well, the first hatchling decided to finally leave the egg.
I just weighed him/her and its a whopping 101 gr.!!
The mother was over 3400 gr. before laying the clutch, the clutch of 6 eggs weighted over 800 gr., putting each egg around 150 gr.
I just cannot believe what a little porker this is...already a handfull...
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reps-r-us
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new hatchling a whopper...
reps-r-us
Oct 11, 2003 03:28 PM
Replies (4)
reps-r-us
Oct 11, 2003 04:04 PM
and a pic of some of them pipping...
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reps-r-us
HerpCrazy
Oct 11, 2003 05:07 PM
Wow! What a big baby! Very nice.
I hope my big girls have clutches like that.
Take care,
Jen
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RandyRemington
Oct 12, 2003 03:59 AM
Yes, congratulations on the BIG babies.
It's interesting to see the variation in ball pythons.
I just got a 7 egg 652 gram clutch (avg. 93 grams each) from a girl that was 1812 grams before laying.
It looks to me like female ball pythons often lay about 1/3 of their pre-lay weight into their clutch but my last clutch beat it by a bit at almost 36%. I don't have a huge sample to look back on but am a little surprised that yours only laid about 26% tops depending on the exact clutch weight. Was she a skinny 3,400 grams (i.e. a very long snake) or was she extremely fat? Most of my experience is with younger girls but I did have a few close to 3,000 gram girls also lay 1/3 and have seen data from other big girls also following the 1/3 rule so I wonder what gives in your case.
Normally it's only the eggs size that varies much from individual to individual and the much smaller egg size is what allowed my girl that was just over half the weight of yours to lay one more egg. Of course my much smaller eggs may or may not be as easy to hatch and my much smaller hatchlings may or may not be as easy to get feeding etc.
Not slamming your female, just interesting to figure out what causes such differences.
reps-r-us
Oct 12, 2003 07:12 AM
Nope, she was neither "fat" and definetely not skinny.
Before laying she was a very healthy and even active snake. She is almost 6 feet long and a little thicker then a soda can.
I have to say i'm extremely happy with her clutch and have no idea about the 1/3 weight of female/clutch.
I think it would be almost scary to me to see her loose that much weight, she already looked so much skinnier after laying.
So, all in all, i do not know why she didn't "apply" to this rule, but it was not because she was either sickly, thin or fat.
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reps-r-us
