# Incubator V Mother



## icuucme2 (Dec 4, 2016)

Hi All, my question is , whats the difference between hatching eggs in a incubator to letting the female incubate her eggs. I one day may want to do some breeding but don't know if I want all the trouble in setting up a incubator and would like to know other options. can you only get 1 clutch of eggs a year from your snake regardless or u can get more eggs if u incubate and breed the female again ?
TIA


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## Pauls_Pythons (Dec 4, 2016)

Its mostly about the impact of maternal incubation on the female. An extra 2 months of not feeding while exerting an already depleted level of energy reserves can potentially have a negative impact on the snakes long term health unless she was in exceptional condition prior to breeding. 
Secondly is the potential to get the female back in condition for breeding the following season.
Thirdly is that the conditions for egg incubation in the enclosure might not be ideal and the female might not be able to successfully incubate to full term. In the incubator we can provide near perfect conditions to hopefully optimise the hatch rates. Maternal incubation in captivity is nothing like maternal incubation in the wild where the animal can choose her own lay site with optimal conditions to help her do the job. 

There are some that still do maternal and swear by it. I only started doing artificial incubation 3 years ago and have far better hatch rates than I ever did with maternal. I guess it's whatever you prefer.


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## princessparrot (Dec 7, 2016)

I often wonder the same thing as I would like to breed my woma one day but am not overly confident in incubating them myself...


could you just take some and leave the rest with the mother?


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## kittycat17 (Dec 8, 2016)

princessparrot said:


> I often wonder the same thing as I would like to breed my woma one day but am not overly confident in incubating them myself...
> 
> 
> could you just take some and leave the rest with the mother?



The eggs tend to stick together and need to be carefully pried apart and all the eggs need to stay in the same position they where laid, so removing some of them could cause the female not wrap them as well and have them not in the same position


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## Prof_Moreliarty (Dec 8, 2016)

interesting topic as ive just placed 23 into an incubator and left 3 with mum, with the 3 i placed them same way i found them on top of mound of sphagnum moss and the mother is treating them as she would a normal size clutch will be interesting to see the results. as pauls pythons said its incubation is done so the mother can breed the next year doesnt bother me so happy to leave mum with some.


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## icuucme2 (Dec 9, 2016)

will be interesting of the outcome Prof_Moreliarty pls let us know what happens. Thanks guys for the feed back would love to hear from some for mother hatching herself as well. but I hope we can keep this going cause a lot of newbies out there I am one that would like to breed one day so all information is great. tia


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## kittycat17 (Dec 9, 2016)

The one thing my friend noted when she did an MI clutch was the eggs took a bit longer to cook than usual I believe


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## Pauls_Pythons (Dec 9, 2016)

kittycat17 said:


> The eggs tend to stick together and need to be carefully pried apart and all the eggs need to stay in the same position they where laid, so removing some of them could cause the female not wrap them as well and have them not in the same position



Eggs can be seperated but it is not a neccesity. I don't ever seperate the eggs other than to remove slugs if possible. The only reason people do this that I am aware of is to reduce the risk of a bad egg contaminating a good one. Having said that I have seen plenty of bad eggs stuck in a clutch that has had no detrimental impact to the remaining eggs around it.


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## kittycat17 (Dec 9, 2016)

Pauls_Pythons said:


> Eggs can be seperated but it is not a neccesity. I don't ever seperate the eggs other than to remove slugs if possible. The only reason people do this that I am aware of is to reduce the risk of a bad egg contaminating a good one. Having said that I have seen plenty of bad eggs stuck in a clutch that has had no detrimental impact to the remaining eggs around it.



I agree, I don't seperate my eggs unless I have to

I was referring to if you where leaving some with mum that you would then have to unnecessarily seperate them... I don't personally see the need to


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## reen08 (Feb 9, 2017)

I'm also interested in breeding. Firstly, how would I remove the eggs without coping a bite and what sort of incubator should I get?


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## kittycat17 (Feb 9, 2017)

reen08 said:


> I'm also interested in breeding. Firstly, how would I remove the eggs without coping a bite and what sort of incubator should I get?



Most females are exhausted just after laying, I find my grumpy females even allow me to carefully manoeuvre them off the eggs, I use my hook to get the head away from me and then gently move the rest off the snake around the eggs then I just lift them off in one big clutch to pop in the incubator tub


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