fans make sure the temperature is consistent throughout the incubator, so there aren't hotter areas and cooler areas. Otherwise the top of the incubator will always be warmer than the bottom. This only matters if you have a tall incubator and are incubating animals with very specific incubation requirements. Shallow incubators are less of an issue. Even taller incubators without a fan are fine as long as you are aware of the temperatures of the individual levels. I used an incubator without a fan and got an average difference of 50 days in incubation times between clutches raised on different shelves (one clutch was incubated at around 1C warmer than the other). The difference with reptiles that have shorter overall incubation times wouldn't be as great.
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