There are 2 ways of making a poly box incubator.

The first way i have found works best with snake eggs.I got a poly box from the local aquatics shop and placed a heatmat in the bottom of the box.The largest one i could fit in there.Then i placed a couple of rods about 3 inches above the heatmat for the tubs to sit on.I fill the tubs to a height of two thirds of the tub with dampened vermiculite(to do this place the vermiculite in a bucket and then pour in the water.Leave to soak for 30 mins then take some in your hands and squeexe it till no more water comes out) and i place the eggs on this.I put a thermometer in the incubating tub and then set the stat untill the temperature in the tubs are as desired.With my box i cut out 3 veiwing windows and used the covers of cd cases to act as a window that were then silicone sealed into place so i didnt need to open the box to check on the eggs.

Heres a couple of pics of my poly box

This is the box complete


And this is the inside of the box


The other way to make a polybox incubator is to take a box and fill it to three quaters the height of the box with dampened vermiculite and then place the largest heat mat that you can on the lid of the box.This meathod i have found best for lizard eggs.The thermometer get placed in the substrate and then the heat mat is switched on and adjusted by the matstat untill the temps are as required.No holes are put in either of the poly boxes as this would mean you would have trouble keeping a constant temp in them.The boxes get opened once or twice a week to let in fresh air and this seems to be sufficient.

On both these methods i have never had a less than 98% hatch rate from either system.

Hope this helps those in an emergency.

Really helpful that mate, thanks.

Nice one - I found that taping the heatmat to the lid worked best for me!!

We've now also bought a converted fridge - holds loads!!!

Yea i have the poly box for my wifes bearded dragons but i have a converted bottle fridge for my burmese eggs to incubate in.The fridge hols 12 medium contico boxes and is controlled with 2 600watt pulse states on heat mats

Cool (well it would be if we plugged the fridge in lol) - how do you deal with ventilation in the fridge?

To be honest the fridge is one of those that is 6'x2'x2' and i find that just by opening the door once or twice a week it is sufficent for ventilation due to the size of the unit itself.

I managed to hatch out corn snake eggs without a problem in it last year and i got the incubator from Genetic-Gems who used to use exactly the same setup and have hatched many burm and royal eggs over the last few years with great results.

i used a very similar method when i tried to incubate some corn eggs for someone. Unforutnatly towards the end it all went wrong. Dunno why as they were looking good for most of the time. Bust the eggs started to cave in and go mouldy then just shriveled up n died. I must have done something wrong, maybe by moving then box a few feet i really dont know.
But i know lots of people that use this method and have a good hatch rate from them.

cheer i needed to know how to make one soon

There is another Poly method...so I'll post later Nice work Greenphase

look forward to your new method being posted!

When people say put the heat mat on the lid.. this may sound realyl stupid but is that ontop of the lid (outside of the poly box) or iside the box attached to the underneath of the lid?!

cheers,