Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bred my pastel to a few females during the winter. Well, they all laid eggs except one. All of the other eggs have already hatched, but one female never did. Well, now she's looking extremely gravid but hasn't been with a male in about six months. My friend is a vet, but he specializes in venomous snakes and admittedly says he knows little about breeding balls. He did confirm her being gravid. So my first question is is this normal for them to retain sperm? I've bred colubrids now for a few years but every single time it was very predictable and on schedule. I just wasn't expecting to look in on her the other day and see how big she is in the back half.

Secondly, she's going through a shed right now. Is their a certain number of days which she'll lay after the shed like there is with colubrids? Thanks!

retaiing of sperm in female ball pythons from previous year breeding has been pretty well documented. Although not definitive I have spoken to breeders this year that bred reccesive morphs to females that previously bred to codoms and had codom babies hatch and vice versa.

Last year i bred my het pied to het pied. They bred about a half a dozen times. There were 5 good eggs. One pied and 4 possible hets. I tried to breed them again this year several times but they refused to breed. i am 100% sure they did not breed this year. Unexpectedly, the female dropped a clutch of 8 eggs. there were 5 slugs,2 infertile eggs,and 1 fertile egg. i suppose that the female refused to breed because she was carrying a fertilized egg. so it does happen. good luck, Rin.