Quick question- For those of you that use the hovabator style incubators for king and corn snake eggs, in your experience, have you found still air to be better than circulated air or vice-versa?
I currently have 1 still air “little giant” hovabator style incubator that ive been using occasionally over the years with success, but this year im needing 2 more incubators. So if theres any advantage in spending $15 extra dollars on the circulated air, ill take that advantage!
Eggs will be in tuppaware with the lids on and with perlite inside.
I would guess circulated air to create a more precise temperature but ive never had an issue with the still air “little giant” that i know of. Just wanted to get some opinions from you folks before i buy.
I’ve been using the most basic Farm Innovators still air with a pymeter dual probe thermostat from Amazon since I started, with perfect hatch rates and zero issues. They say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, so I’m not about to switch.
I used a still air version in the past without any trouble. I incubate in a small room at ambient temps now, though.
I would say as long as you were having success before, stick with the same plan. Whichever type you be, do be sure to run the new incubator for at least several days before trusting it with eggs. Best of luck!
Thanks guys! Grabbed 2 of these still airs from local farm store. Definitely doing dry runs for a couoke days with perlite filled tuppawares (no eggs). Temp checks every few hours. These are a little different than my other one, (second photo), which has a digital display but both of the new ones seem to be working so far so good.
Noodle - is the extra thermostat just for backup extra protection? I should grab a couple probably?
Thanks again as usual for the advice guys. Always appreciated.
The new ones you got, I suspect, are the exact model I use. I do not trust the display thermometer, myself. I highly recommend something like the pymeter, so you can stick a probe in the box with the eggs to make sure you’re not overheating anything. I have the dual probe version and it has alarms you can set & be alerted if the temp drops too high or too low. Has saved my behind on a couple of occasions.
Oh also, cant believe i forgot this. Something weird happened today. One of my girls, shes a giant ero, had her prelay shed yesterday. Earlier today i found this laying outside of her laybox on the regular substrate. A little tiny deflated jiggley slug. Its been about 10 hours and shes not laying or anything… shes 4 years old, huge already plus stuffed with eggs. Thoughts?
Stock up the lay box with more moss and I’d say give her time without being bothered. One day after a pre-lay is quite early, usually takes 10-14 days. She doesn’t look to be in distress.
Oh that photo of her above is from a couple weeks ago. But yeah, shes calm but even still ive not been handling her at all lately. She actually barely fits in that laybox in the photo. Shes got a bigger box now & definitely leaving her alone. She lives in large glass with sliding screen top and after i found that slug today i draped a dark brown towel over the front so she cant even see me when im in there. Ive been slowly peeking here & there today and shes not even in her lay. She been in her regular hidebox all day.
Ah, my mistaken assumption then. When was her previous shed before this? As long as she’s not looking visibly lumpy, like she’s contracting with no progress, or in distress, time is the best option at least for now.
Edit - oh, and no, she just chillen it looks like. Weird. Is it possible she was trying to poo and the 1st egg in line popped out? Or is that not how it works? lol
Hey sorry to keep bothering. Just want to male sure - so i plug each incubator into here and then the thermostat plug goes into the wall? Same as the ve200’s i use for enclosures housing basically? And 1 probe per incubator?
I’d actually go one thermostat per incubator, that way if you have multiple egg boxes in each, you can measure their individual temperatures to make sure one isn’t incubating significantly hotter than the other.
I didn’t see anyone comment with an air circulating version of the hovabator incubator so here I am. I started around 2014 with what looks like the same version as your single older hova incubator but mine has the small circulation fan. I’ve hatched out crested gecko eggs, corn snake eggs, ring necked pheasant, and button quail eggs all out of this single incubator. With the bird eggs I hand rolled every five hours at night and 3 hours during the day cause I like to torture myself and had over a 90% hatch rate. I need to get the auto roller lol.
With the reptile eggs again spare for my one year where every clutch got poisoned by crappy substrate and gave my kinked, meatball babies (will never buy from that seller again); again I’ve had above a 90% hatch rate all previous years. If we include that one bad year out of the about ten or so that I’ve been breeding stuff it’s worse but seeing as though multiple species had clutches came out with the same exact kinks and problems I really do believe that was a substrate problem. Like either it was sprayed for bugs, had mouse poison on it, or something. I have never had clutches like that ever it was horrible.
Now I never used a still air one so I can’t comment if there is a difference in my opinion. I feel as though the air circulation may make more of a difference for bird egg incubation rather than for reptile eggs in my opinion. Seeing as most reptiles have eggs buried and away from moving air versus birds with open air nests.
Valid question since corns have only one opening, the cloaca/vent. But no, that’s not how it works. Internally, the digestive tract and the reproductive tract are separated very close to the external opening. They parallel one another. A meal can sometimes help when a female is having trouble laying, but I’m not sure what happened with your girl’s random slug. It’s this her first season to lay? If not, how did it go before?
Glad that your ERO girl isn’t in obvious distress. Don’t bother her frequently at this point. I just check mine twice a day when they’re due. Of course I’ll glance in if I pass their enclosures during the day, but they’re used to that. “Tincture of time” will hopefully cure any issues.
