So long as the back stayed moist it worked great.) Any thoughts on this product? I don’t have a gram scale here at home, so the idea of being able to visually keep track of moisture levels is appealing. It holds a lot of moisture and clumps well when wet(I used a mix of it and sodium bentonite clay to build backgrounds in my 46 gallon bowfront viv. A big advantage that they touted was the ability to determine moisture by looking at the substrate(whereas perlite remains white irregardless of moisture content arcillite is tan when dry and turns various shades of red brown when wetted). It is composed of arcillite clay, which I happen to know quite well as it is also used in Home Depot’s Aquatic Plant Soil. I was doing research on incubation media and recently came across a talk on a new product called Superhatch (by Repashy). Unless I start up a good sized flight cage this seems like it might be a more viable solution. I did come across one breeder who has raised several clutches mostly on tubefeeding the babies about 1-2 ml every 2 weeks or so, increasing as they get older. Haha, will have to convince the roomates first! I have been to bugger a few off of petstores(hard as in stores that don’t provide nestboxes the finches often don’t lay). The abstract of an interesting article on the conservation of moisture in reptile eggs is posted at: For example, if the container weighs ½ gram less than the previous week, add ½ ml. Weigh the container weekly – any weight loss will be the result of evaporation, and should be made up by adding an appropriate volume of water to the substrate. The cover should not be ventilated – for most reptile eggs, a once- daily check provides enough oxygen exchange (ventilation may need to be increased for large numbers of eggs once hatching time nears – please write in if unsure). Place the eggs (1/2 buried for most reptiles) and moistened substrate into a sealed container, weigh the container and record the weight (and date) on the cover. So, 10 milliliters of water added to 10 grams of vermiculite provides a 1:1 ratio (1:1 works well for many, but not all, reptiles). You can now easily set up a ratio of, for example, 1 part substrate to 1 part water, by measuring, in the graduated cylinder, a corresponding volume of water. Then, using the gram scale, weigh out enough substrate contain the eggs. Fortunately for me and other mathematically impaired herpers, calculations are simple – it turns out that 1 milliliter of water weighs 1 gram.įirst, determine the moisture level required by the eggs that you are incubating (please write in if you need help with this). All that is required by way of measuring devices is a simple gram scale and a graduated cylinder (marked off in milliliters). I would like to pass along a method that I have used for hundreds of species, both in zoos and in my own collection. While certain hardy species fare well under the much-promoted technique of “squeezing water from the substrate until it barely sticks together”, many eggs require closer attention to detail. The moisture content of the substrate upon which reptile eggs are incubated is a critical factor in hatching success.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |