This is an easy and very cheap way to turn an old fridge into a reptile incubator for eggs. Refrigerators are about the best incubators you can find. They don’t even have to work for you to use them. Plus they are very spacious, enabling you to incubate hundreds and hundreds of eggs at a time. I will show you step by step how to do it, and you won’t believe how easy it is to do. You can use them to incubate other animal eggs as well.
The first thing you need to do is locate an old refrigerator. It doesn’t have to work, it just needs to have a good seal around the doors. You can usually find these in classified ads for very cheap. One great idea is to place an ad in the paper stating that you are looking for a fridge that doesn’t work but with a good seal and you will haul it away for free. You will get tons of calls from people that are looking to get rid of them and not have to pay to have it hauled away. Just make sure the refrigerator is as large as you need it to be and the seal is in tact and the doors hang properly. Make sure to clean,disinfect, and leave it air out very well before using.
Now, you will want to use a basking lamp holder with a porcelain socket. These are the best as the sockets do not overheat and cause a fire. You can buy these lamps at Wal-Mart in the hardware department. They are the clamp lamps with the porcelain sockets. Check to make sure the clamp lamp you pick out can handle a 250 watt bulb. While you are there, also purchase a 250 watt flood light. Buy the red heating bulb as the bright white lights can startle the hatchlings from inside the eggs and cause them harm. You will also need a baking cookie sheet big enough to lay the lamp on. I will explain this later.
The only other purchases you will need to make is a thermostat to regulate the heat bulb and a digital thermometer for accurate temperature gaging. The thermostat I used is one you can just buy, plug your appliance into and plug it into the wall. You will then make manual adjustments until you have the appropriate temperature reading. I purchased the Zoo Med Reptitemp 500R thermostat online. It fluctuates slightly but if you use the 250 watt red bulb as I recommended, the temperature will only fluctuate a degree in either direction. The high wattage helps the incubator recover quickly from lost heat when the door is opened and keeps the temperature even.
Ok, now take the thermostat unit and duct tape it to the inside of the refrigerator. Take the temperature gage and tape it to the upper back wall. Do not tape over the gage itself. Put a folded towel down on the bottom of the refrigerator and put the cookie sheet on top and lay your clamp lamp with the bulb in it on it’s side on top of the cookie sheet. Angle it so that the heat coming off the lamp will not touch or melt the sides of the refrigerator. Fix it into place if you need to. Make sure the towel is cover all areas of the bottom of the cookie sheet as you don’t want the cookie sheet to touch plastic either. Remove any plastic shelves in the refrigerator and replace with more metal wire ones if needed. Now plug your lamp into the thermostat and plug thermostat into the wall. Set your thermostat at a range you can remember…or if you have a digital thermostat..set it to the right temp. You will want to do this several days in advance of putting any eggs in your new incubator as the temperature will fluctuate. You will need to check it every hour or so the first day or two and keep adjusting until you get it in the temperature range you need. After you are sure everything is staying the way you want it, you can then put your eggs in and keep a thermometer inside the incubator in the top middle to regulate any temperature changes. I have incubated several hundred eggs this way, and I have never had any issues or losses due to incubator problems. I have had much more time to do other things than monitor the eggs constantly since using this method and I will never go back.
Make sure that your lamp, towel, and cookie sheet stay in the right place and everything will be fine. I only have to add water to my egg bins one time during the entire incubation process this way and it’s usually just a light spraying on the sides of the containers.
Happy Hatching!
