Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have 2 lg female bp's 1 is around 1800g and the other just laid 6 eggs 3 months ago (all hatched) and shes now about 1600 g and i was gonna feed them until next september to get there weight up but does it make a big difference in their clutch size,health when laying,or fertility of the eggs.Im breeding them to my male pastel so naturally i want more eggs but is it worth the wait. the larger female to my knowledge is a virgin she is wild caught and has been in my posession for at least 6 mos but shes big so its possible she may have bred in the past both are taking approx 2-3 medium rats on a 10-14 day cycle sometimes they eat leftover rats that my other bp's dont eat. i want them to grow fast but not at the expense of there health.so should i attempt a breeding trial with both girls or just the 1 that DID NOT lay the eggs,or should i wait and get them nice and fat for next breeding season i also have a female pastel thats around 750g and i want her beefed up to. i know she is to small to breed now. should i just wait and do them all together. any help would be great

How much did the one that laid weigh before laying? She should be at least that big and preferably a little bigger before breeding again. If she is a long snake 1,600 grams might be too light but if she is short she may have gained back everything but it doesn't seem that likely in only 3 months. If you do try breeding her you should probably try to keep feeding her through a short breeding season and after warming back up.

Neither of your girls is very big but I think it may be possible to have female ball pythons too fat to breed. I had a couple females in the 3,600 - 3,900 gram range not produce last year and although it could be the fault of the virgin males they where with I also wonder if they where too fat from having missed previous years (again, young virgin males). I didn't feed the smaller one as well this summer and she is down to 3,100 grams and I hope has a better chance of producing this year with a proven breeder male. The bigger one is out on loan and I'm not sure what she weighs but hopefully she has also slimmed a bit.

I have found that big FAT females do one of 2 things. They either slug out or they just don't go.

I basically feed nothing but small rats every 7 days. By small, I mean 3 - 4 week old rats. never anything bigger. Some females will eat 2 but the majority get one per feeding.

I don't think it is prudent to get females fat. The best results seem to come from females that are nicely proportionate to their length and body. I look at them and if she looks sexy, that's good enough for me. LOL!

Sometimes less equals more in the end!

MJ
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www.ballpython.ca

with venomous species. The fat girls would get bred, but either layed slugs or nothing at all, (even get eggbound from being too fat) and the "sexy" toned ones would be viable egg producing machines.
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Chad Bachman

It's the same with women. I prefer an athletic,sleek lady to a fat, 'couch potato'anytime!

It seems that balls that are too chunky don't make good breeders. I'm not talking about big ball pythons but the ones that are just plain fat.

Joe
Joe Compel Reptiles

she weighed 1800 - before laying and the dropped down to 1300 grams and started feeding immediatly after i took the eggs from her for the incubation process and she ate wellll and packed on about 100g a month

If 1,800 grams was a good weight for her to lay eggs three months ago it's probably about the weight she should be before next laying. Maybe you can put off the start of breeding cooling for her a couple more months to get her back up from 1,600 to 1,800 again. Not sure you need to wait a whole year but if you would rather try not to let her get too fat looking by then. She sounds young and might grow in length so it’s hard to say what might be her ideal weight next year but the 1,800 mark is now set for her based on this year so I wouldn’t try to breed her at less than that.

here is a couple of pics of the female let me know if she is sexy

i dunno how to load 2 pics in the same mesage

SEXY!!!! And hopefully a little RANDY as well...eh Eric.

MJ
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www.ballpython.ca

Hey, I represent that statement ... er ... dang parents.

Doesn’t seem too fat, maybe a few more rats wouldn’t hurt.