If you have a pregnant female sulcata tortoise or your are planning on breeding your pet sulcatas, it’s important to consider how to incubate the eggs. Although some people have had success naturally incubating the eggs in the nest the female dug, you’ll have the highest hatch rate if you use an incubator.
Tortoise Egg Incubator – Hovabator 1602N
The most commonly used incubator is a Hovabator. You can purchase a hovabator from local feed shops, as they’re often used by 4H programs to hatch chickens. However, if you don’t have a local farm and feed shop nearby, shop around online for the best price.
There are several types of Hovabator incubators available. You want the 1602N model.
The Hovabator 1602N is a thermal air incubator. There is a radiant heat tube that warms the inside of the incubator. There is not a fan, which you don’t want as the fan can dry out the eggs.
When setting up a Hovabator, you want to set it up a few days in advance. This will allow you to get the temperature where you want it and stable before adding in the tortoise eggs.
Refrigerator Incubator
The Hovabator incubator is an very simple incubator to use, however if you’re incubating multiple clutches of eggs, you may need several Hovabators. OR you can buy one larger refrigerator incubator. These are larger and can hold multiple clutches of sulcata eggs.
The HappyBuy incubator is a small refrigerator style incubator.
You can also convert an old fridge into an incubator, however this requires technically tweaking. You need to install a heat source and a thermostat that will allow you to control and maintain the temperature.
