• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

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    Posted 08/15/2025
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    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

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    Addendum: 01/10/2026
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    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Thank you Clay Davenport

TheFragginDragon

TheFragginDragon

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You don't know me, but I can't express highly enough how much I appreciate your webpage outlining the conversion of a freezer to an incubator.

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/incubator.shtml

This will be my first year doing multiple breeding projects, and after seeing your insight on this process, and a quick trip to a local appliance shop (they were happy to drop off for free this almost new fridge/freezer that had a scrappable warranty issue), I started on this. It had the freezer on the bottom of the unit, which is perfect because I can use the lower section for incubation of different species eggs (I'll be breeding Balls and Milksnakes this season as well as Timor monitors). I'll be picking up another Herpstat and more Flexwatt for the lower section next month. Cheers!

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I agree completely!! Clay definitely deserves many thanks for all of the well done tutorials and other great information on his site. It is truly one of the very best herp resources on the net.

I am not sure how often Clay gets a pat on the back or a thank you, but how ever much it is it aint enough. He deserves a lot of credit for putting that much time and care into his site for others to utilize. He won my admiration long ago.
 
Thanks Alicia....once I got the fridge delivered, I probably put in about 5 hours max into it, the most time consuming part was ripping out the compressor, copper tubing, and other assorted guts, and cleaning it top to bottom with water/bleach solution. All in all, well worth the effort considering how much an industrial incubator of this size would cost!
 
I appreciate the kind words guys, I always like to know when my information has helped someone. That's what makes it worth the time I put into it.

That's a great looking incubator too, much nicer than mine, but mine was made from a shell that's probably 15 or 20 years old haha.
I've thought about converting a 2 compartment unit myself for different species, but I'm doing so little with colubrids anymore, I haven't gotten around to it. I just incubated the colubrid eggs on top of a cage in the snake room the last two years.
 
Would this same general idea work with the smaller refrigerators that are typically used in dorm-rooms? I have a 3.0 cubic foot refrigerator that has been collecting dust in my garage since my days in college.

About how much flexwatt would be needed to heat the 3 cu. ft. space to 85-90 degrees?
 
I converted a small fridge like that. It was basically a cube, I don't know the cubic feet.
It worked fine and I hatched out many lizard eggs in it.
I believe I used 1 foot of 11" flexwatt. I have it stored in the garage now and haven't looked at it in a while, but I'm pretty sure I only used one foot.
 
Thanks for the compliment! I definately got lucky with this one ending up getting scrapped. The date of manufacture was 1998, but either June Cleaver owned it before it went Tango Uniform, or it sat in a showroom for a few years before someone bought it, because it's in mint shape inside and out.
 
I built one of Clays hatchling racks. It was cheap and not too hard, and Im only 14, so, not like you have to be a builder to do it. Great write ups! I am about to do the fridge to incubator, but I dont get how to make it lighter/more portable. Are you releasing the cooling agent(freon)
 
Nope, the appliance company evacuated the coolant before they dropped it off. Since the people who scrapped it had to pay for the disposition of the unit, I didn't have to pay a penny.
 
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Very nice install! Have you had it fired up yet? It looks like it would make a nice setup but I would be interested if that amount of flexwatt can keep up with that much storage space. I have some 11" flex watt in some of our test boxes and am not impressed with the amount of heat they put off. Some of the boxes are about 18" cubes and made out of 3/4" thick melamine wood. With the ambient at around 70-72 the 1 foot strips of 11" flexwatt plugged direct into the wall couldn't make 90 degrees. I have a zoomed heat mat that is rated 24 watt and it gets much hotter than the flexwatt. The 3" flexwatt gets much hotter as well.

You have an advantage with great insulation but I would be interested in how long it takes to come back up to temp after the door has been open for 30-60 seconds or the typical amount of time for you to check eggs. If it seems to take a long time you can always add another strip of 11" next to the current one and just wire it in parallel to give you a little more heat. By the way, great looking thermostat! :^)

Dion Brewington
Owner, Spyder Robotics
 
Thanks Dion, appreciate the compliment! Yep, fired it up in my garage to test it out, with the outside ambient temp of 70F it took about 1 1/2 hours for the 3' of 11" Flexwatt to heat the compartment to 84.2F and it's maintaining it nicely. I plan on starting the incubator a good 10 days before I even think that eggs are going to be laid just to make sure everything is running at an even keel.

I opened the door for 30 seconds, then closed it, the temp at the center (no egg tray or medium) dropped to 82.7F. One minute after closing the door the temp bottomed out at 82.4F. The temp then started rising at a rate of about .1F every 21 seconds. The temp inside the egg chamber, when used, will be a bit more stable though. I use a lot of perlite.

OH, and you can thank the feedback on this site for my choice of thermostats, and thus far, I'm very happy with it!

Cheers amigo.
 
Thanks a bunch Clay, the incubator worked like a charm this year!! Thanks for putting together that awesome info!! :thumbsup:
 
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