Maternal incubation - humidity

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Snowman

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Please only answer if you have actually had experience yourself letting snakes maternally incubate eggs. (Non experienced PLEASE refrain from commenting)

Hi,
Because of I may be away at work (FIFO) when eggs are laid this year I'm looking at maternal incubation as a solution until I get home.
My main concern is humidity. How do you keep the humidity in the nest box up to say 70%. I know using damp not wet moss and vermiculite as a nesting material helps. But I always find it dries out quite quickly. I have thought of lining the nest box with wet perlite/water then egg crate, then a few sheets of newspaper.
Any advice would be most welcome from the experienced. :)
 
Hi Snowman,
I let my jungle incubate a clutch a couple of years ago. I initially was worried about humidity as well so I put some moist sphagnum moss in the nest box. It dried out pretty quick and she just pushed it out of the way anyway so I didn't worry about it after that. In the end she incubated the eggs in a dry cardboard shoe box. I ended up with 100% hatch rate. My advice would be to not mess with anything too much. She knows what she is doing. I didn't change the nest box, I left the temps the same and kept only daytime heat. I think the most important thing is to ensure she has access to a good bowl of water as I think they wet themselves to control the humidity in the nest.
I reckon if you are going to let her start incubating them you should let her finish the job as well. It's quite a rewarding experience to see all the little heads popping out between the coils of the mother when they hatch.
Good luck!
 
Snowy, I've bred imbricata successfully several times using maternal incubation, and the technique I used (because the weather can be pretty warm & dry during the incubation season) was to keep the nestbox dry, but to humidify the enclosure outside the nestbox. If you can lay yor hands on a waterproof enclosure so much the better (I made mine out of fibreglass) but if not, the technique will work equally well in a normal melamine enclosure as long as the corners are well sealed against water ingress.

As a nestbox, I used a foam esky of suitable size with dry or (VERY SLIGHTLY) damp sphagnum moss or shredded paper) on the bottom. An access hole had been cut into the lower side at one end. On the base of the enclosure itself I used 15-20 layers of newspaper (the West Australian is VERY suitable for this lol!) and then a few sheets of loosely crumpled paper on top of this. This can then be sprayed with water to dampen it down as required, without intruding on the incubating mother. You'll find the humidity is very adequate using this method (they do incubate in the driest part of the year anyway, and females tend to cover the entire egg mass if they can so water loss from the eggs is minimal).

This method is easy because managing the humidity doesn't require any disturbance of the female, and as long as the enclosure substrate is damp (doesn't need to be soaking wet) the humidity in both the enclosure and the laying box will be fine. It is also easily managed by anyone you want to nominate if you're away. Try and keep the temps around the high twenties so the female doesn't have to work too hard to keep the eggs warm.

Overall I've had great success using this method.

The problem with using a humidity source inside the laying box is that it will promote mould in a closed environment, and if it's too humid for the female she may not stay on the eggs. Also, if the eggs get condensation on them, they'll die and you will have to save what's left by artificial incubation.

Jamie
 
Thanks Niggz and Jamie. Exactly the info I was after :)
I'm pairing a few this year so may do some maternal all the way and some incubator. It would be a wonderful and rewarding sight to see maternal incubation.
 
I almost use the exact same set up as what Jamie has explained very well except that I always have a large container (surface area) with a heat source directly above it (below it would do the same job but perhaps less efficiently). The idea obviously is the continued evaporation ensures high constant humidity and you will never need to spray. The other difference is I still prefer using sphagnum over paper. I can’t highlight enough the enjoyment and success you will get out of maternal incubation process if you have set it up well.
 
Jamie and Dave's comments have reminded me that I added an extra water bowl to the warm end of the enclosure. This increased the humidity inside the enclosure similar to how Jamie describes. It just needed topping up as the water evaporated out.
 
I used to let a few maternally incubate in the early days. I used nesting boxes with spagnum moss to start with but found that if enough layers of paper was used in the encloseure 9 out of 10 snakes would always lay under the paper. So I stopped using nesting boxes and to this day still dont use them.
If you are home or someone is, once every 3-4 days give the female and her eggs a good misting, (the water will not harm the eggs), if not she will almost certainly pee on or around the eggs from time to time to keep up the humidity. Works well, I tend to us a good 20 or so layers of paper. Very good insulation.
 
I have found maternal incubation to be much more simplified than many others may say. I will let a few females do it most years.

Like others have mentioned, a foam esky or broccoli box works well and I have always used slightly dampened sphagnum moss and shredded newspaper. I nearly fill the box with it loosely packed. If only a small amount is used, they may push it aside, but if there's plenty they bury themselves in it and it seems to make them feel secure. I use a ten litre plastic container filled with water in the enclosure to keep the humidity up - no spraying required.

I find that mothers don't particularly want to be in a box sitting at the hot end of the enclosure even if the temps seem right. I always keep my nest boxes at the cooler end with consistent success. This gives the female more options to thermo-regulate and you can watch her leave the nest box to bask daily. One thing that can go wrong is if you have a 'bad mother' that doesn't wrap all of the eggs up well, but most know what to do.

I even use this method outdoors with great success. They know how to deal with all sorts of conditions if given options, which can be difficult in a small indoor cage.

This female jungle had 100% hatch rate with her first clutch last year.

JungleSWXMUM.JPG

A female mac buried in sphagnum moss.
Pinmacmum.jpg
 
If you set the temperature probe right among the clutch and get that area maintaining temperatures between 30 to 31.5 ( that's what works well for me at least), mum will have an easy time doing her job and will hardly ever have a need to bask. Although I view this as an maternal incubation, the reality is that the female is only there to fine tune a clinically set up incubator and simply is there to compensate the process in ways we may never perhaps fully grasp lol.
 
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