Jenny, there are a few of us anal retentive types in the ball python world that keep very detailed records of their breeding efforts. For example, I know Tim and Monica Bailey of Bailey & Bailey Reptiles also keep excellent records.

Good question regarding real numbers, not percentages. 54% of our clutches not "sired" by the first male to lock up represents 14 clutches out of 26 clutches that had multiple co-dom males put with a single female. I also took into consideration that I might have missed a lock so I only included clutches where I knew a particular male was not put with that female until several weeks after the first male locked with her. My results for the year before last were similar but the number of clutches was much smaller.

I did not count the recessive clutches we hatched in this analysis as they did not have more than 1 male for obvious reasons.

While I really admire the Barkers and other pioneers in this hobby/industry (I refer to their book as well as Kevin's on a regular basis,) I think there are many areas where we just don't know all the answers/possibilities yet. For example, before JP posted the no substrate method of incubation (thanks for that JP - I'll never go back), everyone thought you just had to have your eggs nestled snugly in a mixture of vermiculite and perelite. In addition, as I said in my first post, last year might have been a fluke . . . I'll need many more years to say anything conclusively.

Hope this helps.


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Alice Cobb
Florida Reptile Room

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