Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, So I've been producing ball pythons for a few years now. Nothing big...a few clutches here and there. Now I'm starting to run into a problem with keeping the babies and lineages straight. So far, I've been writing on tubs with wax pencils...year hatched, sex...I've just remembered the pairings. Next year, when the babies that I've raised are breeding...I see how it might be difficult to keep up this system. Any one willing to share how you keep track of the offspring?

Thanks,

W. Smith

The way I do it it's quite simple. Everyone has their own ways of keeping track of everyone; their genetics, their lineage, and so on. What I do is I take a tonne of pictures throughout the process:
locked pairing of parents, ovulation, POS, laying, eggs, babies out of thier eggs still in the egg bin..
SPOGBoyOne&SuperBlastGirl
SuperBlastGirlOv
SuperBlastGirlEggs
SuperBlastGirlBabies
SuperBlastGirlBoys (once they're in seperate bins to shed)
SuperBlastGirlGirls (once they're in seperate bins to shed)
All these pictures go into a folder that I created for every clutch:
Clutch 2010-01
Clutch 2010-02 and so on.
If you open up the file, you'll see all the pics.
Each baby gets a 3/4" round sticky on their bin that follows them around with their chutch on it: CL2010-26
Each baby also gets a 3/4" coloured round sticky (red for girls, blue for boys) as to their genetics:
SPOG
POGL
POG
P-L-HetOG
P-P-L-OG
It works for me, I've been doing it for 8 or so years.
Hope that helped.
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www.strictlyballs.ca

Make a photo ID for every baby (even if you don't print it). Then just use spreadsheets to keep track.
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You might be a ball python fanatic if you subconsciously convert the price of virtually everything in to units of piebald ball pythons

I've had snakes with 3 x 5 cards from their whole life...day laid till death.....some were 16 years worth....(corn not ball)...

..........I use cards and paper clip them when they get too numerous for me....(per cage)

each baby each year has a number.....this year they went from 010-0001 to 010-0150 per species....(balls were around 150)......

so a card may say pinstriped 08-063 Female.....if there are more than one for that year there would just be a 1 and 2 and 3 with a circle around it....you get to know your best numbers over the years.....

when I buy snakes ...I make up a number at times if there is more than one of that color/pattern/morph.....last Saturday I added blast F 010-666 .....and she still ate twice already...LOL......
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........JY

....oh...all I wrote down is sheds , food taken or not usually...(cross it off if not)...and who they copulated with and number of eggs and date....

no I don't write ovulations and swellings and all...or defecations.....

....food -shed -bred....
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........JY

get the Degei program. http://www.eyehit.com/degei/product.htm

Works great. Free basic version.

Marshall
nocoreptiles.com

I use a numerical system to track snakes and their bloodlines. Each snake is given a number like 1, 2, 3, .... 512. I keep gender and genetic info on each snake in a book I can reference.
A clutch resulting from the breeding of snake numbers 23 and 42 would be labled 23.42 and individuals from said clutch would be (23.42)1, (23.42)2 and so on. Breeding (23.42)2 X (57.13)5 would be cluch ((23.42)2).((57.13)5). Its like giving them a SSN but it lets me track bloodlines all the way back to founding stock.
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1.0 BP Nicodemus
0.4 Cal Kings 3 alb 1 het Dora Queen Ace Pearl
2.0 Alb Corn Bizaar Elixir
0.0.1 Rev Alb Nelsons Oden?