Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Everyone,
Right now I have a normal male ball python that is almost 2 feet long. I got him on February 1st of this year and he was just under 20 inches when I got him, so he's growing really fast. I'm interested in getting a female of about the same size at a reptile expo that meets every month about two hours away from where I live. About how long will it take for me to raise a her to breeding size, and then how long until I can expect eggs and then hatching? I've read on this forum that the females need to be 1500g, or about 3 feet and the males just like 500g. I am really not that familiar with mutations and all that, but I would be inerested possibly in a mutation female for $150.00 or less that would produce some of the same offspring with my male. If you have any suggestions in this area I would appreciate it. Otherwise I will just get a normal. Just for a poll; how many of you (if any) let the female ball actually incubate the eggs. I will probably just use an incubator, as she'll already have enough stress by egg laying time. Sorry for all the questions, I just haven't ever done this before and don't have a ton of money to throw into this.

Thanks in advance,
Taylor W.

Sorry, but I don't think you'll find any proven mutations for $150 yet (maybe in a few years, maybe not). You could try checking pet stores for imported ghosts that might have slipped through but you are not likely to find any (but it does happen from time to time, I guess they aren't as striking as babies and maybe some think they are in shed or perhaps they really are in shed camouflaging the ghost appearance – look for any clear sheds in the cage of imports). You might find a striped, or black back, or high yellow, or jungle type from an import cherry picker for that but it's not likely to be genetic. But get one you like. If you pay 3X for a pretty one it's not that big of a deal compared to what it will cost you in time and money to grow it up.

If you can get a female to breeding size in 18 months to produce hatchlings at 2 years old you are doing good. I'm lucky to get mine to produce hatchlings at 3 years but I don't do an optimal job of feeding most of the time.

You could perhaps look for an older normal female, perhaps even a proven breeder for $150 (a good deal I would think so probably hard to find) and speed things up. Make sure you get captive raised. I don’t think they bring in many adults any more but when they did people often found it took longer to acclimate them to captivity than to grow up a captive hatched one. Or even look for a hatchling possible gene carrier female if you think you might eventually replace your male with a carrier of the same gene. However, it's generally cheaper to get male possible gene carriers than females. I'm not sure what possible het albino or ghost females go for, maybe you could get one in that range if you looked hard.

The only way your normal male will produce mutant offspring is to breed it to a co-dominant or dominant mutant female and even the most common of those (pastels) are at least 10X (probably more) out of your price range for females. Maybe look for an older captive raised female now to get started sooner (maybe your male could even breed this winter) and get experience and then in 4 or 5 years start buying pastel females if your budget goes up and the price comes down enough.

.....Randy, I would agree. Given the circumstances, I also recommend a year older female. Unless you really keep on your females by offering food every 3-4 days, it's hard to get a female up to a safe reproductive size in less than 2 years. Balls are long-lived snakes and they probably don't breed and produce eggs at less than 3 years in africa.

.....imports adults do come in still in surprisingly large #'s and acclimate slowly. Back in 1988 I obtained an import adult female Argentine boa (B. c. occidentalis). Argentines were the most in-demand boa at the time and for several years after. It took a lot of patience to acclimate her and she didn't produce babies until 1992 (33 babies, and they flew out the door at $1000/pr!).

.....most breeders use incubators so they can get the females back on feed.