Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I normally breed Ball Pythons (10 years) but keep a few chondros for my own personal enjoyment (non breeding). This year I tried my hat at breeding them and now I'm expecting eggs. I artificially incubate all my Ball Python eggs but do not want to mess with the chondro eggs. I read in Greg Maxwell's book that a bad egg can quickly kill good eggs. I don't find this to be the case with Ball Python eggs. At any rate, I plan on letting the mother incubate the eggs. Is the success rate fairly high and are there any little things I need to pay particular attention to?
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

Hey Jay

I know several people that have done maternal incubation for their first clutch with mixed results. Both methods work, it's all about preference.
I would strongly suggest you have an incubator up and running prior to her laying just in case she decided the perch is more comfortable.

Good luck

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Shiloh Hawkesworth
kansas
(Midwest Serpents)

jay, i just hatched a clutch [sorong [lereh] x aru ] today using maternal incubation. i got about half killer healthy babies from the eggs on top of the pile, and about half dead full term babies from the eggs in the middle. greg maxwell mentions something about this problem in his book. it was fun to do, but from now on the incubator and snipping the eggs will be the only method for me. best of luck. kurt d.

Did you allow them to pip themselves? How long did it take for the last to pip from the first?

My incubators are setup strictly for Ball Python eggs. But I don't mind (if I have to) artificial incubation. But I have read this is difficult.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

Jay:

Most of us have an incubator at standby even when we plan on letting the female do the incubating. Not all females will properly incubate.

Give her a nice dry box to lay. Keep the temps outside the box at around 82. With luck, she will enter the egg box within a week or two after her shed. Look at how she is behived. If the behive isn't nice and high, the eggs will be ruined and you will have to pull them. Maternally incubated eggs almost always hatch on day 49 and 50.

Some slugs / bad eggs simply dry up and do not effect the clutch in any way. Other times a bad egg will negatively effect other eggs. One trick to to give the clutch the smell test. If an egg smells bad, then I pull the eggs, or try to retrieve the offending egg. Most of my bad eggs that have simply dried up, never smelled bad.

IMO, artificial incubation is much more relieable. However, some / most breeders may ruin several clutches before they hit on the right combination of techniques to properly incubate chondro eggs. An incubator that reliably hatches ball python eggs may not be suitable for chondros.

Letting the female incubate might be your best bet. Just be ready to go to plan B, if things don't go right.

>>IMO, artificial incubation is much more relieable. However, some / most breeders may ruin several clutches before they hit on the

I'm experienced with BP eggs so I'm not new to artificial incubation. Do you think it would be best for me to incubate them myself given my experience? They seem to have very similar reqt's as BP eggs. I normally use the no substrate method.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

The easiest, simpliest way to success would probably be to just let the female do it. Just be prepared to do it yourself if things go wrong.

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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

jay, my incubator is set for bp's also, so it seemed like a potential problem. another consideration was that the nest box i purchased didn't fit upright in my cage, so i had to lay it sideways, and i wasn't too keen on trying to remove my big female from that angle. she had a great defensive position. they hatched by themselves, and were crawling around outside of the nest box on day 50. at that point i hooked out the female, and found the dead eggs. i still consider it a big first time success, next year i will be better prepared. and yes, i can now say, i am indeed, a breeder of green trees [lol] k.d.