CARESHEET: Egg incubation: Reptile eggs |
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- Incubating Reptile Eggs:-
- Reptile eggs are relatively easy (in most common species) to incubate.
Hopefully your female has laid in a box of damp peat in her vivarium.
If not, you need to remove the eggs with some urgency to prevent them drying out.
Prepare an incubating box (a sandwich box is ok) and put about 2" of peat or vermiculite in it.
This should be damp so if squeezed it will just hold together. Carefully remove the eggs,
taking care not to rotate them and if possible, try to seperate them. If they are stuck together,
do not pull them apart as you may damage them. If seperate,
bury the eggs between 1/2 - 3/4 deep so only the top surface is showing.
They get water by absorbing it from the peat/vermiculite, and so the more contact they have with the substrate,
the easier the developing embryo obtains water. If the eggs are stuck together as a clump,
have the substrate touching as many eggs as possible, even if it means piling it up around the eggs.
Raise the box containing the eggs up on strips of wood so it is not in direct contact with the heat mat,
and set the temperature to 28 degrees celsius (for common species). Incubation time is usually around 10 weeks.
Once the eggs have hatched, the baby reptiles should be left in the incubation box for about 24 hours.
If some of them have partly hatched (for example, if some of the body remains in the egg shell),
you should not intervene by attempting to remove the hatchling yourself as you are risking harming them
and may result in death. Instead they should be left to hatch themselves, as and when they are ready.
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- The incubator:-
- There are lots of incubator designs around, however we have found that the easiest and cheapest to be a poltstyrene box,
with a heat mat in the bottom on a mat thermostat or pulse stat, and a thermometer to monitor the temperature.
A regular mat thermostat would be sufficient, but we recommend a pulse stat, as it is more accurate in regulating
the temperature. The thermometer can be either a glass one or a digital one, but the digital version is recommended
as they are often more accurate and provide minimum and maximum temperatures.
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- Possible problems:-
- Dehydration - The most common cause of egg loss is dehydration where the eggs will dimple and start to collapse.
It can be prevented by not having too many air holes in the incubation tub, and also spraying the substrate to ensure
it remains damp at all times. Do not spray the eggs directly, and do not over-spray the substrate.
The aim is to keep the substrate damp enough to supply the eggs with water to keep them looking firm.
Discolouration - If an eggs is infertile, it will quickly discolour and begin to break down.
Any such eggs should be removed immediatly to prevent infection of other fertile eggs.
If an infertile egg is firmly attached to a healthy egg, it should be left alone as you will probably damage the
healthy egg and prevent any possibility of it hatching. In some cases, even healthy eggs will discolour,
but they should be left alone as they will hatch as they usually would. They should only be removed if they too begin
to break down.
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