Hatchrite?

[LeopardGeckoBreederFan]

Has anyone used hatchrite and if so how was it? If what it says on the site is true then this should be an excellent way to incubate eggs. What do you guys think?

 

[LeopardGeckoBreederFan]

Bump

 

[Saskia]

I have never used it, vermiculite and perlite have worked great for me

 

[LeopardGeckoBreederFan]

How often do you have to moisten that? And how do you know its the right moisture level? I was originally planning on using vermiculite but I started looking at other things to take some of the guesswork out of it. This'll be my first breeding season so I'm scared I'll do something wrong with the eggs.

 

[Saskia]

I used to breed in small deli cups, I opened one small hole on each cup to allow a little bit or air exchange, the thing is I can´t tell you exactly how much to moist because I did it by "finger", sometimes I didn´t had to moist it again during the whole time, sometimes I had to moist it once, I usually checked my eggs once a week (I mean, I looked at them every day trough the incubator window, but I opened it to check the moisture once a week, I just touched the vermiculite, sometimes it was getting a bit too dry and I misted it again, carefully so I wouldn´t wet the eggs... I had a very high hatch rate like this

 

[LeopardGeckoBreederFan]

Hmm, that sounds good. I'll probably just get that. So you do individual cups inside an incubator? I'm planning on making a homemade incubator with either a 10 gallon or 20 gallon tank. Doees doing the individual cups give an advantage? Like if one egg is moldy then it wont ruin other eggs?

 

[Saskia]

Honestly, no, it doesn´t, I did it like that in order for geckos not to step over eggs when hatching, and to keep individual tracks of every clutch, but I think you take more use of the space when using a large container and placing all eggs there... if I were to breed this year I would probably use just one large container and place eggs in order, so I could still keep track of individual clutches

 

[LeopardGeckoBreederFan]

yes, that's what I was planning on doing and I was wondering how it would affect the eggs if a new hatchling walked on them before I checked the incubator...do you think it harms them?

 

[Saskia]

No, I don´t, they don´t weight much, I think they would be fine

 

[LeopardGeckoBreederFan]

Ok, thank you!! That was a big help and I feel a lot more confident about my incubation.

 

[Saskia]

The first season is so nerve wracking! I rememeber I used to call an experienced friend at least every 2 days to ask all sorts of things... this web didn´t exist back then, oh, well, at least I didn´t know of it! Ask anything you want, I´ll be more than happy to be of help

 

[LeopardGeckoBreederFan]

Yes it really is nerve wracking lol. I have a feeling I'll be on here every couple of hours once I get my breeders in the same tank and I'm sure I'll annoy the crap out of people with how many questions I have lol. Thank you so much for being willing to help!