Lessons learned

My last post you learned about my first ever experience breeding carpet pythons. This time I’m going to talk about sons of the things I’ve learned from that experience. Most of these lessons are going to pertain to pythons, specifically Morelia. If you have spotted pythons they might be a bit different, black heads are VERY different. So understand that this is very specific to my experience. 

LESSON 1, have a freaking incubator!

This one should be a no brainer, but you’d be surprised. It’s not just my dumb ass that did this, but a very prominent breeder in Philly did the same thing! Incubators not only provide a nice place to put your egg box, they also provide a stable temperature controlled environment for your eggs to develop. I don’t care, and neither do the eggs, if you buy a animal plastics incubator. Make one from a coke cooler, build one, or turn a spare closet into one, Doesn’t matter just have one!

LESSON 2, buy good thermostats

This is another no brainer, and again you’d be surprised. A ranco is about the cheapest I’d go on your stat. Anything cheaper prolly won’t work! Spider robotics, vivarium, all make good inexpensive ish single prob stats that will get the job done. I do not think that the latest greatest proportional thermostat is needed, a good accurate on/off one will work fine. 

LESSON 3, eggs are more resilient then you think.

This piggy backs with lesson 2, you do not need a proportional thermostat set at 88.5 exactly, with no variations in temp even .01 degree to be successful. What you need is consistent temps above 85 and below 89. Some where in there is the sweet spot. Over the yrs I’ve lowered the temp from 88-89, to 85 or so. The slight variation in temperature is good for the babies, and makes a stronger baby!

That ends this weeks ramblings, I think next week I’ll update the room situation and my measly egg count for this yr!