Do eggs create their own heat?

[Stockwell]

Back in my Ball Python days I used to run an inverter for my closet of incubators. It automatically switches over to battery power if the hydro goes out.
This is only really necessary for guys with expensive python eggs, but even computer UPS systems can be worth the expense if you're hatching high end stuff, although most UPS' wont last long enough without some good size extra gel cells, which are quite expensive.

I once had a 7 hr power failure in the dead of winter.. That was scary..
I moved all the herps to the bathroom, and put wet towels under the doors, and ran the gas heated hot water into the tub via the shower.
The bathtub acted like a heat reservoir, and filling it via the shower was quite effective at quickly warming the air.
Every hour or so, I would partially drain the tub, and run the shower again.
The house got down into the 40's but I managed to keep the bathroom in the 70's.

If the hot water approach wasn't successful, I was prepared to bag up all the snakes and put them in the car.
I also was prepared to run my furnace gas valve transformer off my incubator backup, connected to my car battery in the driveway.
I wouldn't have had enough current to run the blower, but I could convection heat the house without the blower. It would help quite a bit. It happened accidentaly once, when my blower seized. It was several days before I noticed the blower wasn't running. All the duct tape adhesive had melted and the duct tape was all on the basement floor. Thats also when I discoverd my furnace had been incorrectl wired. There was high heat limit switch, but it didn't even have wires attached

[crocdoc]

Ryan, some people have gas, some electricity. My hot water system runs on electricity. I have been thinking, though, of putting in some sort of sealed water containers for thermal stability.

Stockwell, I have considered getting an inverter. I have a feeling that a single cool night may not kill these monitor eggs, though, for they are a local species and even the termite mounds in which they are laid tend to have drops in winter at night.

[Jeff_Favelle]

I use an expensive aquarium fish heater. Then, on top of that, its plugged into a socket that is wired into the Helix. The Helix has never had to work, as its set for 90F and the incubator stays between 89.1F and 89.6F.

[Scales Zoo]

Just a follow up to the saga.

I went to check the eggs today, and the fridge door was open! The eggs got down to about 83, they are back at 89 now.

Also emailed Dave Barker, and he read this thread and he said most people don't realize it, but python eggs do create heat - he is sure of this. More heat during the latter part of incubation as a rule, but he's measured temperature differences of 11 F from the inside of a burm egg mass, to the outside - and said it was responsible for loss of clutches in closed and small egg containers. Dave also said that if my eggs are creating heat now, early on, it may be an indication of not enough humidity. I will definitely be watching it.

This thread has been great, many other good things were brought up that is good to think about. I am definitely building an aquarium heater incubator for future python eggs, and will do the eggs on grating over water in secondary containment fashion. I may even move these eggs to that style of incubator, and use the fridge for colubrids.

Thanks Roy, Jeff and others for all your input.

Ryan

[Jeff_Favelle]

Great stuff!

[JDouglas]

Another source of heat in a power outage would be a gas stove/oven. If your kitchen is not too large the oven could be turned on with the oven door left open. Or, water could be boiled and dumped into a bathtub every hour or so as crocdoc explained.

[crocdoc]

um, that's great, Jaremy, but how do I turn on the stove/oven if it is on electricity, too?

If my stove was on gas, the power outage wouldn't have been an issue.

[JDouglas]

Ya you would need a gas oven ~ LOL! In my house everything is gas except for the fan for the furnace.

[MouseKilla]

Fascinating stuff! I have to admit that some of it was over my head with my limited experience with incubation let alone thermal dynamics so I'm afraid I don't have much to contribute.

What I'm wondering though is how important 1 degree really is. Is that amount of difference or fluctuation actually going to effect your hatch rate?

As I said, I can't speak from experience here but it seems to me that eggs of any kind couldn't possibly be that sensitive or very few would survive in the wild. Am I wrong to assume that it would be next to impossible for a gravid snake to find such a well insulated place to deposit her eggs?

Another question I have is why is it that it seems python breeders are so much more concerned with precise incubation temperatures while it is commonly said that corn snake eggs can be successfully incubated at temperatures anywhere from 70 - 90F? Are python eggs that much more sensitive or just worth that much more money?

[crocdoc]

MouseKilla, in the wild corn snakes are temperate to warm temperate animals and their eggs are abandoned by the mother once laid, so they are adapted for putting up with whatever variation they may encounter. Pythons are tropical to temperate animals, but in the wild the mother controls the temperature and humidity to a certain extent by wrapping around the eggs and shivering. Their eggs aren't adapted for as great a variation.

Of course, there is no doubt that it doesn't all come down to just sensitivity of the eggs. Even if python eggs weren't very sensitive (I can't say whether they are or are not, for I haven't bred them), I couldn't imagine people putting them in a shoebox on a closet shelf, shrugging and hoping for the best if the babies are going to be worth several hundred dollars each.

[Stockwell]

Mousekilla, in general plus or minus a degree F or even two is no big deal. I think there is frequently a quest for "perfection" simply to see if it's achievable, and there is a perception that the higher the stability the better the hatch rate. Whether or not that is true,is another question.
I might add that I have hatched Spotted/Childrens Pythons at 85F rather than the usual 88 to 90, typcial for most Pythons. I was breeding those in the 80's when few others were, and found it odd that they hatched in 45 days. I figured that means the temps are too high. So I hatched a clutch at 85, and they took a week longer to hatch, but were still pretty fast

And I have hatched Ball Pythons with fluctuations between 86 and 91F with 100% hatch rates
I'm not sure you'd get away with that with Chondro eggs, although I'm wondering if anyone has tried.
There's not a whole lot of motivation to "experiment" with thousand plus dollar hatchlings at stake. There is alot of follow the leader in this hobby. Once someone has success with a set of criteria, is generally considered gospel, and copied note for note by other breeders
I suspect our quest for the perfect rock stable incubator is more of a technical challenge then a necessity.

[MouseKilla]

Very interesting answers. I hadn't considered the tropical/temperate factor before and I had to slap myself in the forehead once I'd read it. It just makes sense that tropical species would be less tolerant of low temps and big fluctuations.

I had suspected that achieving and holding that magic temperature for your eggs was something that was more for the benefit of the owner of the eggs than the eggs themselves. Or as Roy said, "more of a technical challenge than a necessity".

Of course when I'm incubating my own eggs I'm also going to shoot for the same conditions that have been proven to work in the past. What else would someone do if the offspring is more important to them than finding out what the eggs could withstand?

I don't know if I'll ever bother with expensive gagetry myself, especially if I manage success using more basic methods. I figure if I can hatch, say several clutches of normal BP eggs by leaving them in a rubbermaid on a shelf in a heated room, why would I change how I do it if I later began working with expensive morphs rather than normals?

I think for some people the building of this stuff alone, that technical challenge, becomes a hobby in it's own right and that probably fuels the quest for "perfection" too.

[Stockwell]

Well for me certainly incubator design is a hobby.
I've been doing it for more than two decades.I enjoy the fabrication and design in addition to the carpentry and circuitry, plus electronics, circuit design and instrumentation is my profession.
I guess I'm lucky to have a career that also serves my hobby.
I'm already starting on my next new controller design, which includes a nice back lit LCD display, and a solid state temperature sensor rather than a thermistor.(National's LM35)
Why?? simply for fun,that quest for perfection, and so I don't need to turn on the light to read my incubators

[crocdoc]

I think your hobby should include making similar units that run on 240 volts, just for fun

Of course, since you wouldn't be able to use or test them there, you'd have to send them to someone else. Say, me for example. Yeah, that's the ticket, I'd test them for you. That's just the sort of guy I am.

[Stockwell]

LOL...Doc,You've doing alright on your own. I've seen pics of your unit and You also appear to be a "builder"
I see you've been using light bulbs as your heat source. Nothing wrong with that, other than the space they fill. There's not too many cheaper heat sources. My very first incubators used bulbs, then I switched to "Power resistors" which are smaller and never burn out. I'm currently using Flexwatt since it's cheap and has the added advantage of spreading the heat out. It also lasts forever.
The nichrome Hovabator heaters(elements) are also available as a spare part and I've used those but they aren't worth 25 bucks.
Hovabator wafer thermostats however are still the best darn deal around for a tight differential bi-metal Tstat that can switch line directly.
They are rated for 240 as well.