Build your own incubator

[Ryan Wunsch]

The reason I built this incubator, was that I had a few spare parts for a hovabators incubator and thought I’d try to make one that worked better than a hovabators (less temperature fluctuation).

I had a retainer ring, and a spare thermostat and assembly to start. I found the retainer ring fit perfectly inside a standard fish box, so I found one of those in the garage.

I purchased a 120 volt computer fan ($10 at radioshack)
A heat element ($20)
And used salvage aluminum and egg crating that I found… for a total of a $30 incubator.
(the thermostats are about $25, I think, and all of the spare parts for a hovabotor can be bought from www.berryhilllimited.com



As you can see in the picture, I used an aluminums plate that I cut to fit inside the fish box. I bolted some square tubing to it, which is what holds the egg crate to allow for air circulation underneath the egg containers. This can also be easily removed to fit a larger incubator (more on that later)





Cut and installed egg crate to fit.





I mounted the thermostat to the side of the fish box. I just drilled 3 holes for the holding bolts and the adjustment doomherhicky that comes with the thermostat assembly.






I cut some aluminium to provide more support on the styro fish box, I’m not sure if I needed to, but there it is.






I cut the egg crate to fit so that it would hold the computer fan in place. You can see how the computer fan will circulate the air, and keep all the air the same temperature. I wired it independently of the heat element, because the heat element and aluminium will continue to radiate heat unevenly after the power is cut to them (via the thermostat)






Side view of the finished incubator, notice the retaining ring.




With this assembly, I can easily and quickly move everything to a larger stryo box or something else, like an old fridge.

If you do have a hovabators with a fan, you can actually just flip the lid upside down, and place it into the bottom of an old refrigerator.

I did this, and drilled a hole in the refrigerator so that it wouldn’t build pressure when it closed. I used the racks to hold egg boxes, and it works very well.

[Ryan Wunsch]

While I was very proud of the way that turned out, a cheaper and better incubator can be built with a cooler and an aquarium heater.

I built a larger versioin for Burmese Python eggs (too big for any cooler), and could take pictures of that - but I'm hoping someone (maybe Mary) has pictures of their aquarium heater / food cooler systems already.

Ryan

[Ryan]

Nice work Ryan and good ideas!! My next incubator is going to be the fridge method but for now I'm going with a styro fish box with heat tape and water bottles as a heat sink.

Pretty crude really but so far it's working fine.

[vanderkm]

Our basic incubator - has worked great in the past and we will likely stick with it. I love the no-substrate method - like how easy it is to keep track of eggs and see what is going on.

Basic cooler, 1/3 full of water, Ebo-Jager aquarium heater submerged, indoor/outdoor temp probe in egg box


Inside - egg crate suspended above water, this one holds 4 egg boxes - or more if you want to stack them. Egg boxes have damp vermiculite under the egg crate, just so babies don't have to swim when they hatch. There are a few holes in the egg box. Humidity stays at saturation.


Cheap and easy system


mary v.

[Ryan Wunsch]

Thanks very much for the pictures of your incubator.

The one I mentioned building is similar, but because I used a large rubbermade tote container inside an insulated box, I was able to make one more improvement. When I opened up the main lid, I saw a sheet of glass over top of the tote. Inside the tote (which is like the inside of your incubator) I had the egg containers (In this case just one, the large tall sweaterbox rubbermades). I also had a peice of glass over that.

So, in my case, I could open the lid as much as I wanted to look for any hatchlings, and the temperature inside the incubator never dropped.

Cool air on the outside of the egg containers causes the saturated humidity to condensate, and for a while the humidity inside the egg containers drops as a result. Thats not a big deal, but the condensate can drip down on the eggs, which I've blamed on wrecked eggs in the past.

Have you ever thought about incorporating some kind of plexiglass window into that set up, or even a removable barrier to help trap in the heat to avoid temperature fluctuations when checking on the eggs?

Ryan

[vanderkm]

Neat idea Ryan - and not one I had considered, mostly because my egg boxes have colored lids and I have to take the lids off to check for hatchlings anyway. I think basic colubrid eggs may be less vulnerable than pythons and the bigger guys you were doing.

I actually don't open the incubator much at all until the last week or so before they are due. My first year I candled everything, probably every week!! I cannot believe that I had such good hatch rates when I was forever checking on them! I am sure there was lots of temperature fluxuation then.

I have adopted a more relaxed attitude now and as long as the temp reads consistently, I don't find I need to add water at all, so the incubator gets opened only a couple times before the last week. I wonder if water dripping is as much of a factor late in incubation.

I think it would be easy to put a plexi lid inside the main lid though and may consider doing it, even if it won't help me see in, it would still allow me to temp-gun the interior as a check on my thermometer - without dropping the temps inside too much,

mary v.

[Ryan Wunsch]

For colubrid eggs the condensation and humidity changes from temperature drops are probably no real issue like you said.

I was incubating python eggs at the zoo and had learned the year before that they are much trickier (lost some to dripping, and to "drowing" of the babies because of too much water intake)

Even with those python eggs, I always felt I was "practicing" for some more important (and more valuable) python eggs and was always aiming to get 100% hatch rates and perfect a style of incubation.

I had even considered going so far as to install a remote spy camera (or 3 lol) so that I would never have to open the incubator, but I could check for water levels and egg pipping from a monitor beside the incubator, or perhaps via an internet link anywhere I was.

See, that was waaay overdoing it..... but like I said I always tried to treat the python eggs like they were a very rare snake, or worth $40,000.

Your incubator is far better than what I've used for colubrid eggs. Actually the best part of those incubators, to me, is the stable heat source that you have with the aquarium heater and surrounding water. Even the best designed dry incubators (with a thermostat) still have some temperature fluctuation which results in condensation. But again, I doubt that is a big issue for most colubrid eggs.

Ryan

[Tim Cranwill]

I don't have any pics of my incubators to share really. Some pics of clutches in the incubator show parts fairly well though.

This is my full fridge incubator. I bought the fridge for $10 with the compressor and other parts removed already. Then I wired up 4 panels of 11" tape and plugged her into a Helix. The humidity stays in the egg boxes and the air in the incubator is dry. I use this one for Python eggs.


I have another, much uglier, incubator that follows the same principals but on a smaller scale. I built a 2'x3'x4' OSB box, lined it with 3/4" styrofoam and then a bunch of poly (it was intended to be filled with water). This one is for colubrid eggs and is run off of one of those little $30 on/off thermostats... it will be run on a Helix one day though.

I keep several 2L or 4L bottles of water in each incubator to act as thermo regulators and to have water available at the proper temperature if I need to add water to an egg box.

I've had very good hatch rates with both incubators. I had planned to build 2 or 3 smaller incubators this year but ran out of time and money. when I do build some new ones, they will probably follow the same principals but incorporate a fan as well.

[Ryan]

I've been wanting to build the fridge style incubator for a while now but can't quite justify it yet with the 1 or 2 clutches I'm producing this season, lol.

[snakewhisperer]

Wondering if there would be anyone wanting a mini fridge for this purpose. I might be able to get some that are broken, but I will be keeping the beer that was in them. If there is interest I can ask at work....depends if they get sent back or not for refund etc.