

[El Jefe]

We think it would be a good idea for Jeff Mohr were to put together a "How To" thread on how to make an incubator out of a freezer, (unless someone else has already made a thread)

Jay & PJ

Okay, okay...here is a brief "how to" on the incubator set up and maybe one day I'll get the detailed version on my website.



Basically, everything on the link is pretty similar to what I do, however, instead of the flexwatt heat I use an aquarium heater and a tub of water.



So...I pull apart he freezer just like the link says. The motor and other gear are heavy so I feel no need to keep that on the unit...plus it is fun to destroy stuff. Both my freezers were free as they were broken and people wanted to just be rid of them. I have one set up for the pythons and one for the colubrids.



I put a tub of water (rubbermaid bin) on the bottom shelf (or in an old fridge unit I used I had converted the salad crisper into a tub). I then put an aquarium heater in the tub and have it on full blast. The aquarium heater is then plugged into a thermostat which is then plugged into another thermostat that is slightly higher in temperature. I do this in case the first one goes out I don't want the unit to heat up too much. However, the advantage of the water method is that the water temp only becomes so hot with an aquarium heater and thus the danger of overheating due to thermostat malfunction is less than flexwatt or a light bulb. I use Alife thermostats and out of the 15 or so I have in my building I've only ever had one go weird on me.



The other advantage of using the water and tub method is it produces TONS of moisture. In fact, you almost have to be careful of this as the inside of the freezer will be so humid it may collect on the side doors and leak out of the unit onto the floor. But...this moisture prevents the eggs from drying out and I have yet to have a "too much" moisture problem and get a near 100% hatch rate from viable clutches.



Let it be noted, I've used this method in a giant Rubbermaid or Sterilite bin with great success as well. You take those giant bins...the 18 inch X 36/48 inch X 18 inch high...you know those giant storage boxes. I place bricks on the bottom and then place egg crate (that white stuff under fluorescent lights or on ceilings...it is plastic and has many squares) on the bricks. I then fill up the massive tub with water to the top of the bricks and then place an aquarium heater in the water. I put the egg crate on top of the bricks (the egg crate should NOT be totally submerged in water) and then place the clutches in shoeboxes on top of the egg crate. Set up the thermostat as stated above and you are set. This method works very well but due to the fact there is little insulation (as compared to the freezer) the temperature is less steady if the outside temperature is unsteady. Again, however, I have used this to hatch blood pythons and corns/kings without problems.



With either one of these systems, the one thing you do need to remember with an incubator is place the thermostat outside of the egg containers. Several years ago a buddy of mine used a light bulb and helix thermostat to heat our albino retic eggs and put the thermostat probe in the container with the eggs. The unit would heat up and then the heat would transfer to the egg container and eventually trigger the helix controller to go off. But when the unit was off the heat on the outside of the egg container was still hotter than inside and gently diffused through and made the egg container hotter than the shutoff point. We caught it soon but after loosing a few of the outside eggs of the clutch.

 

[Shakota]

Incubator

I appreciate all of the replies they have been very helpful. Also I don't have a problem with people expanding this thread. Thanks, Sarah

 

[Jay@PJCReptiles]

Awesome Jeff, Thanks.
Jay & PJ

 

[cornsnakekid92]

i tihnk when ever i get around to having snake eggs i will just use my reptile room, i made my incubator, i just used a rhestat with it, i hatched out all 4 geckos eggs. in the wild the temps are not tooo stable so if it is just corn eggs i dont think they will be that picky