Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found a pretty farm raised female, or so I was told. Can a farm raised female be bred? Also, why cant you breed grown wild caught females.
As you can guess I am new at this. But I would like to try some time in the future. It would be great for my students to see.

YES, a farm raised 04 baby female can be bred in about 2-3 years depending on size of female. I usually try not to breed them before 1200grams on females. In MY OPINION a wild collected imported female can be bred as long as SHE IS FEEDING and has plenty of body weight. Unfortunatly most of these fresh imported females have feeding issues and I think that is why you may have understood that they cannot be bred. But like I said once they have fed and are acclimated to captivity. I hope this helps you. Thanks David

I think by "farm raised" you are talking about the wild-bred harvested eggs (the either dig up the eggs or the females shortly before they lay the eggs). These eggs hatch in captivity so the call them "captive hatched" but I wouldn't go as far as calling it farming. They don't breed them in captivity, it's more harvesting. They also don't spend much of any time in Africa after harvesting. However there are some US importers who hold these babies from when they hatch in April and May until now so as to be able to sell them when there is less competition. Apparently some of them only get fed a few times in this 6 - 7 months of holding as some are still hatchling size now.

I've often wondered what the term "farm raised" meant. In fact, I was contemplating posting an inquiry about it tonight. I figured someone somewhere had a large ranch with hundreds of Ball Pythons just slithering about, and every so often he/she would walk around scooping up wandering babies.

So...farm raised = captive hatched, huh?

Chris
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"I don't know about you...but I find comfort in that." -- Cowboy

Farm raised = Captive hatched from wild parents in Africa, I usually don't like using the Captive hatched word because people get it confused with captive born, I am not one to be picky but Captive Born and Captive hatched are so close thus I like using farm hatched for the babies that come over in april-may. Just my Opinion. Thanks David

Technically there is no such thing as "Farm Raised". There are captive hatched animals which are animals hatched from field collected eggs, or from field collected gravid females. The "Farms" release the babies into the wild that are not exported during peak baby season. Then the exporters capture animals througout the year and still ship them under "farmed" C.I.T.E.S. quotas. There are a few people that are trying to sell animals presently as "farm Raised" which they are not and only wild caught animals.
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Rob Trenor
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