Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I doubt I will ever buy one, but my question is, how well do the females do after they lay? Do they feed? Do people "clean" them up and then sell them?

Dave

There are some people with knowledge and experience that do well with acclimating these animals - some do well, some need time and work, and some never come around. It seems at least to me like a lot of people consider these disposable animals - once they drop their eggs they are sold off. It's a shame.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

There was an interview on here with David Barker a while back and asked him about the first breedings of various Python species. He talked about how he and Tracy had done the first breedings of a lot of Pythons, but that the one that was tough was the first captive breedings of Ball Pythons. He described that later on the people that were trying to breed them realized the issue was from importing adult females. While you didn't have to raise the female to adulthood it was taking a LONG time to acclimate (I don't remember the exact time he said but I think 3-5 years). Once breeders imported baby females and raised them fully in captivity there began to be some success. A lot of Python species were bred in captivity before Ball Pythons because of this.

So I'd say if the world's leading expert on Pythons had trouble getting adult female BP imports to breed, that you might want to reconsider.

There is a podcast of this interview somewhere on this site.
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Back in the early 90s a LOT of these females were coming in. Though I never purchased any myself, those friends of mine who did reported that a large percentage of the eggs obtained were no good-premature, improperly calcified, infertile, or just plain died during incubation. They attributed it to the stresses of capture and importation.

The females, after laying, were often difficult to acclimate as well.
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Brad Chambers

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

It's all about how to acclimate the animals during the whole process, and how much effort you put into them. Give them what they need and they'll do fine after they lay, ignore what they need and they will fail miserably.

I acquired 3 gravid females last year. Unfortunately they didn't produce many good eggs and to top it off I had a problem with my incubator and all of them died before hatching. Out of the three, one has been a pain and still hasn't fed regularly, one has to have just weened rats left in overnight for her to eat, and the other eats like a champ and has been breeding with a pastel. She looks to possibly be axanthic, but I guess only time will tell. I have them all housed in a home-made rack using deep tubs with 3-4 inches of substrate and a good sized hide. I also have two other wild caught adults that are doing very well in the same setup. That's my experience with wild caughts, not good, but not too bad.

Thanks for the reply. This is what I was wondering. I am sort of against taking gravid Balls out of the wild, holding them, shipping them to the US, shipping them again.....

I just wondered if people were trying to get eggs from these females in hopes of getting a new morph, getting new blood, getting cheap females, and if, after laying, they were viewed as throw away animals.

To me, and this is just my opinion, it makes more sense to buy CH babies that might be oddballs, vs. buying WC gravid females.

Dave

I have to agree and I learned this the hard way when i bought adult WC pastels a number of years ago. I have acclimated a few adult female WC animals. It took a good 2-3 years to get them to breed and a lot of work to get them feeding and healthy. Unless its a new morph, It makes more sense to start with hatchlings.

I will say this about the gravid wild caughts though, they are more likely to start feeding shortly after laying eggs compared to a female that has not layed.

Oz
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