Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well much to my surprise this afternoon I found that my female ball had a clutch of eggs. I had no idea that she was even gravid. I really thought her time was up for this year and was conditioning her for next year. Well I found 3 good eggs, 1 questionable, and 2 slugs. They look like they were possibly a day or so old. Got them in hatch rite and in the incubator, hope they make it. This will be my first clutch of ball python eggs. So is it gonna take 60-65 days at 87 degrees?

I incubated mine at 89 degrees for 55 days. Then cut the eggs to see what i had. My first ever liter was a normal X pastel 3 pastels and 2 normals.

Thats a really nice suprise. You should be Ok as long as your incubator has settled in to temps on short notice. Was the mom a normal, morph, or a dinker project? How about the dad, do you know who may have sired the clutch? The is cool, if anything interesting is involved, send pics please.

~Al

The best I can tell she is a kool normal. Dad is really unknown. Possible ghost male. I actually gave up on her this year and was just gonna pump her up for next season. I never seen any signs of her being gravid. IF the babies make it I will be sure to post pics regardless if they are just normals.

If you have a good incubator, with a accurate controller like Herpstat or Helix, you can run them at 88 to 89 degrees and they will hatch faster, or in about 56-60 days. If you have a controller like the 'wafer' kind in Havobator, you may want to run them on the lower end so you do not cook them. This will increase the hatch time to 60 or more days. Maternally incubated eggs, which will have a much lower average incubation temperature with the mother moving around and the ambient temps outside fluctuating, may take 100 days plus to hatch! I have not tried this, but this is what I have read in the Braker books amongst others... 88-89 is the way to go...

~Al

55-60days...89 degrees!! good luck hope the clutch goes good!

Did you candle the eggs? Good luck with the clutch!
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Best regards,
Alan Cole

No I haven't candled yet... I was too surprised to even think about candleing. I wasn't expecting a ball clutch this year. Thought my chances were done until next year. I didnt get started until late in the season. Got my first breeder male in December and female in Janurary. The strange thing is my male has not shown any signs of interest in her the whole time they were together. I had them in a 75 gallon tank with a hide. She didnt have the eggs inside of the hide. Which was strange in itself. All I can say is wish me luck...lol

Ok I candled last night, didn't look too promising. Two of the three eggs that I thought may have been good are kind of deformed. One is almost perfect and the questionable slug. Didn't see any really noticable vains in any of them. It is possible that it is a botched clutch. I am still gonna keep an eye on them for a couple more weeks to see if any progress. Is it common for ball pythons to have large eggs that are not fertile?