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What a pain it is to search, so I apologize in advance for what I'm sure is a repeat question....
What is an optimum incubation temp for ball pythons?

Optimal temps are 88*-90*. I believe most people incubate at 89*. I did read that a lady incubates at around 86* with no ill affects. Supposedly her babies came out larger and absorbed all yolk though it did take a few days longer to hatch than with the higher temps. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!

I'm going to go with 87*-88* myself this year.
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Balls
1.3 Pastels
0.2 Cinnamons
1.0 Fire
1.0 Spider
1.0 100% het albino/100% het pied
0.3 100% het albino/50% het pied
1.1 Normals (1.0 unknown)
Boas
1.0 Salmon
0.1 Pastel

That is up for debate.
88-90 is good, but I have heard that 86-87 makes larger babies. (They develop slower and absorb their yolk more completely.)
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I'm one of those people that incubate at 86 degrees F. I always have and haven't had any ill effects.

I've only lost one hatchling and that turned out to be because it's umbilical cord somehow ended up getting wrapped very tightly around it's body and it was unable to absorb it's yolk. It did fully develop and had pipped it's egg so the twisting must have happened in the final day or two of it's development.

Otherwise, 86 degrees has always worked perfectly for me. The hatchlings are larger than some of the ones that my friends hatch out incubating at 89 F. They do seem more robust and alert.

All in all, keep your temperatures between 86 and 90 and you should be alright. I can't really say if it takes my snakes longer to hatch out because of my temperatures. There is already a pretty big window for incubation times anyways 56-65 days - that leaves a 9 day window. My hatchlings usually pip around day 60 or 62 so I can't really say that they take longer than balls incubated at higher temperatures.
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I'm still not sure if it's weird that my best friend is a two year old boa named Ronin. He's quiet, non-judgemental and listens... what more could you want?

I would like to start off by saying that I am not trying to vere from the original post. I just feel that this post pertains very much so to your post, and maybe we can both get an answer from my question.

I just obtained a mini-fridge from my friend yesterday and got it all set up for incubation to see what kind of temperatures I could produce with 1 foot of 4", 8 watt heat tape. Turns out it peaked at 84.5 F and didnt fluctuate even .1 F once at its maximum temperature(which i was pretty impressed with). I am planning on adding another heating element to put it within the desirable range of 86-90 degrees, but my real question is about temperature determining the sex of the clutch. I have heard of people using the temperature to favor the production of males rather than females and females rather than males. I remember learning in school that higher incubation temperatures tend to destroy the Y chromosome of the males, which in turn changes to an X chromosome resulting in a female hatching. The opposite holds true for lower incubation temperatures tending to favor males. Has anyone had any experience with tending to produce females or males at certain incubation temperature ranges?

Balls can't be temperature sexed and they are W/Z Chromosomes not X/Y.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
The Blog
nihil facimus sed id bene facimus

That's interesting that they are W/Y. I was using X/Y as it pertains to humans. I do understand that they can be temperature sexed. What I was wondering was if anyone knew the ballpark ranges for temperature sexing for mostly males and a temperature for mostly females?

W/Z, not W/Y... sorry for the typo!

They cannot be temperature sexed - their gender is received from their mothers genetic contribution and is not affected by temperature.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
The Blog
nihil facimus sed id bene facimus

Ah, I see. Sorry I misread your previous post. Honest mistake!

>>What a pain it is to search, so I apologize in advance for what I'm sure is a repeat question....
>>What is an optimum incubation temp for ball pythons?

average time for hatching is about 60 days....

a slightly higher temp = shorter incubation timeframe

a slightly lower temp = longer incubation timeframe

Pitoon
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