Reptile & Amphibian Forums

1. Does anyone have a copy of Dr. Seward's Ball Python Breeding video they could lend me, I'll be happy to pay for any shipping, I would just like to look at it before actually buying it. Does it include how to sex a snake, I've seen it done but it's been a while. Can anyone recommed any other videos that they like.

2. Does/Has anyone ever let a snake incubate (?) her own eggs or does everyone remove them from the mom and put them in incubators? Is there a better success rate if they are in incubators?

3. I have 1.1 that are currently housed together. I was planning on separating them next year before they were able to breed. But if I don't cool them, is there a chance they won't breed.

I'm not actually going to start breeding until next season, my girls aren't arriving until the end of the week and my boys I won't be picking out for a couple more months. I'm sure that a lot of other questions will come up between now and then. Which reminds me:

4. Can anyone share their quarantine set up.

Thanks!
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Tosha

1.1.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy)
0.1.0 Siberian Husky (Kita)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
5.4.2 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

1. no video, but Sexing a BP is pretty easy, provided it is a hatchling or an adult. For adults just use a probe and lubricate it. Gently insert it under the flap and move it towards the tail of the snake. Stop as soon as you feel some resistance. Usually, they will not fight this process at all and are pretty content to let you do it. Pull the probe out and if it traveled 6-10 scales past the flap you have a male and 1-4 scales you have a female. The male has hemipenes on both sides, so it helps to probe the left and right side of the flap. Check out this website for more help.

http://www.pythons.com/probing.html

2. Lower success rate if you let the snake incubate the eggs and it is much harder on the Mother...she usually wont eat until the eggs hatch...i.e. an extra 60 days. be careful when removing her, she can be aggressive in defending the eggs. Once you remove the eggs, completely wash out the tank and give the female a soapy bath. This will remove the egg smell and she will return to normal behavior sooner.

3. There is a chance they wont breed even if you do cool them, but cooling them will significantly increase the likelihood of them breeding. If they do breed "hot" most likely the female will not become gravid, or she will throw slugs...this is just from what I have read in the Barker's book

4. quarantine set up should be as simple as possible. Don't put anything in it that can't be easily disinfected or thrown away. Use a small water bowl so they cannot soak in it and use newspaper as a substrate. This will minimize the places mites can lay eggs and ticks can hide. Keep the new snakes in a completely different room if possible for at least 3 months. Always handle your new snakes last, never before your existing collection...you might pass diseases from the new snakes to the old on your hands. Otherwise, treat them as you would normally.

"2. Lower success rate if you let the snake incubate the eggs and it is much harder on the Mother...she usually wont eat until the eggs hatch...i.e. an extra 60 days. be careful when removing her, she can be aggressive in defending the eggs. Once you remove the eggs, completely wash out the tank and give the female a soapy bath. This will remove the egg smell and she will return to normal behavior sooner."

What do you base this on?

I can't prove anything one-way or the other. The only maternal clutch I tried had a 100% hatch rate but I've had some artificial clutches that high and some not that high. She ate very well after the babies hatched and produced a clutch the next year while one of my artificial incubation girls did not.

Basing it on a small group you might have heard of called NERD. In the Barker's book "The ball python manual" they specifically cite increased survival rate as the reason why they artificially incubate all of their eggs...but they do also say you can let the female incubated them IF YOU CAN MAINTAIN THE CAGE TEMPERATURE TO EXACTLY BETWEEN 86 and 88 DEGREES while keeping a high humidity.
I don't know of any large breeders that let their BPs incubate their own eggs, although some might exist. If you don't know what your doing at all....then it might be better to let the female hatch her own, but usually, unless you have great temperature and humidity control in her cage, more eggs will go bad that way. The whole incubator thing is based on the fact that you can control the temp and humidity level much better so the eggs will have an optimal environment, with that said, if your incubator thermostat is off, or you make it too much or to little humid, your success rate could be just as bad.

However, with all of that said, I've heard people that swear by both ways, so maybe it is just a matter of personal preference?

I wonder if NERD and VPI or any of the people who are allegedly saying maternal incubation doesn't work as well as artificial incubation have actually tried it. It may just be that it seems logical that it wouldn't work as well and that is why so many believe it doesn't work as well but I'm not sure anyone has ever proven it.

I did hear about a big breeder in Florida who supposedly only uses maternal incubation and if I remember right does it in the garage without ridged heat controls. I heard he just sprays down the concrete floor periodically to help with humidity which also might not even be needed in FL. I suspect they are much more capable of incubating their own eggs than we think but I'm not aware of any actual experiments to answer the question one way or the other as to which is the best incubation method.