Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 2 females who were GLOWING a few weeks ago. All has been great with them they are both nice and fat, and I felt follicles developing in them, as well as a few other females I have. I checked them today and they do not seem to have the "glow" they did earlier this week, and I did not feel the follicles when I checked today. Did I miss something here, or is that just part of the cycle?

I have read about females absorbing follicles, but can find pics or anything to compare them to. Both females are still very large with a bulge, just no lumps in the gut, whats going on??
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1.1 Pied
0.7 possible het pied
1.0 Albino
0.1 Albino het female
1.0 Spider
1.0 cinnamon
1.1 Pastel
1.0 Het genetic stripes
1.0 yellowbelly
0.17 normal females

Relax... you have entered the "Twilight Zone" that is the world of breeding reptiles.

If you are certain that you felt follicles and that both were gravid a week ago... you can be (fairly) certain that they are still gravid. To have one female reabsorb her follicles is rare, but to have two females in the same (small**) collection reabsorb their follicles is extremely rare. If it did happen I would go back and see if there was some sort of event that could have triggered this. This would most likely be some sort of drastic environmental change that both of them experienced.

-Malfunctioning thermostats or heat source
-A recent move

I worked in a factory when I was fresh out of high school and handled very high temperature plastics on a daily basis. The result is that I have poor tactile sensation in my finger tips. I am able to palpate my females, but not reliably. Until she is just about ready to burst, I don't even bother counting her follicles. It takes time and experience to be able to tell the difference between a follicle and something else that can be in this area of the body (such as gas bubbles, fecal matter, etc).

Don't be discouraged yet. If you are not completely sure that they are gravid there is nothing wrong with reintroducing the male(s) until you are certain.

Once you are certain, stick by your guns or you will drive yourself crazy second guessing yourself. Even if you turn out to be wrong about them being gravid this year, the experience will only help you be more successful next year. I've been keeping and breeding reptiles for a long time (~15 years) and not one year/season has gone by that I didn't learn something new and end up ultimately tweaking my husbandry.

**No offense was meant by calling your collection "small". I was only using it as a relative term. If you had ~100 snakes and told us that two of them reabsorbed their follicles I would not consider it to be too much of a coincidence. However, if you have only a few snakes the chances would be far less that you would have two females reabsorb their follicles if no drastic events occurred.

No offense taken at all

I am pushing about 30 ball pythons now, not a giant collection by any means. I am 99% sure that they were follicles I felt, there were 5 in each female and I checked constantly. I have done some reading on breeding and didnt know if this was just another step between developing follicles, and egg laying. I check my snakes almost every night and I was just shocked to see these 2 so "normal" looking again. My pastel female has 5 "bumps" as well as another female. I have felt wate matter, gas pockets and lots of other nasty stuff when learning and I am pretty confident what I felt was none of that. They were in the same spot getting larger for weeks, and now I just dont feel them.

Will post pics of the females in question tonight

thanks for the info!
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1.1 Pied
0.7 possible het pied
1.0 Albino
0.1 Albino het female
1.0 Spider
1.0 cinnamon
1.1 Pastel
1.0 Het genetic stripes
1.0 yellowbelly
0.17 normal females

Take none of this as fact, just my obsevations and thoughts on the last few years of breeding Ive done. When I notice the glow its very close to ovulation. Palpating at this time I feel firm follicals. Closer to ovulation these follicals become less firm. After they ovulate they get soft to the point that if you dont have that experience palpating you might not feel them. At this stage in developement they start to darken up untill prelay shed.

Now for my far fetched opinion on the glow and darkening phases of development. I think that they glow while their building up to ovulation, due to the fact that they are using all the energy and nutrishion on them eggs.(depleating them in the same way as a stressed or nonfeeding snake will look untill its eating again.

When they have finished ovulating and darken up. I think it would be to collect heat for the eggs inside.

Just my thoughts. It could all be crap but I figured Id put it out there.

Casey

.....?....I have always wondered if it could be possible to actually sqeeeze the retained sperm out of a female ball by palpating them too much,too often and too hard..?....

just a thought....

,...never did sqeeze a girl and feel follicles/eggs.....never squeezed hard enough? or tried too well....they still usually laid......

.......on topic........it takes awhile....they'll lay....

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..JY

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Thanks guys, this is the first time I am witnessing everything from start to finish, and I am VERY inexperienced.

Here is apic of her glowing about a month ago

another from 2 weeks ago

building pic

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1.1 Pied
0.7 possible het pied
1.0 Albino
0.1 Albino het female
1.0 Spider
1.0 cinnamon
1.1 Pastel
1.0 Het genetic stripes
1.0 yellowbelly
0.17 normal females

the older pic didnt work, so here it is again

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1.1 Pied
0.7 possible het pied
1.0 Albino
0.1 Albino het female
1.0 Spider
1.0 cinnamon
1.1 Pastel
1.0 Het genetic stripes
1.0 yellowbelly
0.17 normal females

after she sheds....30 days )more or less( ...then she'll lay...

or she'll drive you nuts and shed two times tyhen lay...

but if she ovulated........should be one shed.....

....she glowed real nicely......

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..JY

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I was looking at them earlier to get a pic, and I noticed they both have pink bellies, so ther are going into shed. BIG relief on that!

Only gonna be pastel and cinny clutches, but still very exciting. Just watch how bad I am next year trying to prove out 7 PH pied females and my pied PH ghost male,haha!
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1.1 Pied
0.7 possible het pied
1.0 Albino
0.1 Albino het female
1.0 Spider
1.0 cinnamon
1.1 Pastel
1.0 Het genetic stripes
1.0 yellowbelly
0.17 normal females

I so far have bred and gotten eggs from only 2 poss het pieds and possible het ghost pastels....

they all proved out....they all had the right "look"...

...good luck........you can see the het pieds I bet....look for the overall color, not just the black underbelly line things,....

..
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..JY

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