I have been reading up on incubation, and I remember reading somewhere about maternal in the BP subgroup on these forums. However, you do not really see a lot of maternal incubation happening among breeders and I was just curious as to why?
What are the pros and cons of the two?
If you’re a breeder why do you do it one way and not the other?
Would you be willing to temp maternal incubation if you’ve only done artificial or vise versa?
Simply curious, and I just wanted to see people’s opinions on the matter.
Hope everyone is having a great Saturday!
3 Likes
For me the main factors for artificial incubations are
Getting the female back on food ASAP after laying (not all females will eat during maternal incubation).
Letting the female recuperating ASAP after laying.
Finally it’s also easier to manage and control incubation for 25 to 50 snakes in one location (incubator) compared to doing the same in 25 to 50 locations (enclosures)
3 Likes
Everything below is what I have learnt from others so please take it with a grain of salt and correct me if I’m wrong on anything.
Maternal -
Pros: natural.
Cons: riskier, more work, individual temps/humidity.
Artificial -
Pros: cleaner, easier to work with, one set of temps/humidity.
Cons: unnatural.
In the wild many baby’s won’t survive even pipping out of the egg due to many environmental and physical factors. If a mother stresses out for any reason then the eggs are at risk of rolling/moving/being crushed.
If you take the eggs and replicate the exact environment they need then you have removed the risk of damage and also the risk of being bit whenever you check up on them.
While the mother has the eggs with her she will stay in protection mode
Also if the mother poop/wees it not going on the eggs and improves the overall sanitation of the process.
Something I don’t hear said much is that when the clutch has laid, you have mere hours to separate the eggs otherwise they will fuse together and you can risk tearing the shell afterwards. If you miss this window then they should be left until cutting/pipping day to separate.
1 Like