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Hova Bators?

Devious_bunny

Devious_bunny

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Ok, heres the story. I have two Female leos. One "wild type" whos 7 years old and living in retirement (she is just a pet and was never bread, just lazier now...) and one 1 year old tang, het for albino (unfortunatley when i got her i was excited and forgot to ask exactly what strain of albino :crap:; i will be contacting her breeder to find out).

I'm working a lot, and taking some light school next year so i have some money and time to play with :) so my thought was, start a litle albino breeding project. And yes, i suppose i will need to find a male to do that and i might not be able to get one from anywhere local... so that spawns the question
1) I live in Vancouver, anybody shipped across the border before? had any problems?

Next, Hence the topic name....
2) are Hova Bators the way to go? They look reltitvley inexpensive...and LLL dosent seen to charge too much on shipping...Anyone had problems/success with them? Its dosent look like they ship to canada, so can i have it shipped to our cottage in WA, but pay with a canadian Visa?

3) in case anyone is wondering i have about a million 10g tanks for offspring, and a good local market (haha, as well as lots of curious friends/relitives!) and i breed my own mealies (if your want a laugh, check out my *super outdated*website www.freewebs.com/stephsgeckos)

4)ummm....so Input anyone...what am i missing...what do you think...Thanks for reading my long winded, error-ridden post :scatter:
 
Hovas are the way to go when you are just starting out..... They are inexpensive and work ok..... I do not use them and personaly do not like them, but alot of people do..... I build my own out of wine refridgerators.... All I can tell you is no matter what incubator you go with, it is always a good idea to use a thermostat....
 
I use the hovabators with no problems so far. Eventually I will have to move to a bigger one as I have two set up now and am almost out of room already....good thing and bad thing:)
 
I have 2 hovabators too, they work just great but yeah room gets to be an issue when youg et a lot of eggs so Im looking at getting either a coupel more hovabators or a bigger single unit.
 
Stephanie- LLL Reptile has a ton of threads about it on the BOI, I'm sure (I myself have had an... okay experience with them.

Robert-
Clay Davenport has a website at http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/incubator.shtml with a lot of cool stuff on it, including how to turn an old refridgerator into an incubator. I may have to try that someday!

Brenda
 
Hi Stephanie,
Like Gregg said, Hovas are the way to go. I use 4 of them and never had any problems. I live in the Ottawa area and bought mine from a local feed & seed supply store. Have you checked these kind of stores by your way? As for albino males, well I ship across Canada if you're ever interested;)
Take care,
 
geckoguy_ottawa said:
Hi Stephanie,
I live in the Ottawa area and bought mine from a local feed & seed supply store. Take care,
Click to expand...

No, I havent...but now that you mention it, we do have a lot of farmish supply stores. would something with a controlable temp that is menat for checkens work the same way? as long as i filled it with moist perlite?

(PS quite interested in you ship within canada :) )
 
Devious_bunny said:
would something with a controlable temp that is menat for checkens work the same way? as long as i filled it with moist perlite?
Click to expand...

Absolutely - that's what hovabators are, poultry incubators. You can also use a similar (almost identical) incubator called a Little Giant.
 
Herpcam said:
Absolutely - that's what hovabators are, poultry incubators. You can also use a similar (almost identical) incubator called a Little Giant.
Click to expand...


Awsome, we have a farm auction about 30 min away on sundays, so i'll check that out!
 
Ok, One more:

Sould i get another thermostat with the Hova, just to be safe? How much does the averidge thermostat cost, where can i get one (in canada...) and what brands does everybody use?

P.S. Thank you so much for all your replies!! I know it all seems so simple to everyone with experience, but it really helps me out!
 
I would, I use an ESU Coralife digital thermometer (not thermostat - sorry for the typo on the original post) with mine, I bought 5 of them off ebay for $6.18 each US, you should be able to get one on ebay that ships to canada or a pet shop, they are pretty common.
 
Last edited:
Ok, One more:

Sould i get another thermostat with the Hova, just to be safe? How much does the averidge thermostat cost, where can i get one (in canada...) and what brands does everybody use?

P.S. Thank you so much for all your replies!! I know it all seems so simple to everyone with experience, but it really helps me out!
 
dragonflyreptiles said:
I would, I use an ESU Coralife digital thermostat with mine, I bought 5 of them off ebay for $6.18 each US, you should be able to get one on ebay that ships to canada or a pet shop, they are pretty common.
Click to expand...
Wendy, I'm pretty sure these are thermometers, not thermostats. (I just checked on ebay becuase $6.18 for a thermostat, I wanted me some of those!) Is that what you have?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1285&item=4368334196&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

A thermometer with a probe into the incubator is a good idea too, but it doesn't adjust the temp, just reports it.
 
Jadormdrache said:
does anyone know if the A-life thermostat will work well with flexwatt?
Click to expand...


Ok Im going to be honest on this and tell you, I am using an Alife thermostat on my flexwatt, but I plan to updrage to a johnson controls or helix very soon.

Where it says you can put the dial on the Alife to say 90 and it keeps it at that temp is not quite correct. It took me days to get the temp right, putting it on 90 let it go from 88-102 so I had to play with the Alife a few days (with no leos in the new racks) before it would keep the correct temp.

What I did was put an ESU digital thermometer with the probe on the bottom set up, the middle and the top, I have them 6 rows high. Then I had to work with the thermostat quite a bit, it is actually set on 86 on the thermostat and it is staying from 86-91 in the tubs.

So if you do go with Alife, use it for a few days with NO occupants in the tubs and check the temps every couple of hours until you have it set right or it could become a problem allowing temps to go way tooooo high and possibly killing your reptiles.

I am home all day so I still check mine every couple of hours because I do not trust the thermostat to remain constant. If you are not able to be home to check it threw the day and a couple of times at night, I would not get an Alife.

With that being said, I will never buy an Alife again, I would get a Johnson Controls or a Helix and plan to as soon as possible.

Here are the better thermostats:
http://mgreptiles.com/THERMOCOMPARE.html

Here is an Alife taken apart so you can see how it is made:
http://mgreptiles.com/thermoguts.html
 
hmmm ill have to look around. I use an A-life for my 20 gallon, but thats the only cage it controls, and I didnt really notice any big fluxs,about + or minus 3 degrees either way during the "break in" period but since im building an incubator I'll have to look around.
 
leaftail said:
Wendy, I'm pretty sure these are thermometers, not thermostats. (I just checked on ebay becuase $6.18 for a thermostat, I wanted me some of those!) Is that what you have?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1285&item=4368334196&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

A thermometer with a probe into the incubator is a good idea too, but it doesn't adjust the temp, just reports it.
Click to expand...
i have those and i know those are thermometers. i use those to monitor the temps in my cages.
 
you could use a dimmer switch for an incubator on the flext watt.

My Alife was anywhere from 4-12 degress off the first 3 or 4 days but I had to lower the dial to 86 to get a 90 degree, it may have been just breaking it in some and getting the probe in the perfect spot but I just don't trust it to not check it constantly now lol
 
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