Help with perlite

[skaggszoo]

I have a snake laying eggs as we speak. I purchased some Perlite as incubation medium but was needing to know the ratio of perlite to water. Is it 50/50 etc. Thanks in advance.
Sacha Skaggs

 

[Joe Romley]

It depends on what type of snake eggs. I've found that by filling a small plastic shoe box with dry perlite and putting a bunch of vent holes around the top of the box and placing that box in another box filled with a couple inches of water the humidity stays high enough when the lid is on. This way no water comes in contact with the egg shell, but it gets enough humidity. You can always go 50/50 by weight too.
Good Luck

 

[Darin Chappell]

I use perlite for my corn eggs, and I also place the packed boxes into an incubator.  However, I do wet the perlite before placing the eggs in it.  What I do to get the right ratio is not too scientific, but it works well.  

Take your perlite and completely saturate it in a bowl.  Then pour off the excess water, and grab a handful of the sopping wet perlite.  Squeeze as hard as you can, and when the water stops coming out, it's at just the right degree of wetness to add the eggs!

After I have the eggs in the boxes, I then place a wet (but wrung out) paper towel over the eggs and the perlite.  This way, the humidity is kept as high as possible without standing water anywhere near the eggs, and the paper towel acts as a humidity guage for me.  It dries out long before the eggs do, and it tells me when to add water.  You can just spray the towel directly without damaging hte eggs in any way.

Hope this helps--