Corn snake breeding

[sadcrazyman]

What is the best type of incubation to use for corn snake eggs?

[CHRISANDBOIDS14]

You can use Sphagnum Moss or Vermiculite. They both work great.

Chris

[sadcrazyman]

thanks, what sort of setup is a good idea?

[reverendsterlin]

a chicken egg container, a quick search will give you tons of threads to look at, from egg substrates to building your own incubator.

[vanderkm]

We incubated without any medium (eggs on a rack within an almost sealed container in the incubator) at 82 degrees and 100% humidity and had complete hatch. There should be plenty of posts in this forum on incubator design - just scroll back through them or do a search of the forums (search button on right side of menu on top of page.

good luck,

mary v.

[MouseKilla]

Just curious how you achieve the 100% humidity without a medium, particularly a medium that is moist? I like the idea of not worrying about checking and frigging about with medium's moisture levels but I'm missing something here... Also without a medium what prevents the eggs from rolling over or becoming somehow misshapen?

[reverendsterlin]

most incubators used/made have a heated water temperature control, water hot enough to maintain an ambient temp at 83 I guess. semi-sealed unit/warm water=humidity all in one package.

[vanderkm]

Yes the Rev has summed it up nicely. There is an aquarium heater in a large water source that maintains both temp and humidity - just don't open the incubator very often and have relatively few holes in the actual egg container. Jeff Favelle's design - he has posted photos of it in the past - similar to Boid Keepers too I think. I like the idea that I can see all the eggs, they are not surrounded by moss or vermiculite (we did use moist vermiculite under the rack that the eggs sat on) and they stayed level and stable on top of the little rack (peice of plastic ceiling tile with 1/2 inch squares) with no problems.

this is the egg container at hatching with temp probe cord inside. This was sealed with just a few air holes and in an insulated cooler with the heated water as a souce of heat and humidity.


http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/509/63Corns_hatching.jpg

mary v.

[Will]

Hey Mary,

Just curious what size cooler you used, what size egg container, and roughly how many eggs does that accomodate in total...?

Thanks.

[vanderkm]

This year was our first incubating and we used a regular Rubbermaid picnic cooler - not the six pack size but the big one. It held an upright water chamber with an aquarium heater and two egg containers - one with 6 honduran eggs that were mostly separate and the one above with the bunch of 21 corn eggs. The hondo egg containers was about 4 inches square, the one with the corn eggs was 4X6 inches and everything was wedged in tight. I should have taken some pictures, but didn't want to disrupt it when eggs were inside. I notched the edge of the lid to allow the heater cord and temp probe inside and let it close tightly. We are making a new version this year to deal with more clutches expected.

mary v.
mary v.