Incubation Temps? What does everybody use?

I'm expecting my first eggs in a couple of weeks, and now that I have my incubator calibrated, I was wondering what everybody used for their "All Female", "Mix", and "All Male" temps.

In all that I have read, it seems that there is a slight temp range to work with for each sex. I was wondering if anybody had any advice for me.

Thanks,
Jason

I incubate my females at 81-82 degrees, and males at 88-89 degrees.

88-89=males, in my experience............ once in a while you might get a "hot" female

87 = a mix, more males and a few females
86 = a mix, more females.... and the best looking females at this temp.
83-85 = a mix
80-82= females, in my experience

Matt

I incubate my females at 82 degrees and my males at 89 degrees. Good luck with your eggs!

Thanks for the info guys.

Do you all recommend that I do a mix, or all females? It seems like females are in higher demand, but I'm no expert.

Our females are incubated in two stages, first at 82 degrees for about 20 days or so to "lock in" the female sex, and then the remainder of thier incubation is done in another incubator set at 88-90 to enhance color. The eggs we incubate for males are marked and put right into the second 88-90 incubator.

Hey Chris, just out of curiousity, what is your hatch rate with that method..... I hear conflicting stories about using this method..... Some great and some not so great..... Me personally, I have no problem at all with this method as long as the hatchlings are represented correctly, which you have done, but some people do not like this method.....
Just figured I would get your take on it.....

Hey Gregg, out of the 48 or so eggs we've incubated using this method so far this season only one has gone bad in the high end incubation. It collapsed and began molding over about 40 days into incubation and I do believe this had to do with improper humidity rather than the method used. The incubator we were using for the higher temp incubation was not suited for this situation and has since been modified to lower the overall humidity collected inside. I think once this method is "perfected" the hatch rate will be astounding but its still early to say for certain. So far we've lost the one described above, 11 have hatched without a hitch, the others have been hatching steady as the days go by, and we're obtaining new eggs daily. I'll be sure to keep you updated if you wish....

I do have to say this, even though it is very early in the season, the hatchlings we have obtained using this method do appear to be hatching healthier and more visually appealing. I'll be quite honest, I have been tinkering with this method a bit to see what type of stimuli will affect thier visual appearence, if any. Stimuli after hatch such as Temperatures, lighting, as well as substrates.

Using previous incubation methods for simple sex determination I found that hatchlings came out darker and seemed to be hatching early. From what I have heard of people using higher temps later in the incubation process they seem to be hatching SOONER, so far this has not been the case with us. Ours seem to be hatching at about 50-55 days using this method. If you have any other questions feel free to ask, I see no reason to keep this type of information a "secret". Most if not all specimens we have incubated this way seem to keep their coloration no matter the substrate or temperatures in which they are housed, and only improve with age. I have a few more situations I would like to simulate in order to determine the effects of this method... The next few months will prove to give us the information we need to really gather the details everyone seems interested in.

Right now we're keeping weekly photos on file for every single hatchling we produce, and we'll use them later in the season to make our comparisons. What I'm really interested in seeing is how accurate sexing is using this method, so far everything else seems VERY promising. As long as sexing proves to be fairly accurate with this method I think we'll be sticking with it. Worst case scenario... We produce a ton of pretty leos that turn out to be all males using this method, which is why we have been incubating 50% of our clutches using the old method as well, as a failsafe. We're quite interested in proving this methods possibilities and accuracy, but not at the expense of our entire season!

If you have any suggestions for us or can think of any other "tests" to prove this method please take the time to share your opinions or ideas.

Cool Chris, you just about covered my question..... The only reason I asked was because some people are against this method because it is a "misrepresentation" of the animal, which I feel is total BS because it is the way the animal looks when incubated at higher temps..... There are temp fluctuations in the wild that will cause a similar effect..... I have personally never tried this because of the mortality rate that some speak of..... I would rather be safe than sorry..... But in your situation it does not seem to have any bearing on your hatch rate...... Loosing an egg or two would be the case even if the eggs were incubated at the same temp all the way through development..... If you can, keep me updated..... I am curious as to what you find...... Thanks Chris......

You can email me at GaboonGregg@hotmail.com

Anytime. If you have any questions or ideas you can email me directly at cjohnson@topshelfexotic.com or use one of the messenger's listed in my profile. Take care.