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A 17 year old pet with a clutch of 17 eggs

The same snake in October, 2002

One heck of a bunch of eggs

Would you believe another 1780 gram clutch? Unlike this one from 2 weeks ago with 14 eggs, the clutch deposited yesterday had 17 fertile eggs. I really like to record individual weights and dimensions, and usually have no difficulty prying the eggs apart. Nor have I found this practice to have any detrimental effect on hatching success. But these eggs were strongly adherent and I was able to separate only two before I tore a hole in one, so I left the rest of them together the way nature/evolution intended.

When I weighed the clutch on a more accurate triple beam balance, the total mass was 1778.1 grams, giving a mean egg mass of 104.6 grams. The female weighed 3.51 kg after egg deposition. She has a ways to go to regain her November, 2002 weight of 5.59 kg. As close as I can measure, she’s an inch and a half shy of six feet long. She hatched in 1986. The largest clutch she’s produced in the past was 16 eggs. A superior pet, indeed!

...ABSOLUTELY stunning! Seems you have a better history on this gal. What is her repro history, age/weight at her first clutch, etc? SJM

simply amazing.
Do you know what region she might originate from?
That is simply one amazing animal

Wow!

Are you going to try to save the ripped one? I know it's a long shot but check out the link below on what is possible. Maybe you could tape it closed?

I think getting them apart depends on how quick you find them, but there may well be other factors also.

It looks like these eggs where about 20% smaller than your 14 egg clutch. Has this female generally laid eggs close to 100 grams in the past? Have you had any more problems hatching them or with the babies than with the one that lays 120 gram eggs? I'm thinking the secret to the really monster clutches in addition to the obvious of having a monster big female is to have one that lays relatively small eggs but I don't know how small is too small. Someone posted a 14 egg clutch a few days back that was only about 85 grams per egg.

It looks like most clutches are consistently around 1/3 of the female’s pre-lay weight (yours was almost exactly). This doesn’t seem to vary much for big females (I had a very small female only lay 23%). So the way I see it the only place other than really big females to make progress is to breed for smaller eggs. If you could cross your big girl with a son from the 14/85 gram egg clutch last week and grow the daughters up to mom’s 5288 grams you might have one lay 21 of those little 85 gram eggs! I just don’t know if 85 grams is too small for captive conditions or not.

Did you breed this female to anything particularly interesting?

Thanks,

Randy Remington
Split egg incubation

Great job Joan! As always you amaze me with your animals.

See you tonight.

Anyway, I guess I need to watch those ball python informational tapes you lent me, so I can see how I can improve.

>>Great job Joan! As always you amaze me with your animals.
>>
>>See you tonight.

That is absolutely amazing! Congratulations!

I would also like to know more about her history. What has she produced in the past, if anything (you call her a pet, so I assume this may well be her first).

I had a 1350 (pre breeding weight) female lay 6 nice eggs this year. I was stunned. She's already regained the weight she lost and I'm hoping she'll continue to produce above average clutches for her size. Who knows, maybe a 14 clutch in five years or so...hey, I can dream, can't I! LOL!

Let me know if you want to sell any of her female offspring!

K. Royer

Did you happen to weigh your small girl right after laying or get the clutch weight? Have the eggs hatched yet and if so how are they doing?

I had a 1350 gram female lay 4 eggs but two where rather small and went bad pretty quick and the other two are only about half way through incubating. She actual laid less than the normal 1/3 of her pre-lay weight but I suppose that's to be expected at the very small end.

I think I read somewhere that she got 16 eggs from this female before but hopefully she can fill us in on the full history.

It will be interesting as more captive breeding females get older if these large clutches become more common place. I bet the average age of females being bred in captivity this year is probably only about 5. We just haven't been breeding very many ball pythons until recently. I wonder if they don't peak in production until 10 - 20 years.

Someone involved in the African side of the import business posted a few years back that they got larger clutches out of the wild bred females over there than we do her in captivity. I wonder if that wasn’t mainly due to differences in ages.

I was very hesitant at trying her this year, but I'm glad I did.

She was only 750 grams in late July but gained that extra 600 grams by November. She is a short thick girl, just a hair over 3 feet. I wish I knew her background and exact age, but I don't.

She weighed 1283 grams two days before laying. I don't have my records handy right now, but if I recall correctly, the clutch weighed 523 grams, or just over 86 grams each. Small, yes, but I'd expect it from such a small girl. Regardless, that's about a 40% reproductive effort.

This clutch is just past three weeks of incubation, and all are doing fine.

The female ate the day after laying and hasn't stopped. She's gained about 400 grams so far (knocking off a bit for stomach contents) and I expect her to exceed her prebreeding weight in a month or so if she continues to eat at the same rate.

I've heard of quite a few older breeding females knocking out 10 or 12 eggs year after year, but I do believe 17 is a record!

K. Royer

A clutch at 40% of mom's pre-lay weight and gaining back well sounds awesome. I think the highest I had seen details posted or of my few clutches was about 35% with a tight cluster around 33% or so. For such a small girl to put so much in and bounce back so well she sure sounds like a keeper.

My thoughts exactly...she's not going anywhere!

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Excellent!