I was wondering, what brand incubator is trust worthy for ball python eggs? I only have one breeding pair, so i only need one big enough for One clutch. Thanks in advance.
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I don’t breed a whole bunch either so I use a single incubator. I’ve used the ZooMed Reptibator since 2020 actually no I’ve had it since 2018 looking back in my purchase history, so its been around reliably for a while and its never failed me once, I just put the BP eggs in a 6qt sterilite bin with cling wrap sealed under the lid to keep in humidity from the perlite, keep the eggs separated from the perlite with light diffuser crate and set the bin in the incubator at 86°F.
Colubrids tend to incubate faster in my experience (around 45-50 days) and BP eggs incubate around 65 days with that specific incubator at 86°F.
If you use the incubator in the colder months keep it elevated off the ground and put a towel or light blanket over the top as the top is just thin plastic, also keep a secondary thermometer (I use a govee thermometer) to make sure your incubator is running accurately to the setting you keep it at.
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If it’s just a single clutch, a repurposed ice cooler can work great. That’s how I started out with BP eggs before upgrading. There’s a lot of tutorials around for the cooler incubators too.
Basically a few feet of heat tape, a thermostat, and maybe a few water bottles to help hold the temp when you open it to peek on things.
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An alternative method that I have used for the past decade is to take a 50qt or larger cooler, add about 15-20cm of water to it, put in a fish aquarium heater set to 30-31C and a small recirculating pump, drop in a few flower pots as supports and a layer or two of light diffuser on top of them and then set your egg box in on that platform. The aquarium heater heats the water which heats the air and has the added benefit of also acting as a heat sink, buffering temp fluctuation. The warmed water also keeps the humidity high. So high in fact, that I incubate with no substrate, just set the eggs on a double layer of diffuser in their box to keep them off the bottom since moisture will sometimes condense and pool there
You can put the whole thing together for vastly less money than a commercial incubator and it can last for years (like I said, been running mine for a decade)
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