Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is our first ever clutch. Long time Ball Python owners, first attempt with pairing them up. She gave us four eggs, no slugs, all with veins. Just a normal x normal pairing, but were still excited.

Congratulations on the eggs. It's very exciting getting that first clutch and anticapating the day of hatching. Hope all goes well for you for the next 60 days.
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Dino W.

Congrats on the clutch. I have my first ever clutch in the incubator right now. They're due to hatch in a couple of weeks and time is going sooooo slow. Good luck!

Congrats. I recently hatched out my first clutch. I have a few pics but i want to get some better ones. I had one clutch go bad about two years ago so i didnt breed her last year in hopes it would make for a more furtal clutch She laid 5 good eggs and a slug one egg slugged about halfway through incubation and one snake piped and died before it came out without obsorbing its yolk. So 3 lived heres some pics.

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B Sleeper

1.0 Chocolate Lab
0.1 ?? Normal Ball python (yet different)
1.0 04 Het Albino
1.1 06 Het Albino
1.0 06 Het Pied
1.0 06 Pastel
1.0 07 Pastel

Ohh yeah they are pos het albinos. Mom was a normal (maybe) and Dad was a het albino. My pastels where not big enough to breed so neither was my female het albino so i decided to pair the male het with the somewhat normal female. I love the pattern on the heads two of them have identical spots but on the opposit sides of their heads its pretty sweet and one has a black spot on its face while the other has a white-ish one.
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B Sleeper

1.0 Chocolate Lab
0.1 ?? Normal Ball python (yet different)
1.0 04 Het Albino
1.1 06 Het Albino
1.0 06 Het Pied
1.0 06 Pastel
1.0 07 Pastel

Hey congrats that is awesome! She looks really nice and light with a very nice pattern.

A couple questions if you dont mind...

I was wondering what type of substrate you had going on? It looked kind of different in your pics? Always good to have new ideas. It almost looks like rabbit pellets? I have used rabbit pellets as a base substrate with mice. I mostly buy my rodents, but when I need alot of pinkies I breed the mice myself. Someone showed me that using rabbit pellets as a underlying base and also piled in the corners of the enclosure where the mice seem to like to urinate, really helps to keep the oder down. I hate breeding mice, I hate breeding rats...thank God for da Big Cheese!!

Are you planning on doing maternal incubation? I really want to let one of my girls maternally incubate, but I always chicken out... I only breed 1-3 clutches a year and I can never bring myself to pull the trigger. My thought was to set her up in an aquarium in the living room so my kids can watch the whole process. From the boy meeting the girl and going on dates, to falling in love and getting married , then copulation (not too much detail here) and pregnancy, right through to egg laying, maternal incubation and the hatching of the little baby snakes! I think the kids would love every step and learn alot about nature and life in general.

Something I think you may want to consider if you are letting her maternally incubate in the setup you have posted, is I would cover all sides with a dark cloth or paper. You want to be mindfull of fire hazards, but I believe that even if she is used to an open setup, you will relax her when she is on her eggs by covering the sides and darkening the whole enclosure.

Whew! Well thats it for me. Great to see you guys are having fun and enjoying your snakes, that is what it is all about. Next stop for the two of you is the obsession with all the various genetics and varieties...that is a trip indeed. Welcome aboard to the breeding express!

Thanks for everyone's replies. As for the last reply, the substrate we were using in this photo is an Aspen pellet we bought in bulk at a local pet store. It worked out fairly well. The only exception I would say is that with active snakes, the substrate would kind of break down and get a little dusty. We now own a rack system and have switched over to a more practical paper substrate.

As far as incubation goes, the eggs were removed and placed in our incubator, (Nature's Spirit), shortly after the photo was taken. We're trying the "no substrate" method for our first go round with incubation.

And different morphs, the addiction has already taken hold.
We currently have: 1.1 normal, 1.0 pied, 1.0 pinstripe, 1.1 pastel, 1.0 cinny, 0.1 lesser, and 0.2 het albino. With the exception of the normals, they are all juveniles.

I bred "Normals" for the first 2 years just to prove to myself that I could breed Balls before spending a bunch of money on them.
The "No Substrate" method works very well, I set up all my clutches that way. You should not have any problems. I like to put a piece of Glad "Press'N Seal" wrap over the egg tray with the lid on for the first 4-5 weeks, this allows the humidity inside the egg tray to stabilize....after 4-5 weeks I remove the "Press'N Seal" and open the lid once a week to allow fresh oxygen inside the tray. Works great for me!
It looks to me like you need to ad some more females to your collection.
Congrats, it only gets better from this point on!!!

Carl Aiken-Snakes

Thanks, and your right, I will definitely be in the market for some females this year.

Congrats to you!
Its an amazing process ,now comes the wait!!!!!!
West Coast Pythons