Saturday, August 23, 2008
Sharing a Closet with Incubating Reptile Eggs
I often hear, at least once a year, that someone I know lost ALL of their incubating eggs due to a malfunctioned incubator that overheated and killed them. Ugggghhh!!! That would be such a kick in the stomach!!...all of that year's long hard work gone to waste in a matter of seconds.
Something different I'm doing this year should mitigate or throw out entirely that possibility of an overheated incubator. My egg boxes, each with a clutch, are stacked on the highest shelf in a closed closet. By itself, the closet stays about 78 - 80 F. If you add a couple of heat pads and use them as "panels" against the wall, you can bump that up to about 86 degrees. That's with the heat pads on full power. If you connect them to a rheostat, which further mitigates any risk of overheating, you can lower the heat pad temps enough to bring the ambient temperature down to marginally above that of the closet's natural temperature of 78 - 80 F. Of course, you don't have to use any heat. (Suboc eggs have been proven to hatch at temperatures as low as 40 degrees!) But it takes longer that way, if you don't mind the wait.
So far, this season we have more than 45 eggs incubating, 42 of which appear good. Only a couple more females to go, maybe three, but they're good ones.
Here's a Blonde that's Het Axanthic and Poss. Het for Snow that laid six, five of which look great. She's the "cover girl" for The Complete Suboc, and this is her first clutch. She bred with the Bleached Blonde, so we should see some neat stuff out of them...perhaps a Snow Blonde.
I've gotta tell ya...I'm lovin' this new camera.
This pair was also observed showing some courting and reproductive behavior. A beautiful Normally Patterned Axanthic female with a show-stopping Trumbower Axanthic Blonde male. I really love the Normal-patterned Silvers -- they're something I will find hard to sell when I produce more of them.
More soon!DR
# posted by Dusty Rhoads @ 12:48 PM 
