Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My female ball has been using her basking spot and has been on her back a few times...is this a sign of eggs devoloping or ??????

thanks for your help
Paul

the pic is mom

Have you witnessed ovulation?

I find that females that are developing folicles generally stick to the cool side and that is when I witness them being invertyed as well. Once they ovulate, marked by a huge mid body swelling, they tend to spend most of their time in the basking or warm areas.

Mark
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www.ballpython.ca

No i have not seen ovulation....but she is basking almost 100% of the time...her cage temps are 75 cool end 82 in the mid portion and 90 on the hot spot.

Paul

Hi Paul,

My cycling females act just as Markus posted. Sitting on the cool side for most of the time her follicles are developing. Within a couple of weeks of ovulation, they spend more time on the warm side, and after ovulation, they rarely leave the warm side. It's more of a gradual shift than an overnight thing, in my females anyway.

Also the inverted posture occurs throughout the entire reproductive cycle with my females, some (of mine) will also lay that way in the summer. What I would be looking for in your girl is any one, or a combination of factors listed below. Also, ball pythons can and will breed when introduced throughout the year, so just the sight of copulation doesn't mean too much. What I consider good signs that the girl's reproductive folicles are growing are: Period of aggressive feeding response, cool seeking behavior, general pissiness, even more interest by males, the inverted position, and what I consider a sure sign that she is in that motherly way - a general lightening and softening of her colors, in combination with a greater appetite and cool seeking behavior.

Most of my normal and het girls look like ghost ball pythons during a succeessful reproductive cycle. They become very pale in color. Has anyone else noticed this?

Will

I was just talking with a friend about this today - Hey Bill! Only one of my females change colors but when this girl first changed, I freaked out. I thought I had a mixup or something. I purchased her as a high gold. About two weeks before ovualation (and it seemed like overnight), she changed colors - black and white. She was wicked Axanthic looking. She stayed that way until egg laying and then returned somewhat to normal coloration. I've seen it in chondros but not balls (until this one).
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Jay A. Martin

Hey whats up? are you going to send me dimmensions for your rat rack? thanks
Paul Mc

One day I was cleaning cages and I noticed one of my females looked like a ghost and I thought it was really weird or she was in shed. But she has a noticable change in color that I didn't even think was related to her breeding. She is the only one who has changed colors and she is also the only one starting to get really thick. I guess she is just ahead of the rest. I have noticed that she is moving the substrate in her cage a lot more than normal too.

All my females go through a color change before they ovulate. It's the first thing I look for. I mark every container with a glow stiker so I can tell at a glance who to check on more often.

Sometimes I'll show some of them to Jayne and she asks me when I got so many ghosts.

Yep...it's a sure sign!

Mark
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www.ballpython.ca