Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had my female snake for five years and her "boyfriend" for about 2 and a half years. They've always been together. Now she's preggers and I don't know what to do. Do I have to remove him while the eggs are gestating or after the lay? If I take the eggs out and put them in an incubator should I try to feed her when that happens? Should I utilize an incubator? Is strange behavior normal for a gravid snake? e.g. she's in her water bowl constantly, she's usually never soaking, ever! I'll probably be posting throughout this whole process but it would help a lot to calm my jitters by getting some more info, specific websites perhaps. I just feel like I should be preparing or something!
Thanx

I would remove the male. He certainly isn't going to help anything and there is the chance he will get in the way of her getting the best basking spots or he may even harass her trying to breed.

Most people use an artificial incubator for ball python eggs. A few let the mother incubate the eggs. I guess it comes down to your preference and how best you can provide the consistent heat and humidity needed. I'm trying maternal incubation for the first time on one of my clutches this year. They have a couple weeks to go still.

If you do take the eggs and put them in an incubator, you can start trying to feed her small meals after a few days.

What is the temperature in the cage now? Sometimes soaking indicates they are too hot. However, I’ve seen lots of odd behavior from gravid females.

Thank you so much for the info! The temp is relatively normal, about 85-90. I usually don't fluctuate the temp, it was never necessary to get them to breed.

Since the last message I thought of some other questions:

What exactly do I need for her laying box?
Material: tupperware? and inside what do you recommend: moss?
And when do I need this?

When should I expect her to lay?
I started noticing strange behavior, laying upside down, and a definite plumpness about a week ago. Is there any way I can estimate a date?

Also, is there any chance two normal patterns can have morphs of any kind? I really have no idea where my male came from.

Thank you so much for your help!
If I'm successful I'll post pics of the babies on the forum.

Gardenia

Is that 85 deg on the cool side and 90 on the hot? That would be good for maternal incubation but I’ve noticed some of my gravid females sometimes seek the cool end and the water bowl when kept that warm. I think they generally need that kind of warmth but perhaps there are times when they want to cool off for some reason so it might be better if you had a big cage with an 80 deg end and 90 at the other. Should be fine, just don’t let the water go dry and check the temp to make sure it’s not any warmer than 85 – 90.

I used to put in tubs of sphagnum moss for next boxes but they usually laid under the hide pots on newspaper. I think I had the sphagnum too wet for their liking. Perhaps in the wild flooding is more of a problem than drying out. I’d still recommend a plastic storage box with slightly damp sphagnum but don’t be offended if she doesn’t use it.

If she hasn’t eaten in a month or more and you have pulled the male then go ahead and put in the box in. Clean it if she should make a little mess in it though.

I’ve never really paid much attention to pre-egg laying sheds but I think it’s something like 20 to 40 days after that last shed that you expect eggs.

What I look for is when I set them on the ground and they relax and stretch out and the widest part is in the lowest 3rd of their body but they haven’t eaten in a month or more so I know they aren’t just full of it. It seems like their eggs usually drop noticeably low in the last week or so. Look for fullness near the tail.

I also had a girl get really nice colored about three or four weeks before laying this year. She seemed to get a cleaner and sort of a bright pastel look to her. She then went back to normal about a week before laying. Her mother went through the same thing and just went back to normal and her eggs are fairly low so I’m getting and incubation box warmed up for the eggs today. I haven’t really noticed this color change in all my snakes so maybe it’s just something odd about this line.

There is always the chance that your snakes both carry the same recessive mutation. It’s not a big chance but knowing it’s there always makes hatch day exciting. I did a pseudo scientific (didn’t account for localized inbreeding so may not be much good) calculation once and thought that perhaps 1 in 100 wild ball pythons are het for albino and perhaps the same for some of the other fairly “common” recessive morphs found in the wild. What makes it unlikely that you will get morphs is the chance that both of your animals will happen to be carrying the same recessive genes. At 1 in 100 carriers, only 1 in 10,000 random pairs will both be carriers and this is needed to produce recessive morphs. However, as het males get cheaper you can up your odds to the 1 in 100 by using het males.