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This girl weighed 4996 grams when I bought her at the Manassas show on the 19th... some of you may have seen her at Ian's table. She was clearly gravid and HUGE! The biggest ball I have ever seen. Well she layed last night... She is so big she totally covered the eggs...

Guess how many eggs? I'll let you count... I count 18!!!!! WOW!

A few observations with this girl that I find facinating. The first is she was captured, imported to the states, sat at the show all day, and then in my cold Truck for several hours and despite all of this stress she still gave me a healthy clutch of eggs!

Another observation... like all wild caught animals she came in with ticks. Ticks are obviously a natural part of the ball pythons life cycle and they do little harm. (Just want to touch on a common misconception while I'm on this topic. Wild caught ball pythons never come in with mites, mites are NOT found in Ghana. If they get mites, it's after they arrive here.) Like all wild caughts I bring in she received a dose of Black Night and a thorough soaking. This easily wipes out the ticks. If you look closely at the eggs though, you will see ticks attached to the eggs. I know for a fact that I killed all of the externally located ticks. It's my theory that some baby ticks live in or are deposited inside the cloaca where they wait for eggs to be layed. This means that baby balls are exposed to this parasite even before they hatch. I remeber reading on Ralph Davis' forum about a long term captive female that layed eggs after years of captivity and they had ticks attached. Ralph was pretty stumped cause' he knew there were no ticks in his collection... but they were there... hidden up the snakes butt! I just wanted to share these observations... I hit the eggs with a liberal amount of black night before putting them in the egg container. All of the ticks fell off and died within 5 minutes. I have done this before with no ill effect to the eggs or hatchlings.

Now I hope I can get this girl feeding! I have a male or two I'd like to put on her in a year or so! And the female hatchlings are HOLD BACKS, lol! The kind of Hold-Backs that never make it to the Classifieds! And if you guys run into Ian at a show and he has Giant Gravid Balls from a special region in Ghana... I suggest you buy em' before I get there! LOL

Thanks for looking...
Oz
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OZZYBOIDS

First one is What did you pay for her? If you don't want to say in the forum contact me directly. How did you spray the black night on the eggs? Did you wash them off after you sprayed the eggs? I would have been scared to use pesticides on the eggs. By the way great clutch and I hope you get her feeding. It would kool to get a 18 eggs clutch with a mojave being the daddy. My biggest clutch so far is 12, then 9, and then 8. That is my first 3 clutches of the year so far. Also what does that female weigh now after laying eggs? Thanks DAVID

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1.0 Pied(04)(RDR)
1.0 Albino(04)(RDR)
0.1 Spider(04)(RDR)
3.2 Pastels(03's)(04's)(ASF,Graziani,Bell lines)
0.1 Yellow belly(unproven)(04)
1.3 Yellow belly(unproven)(02,03,04's)
2.0 100% HET CLOWN(04's)(MHMR)
3.3 100% het albinos(03's)(high contrast bell line)
0.1 poss Het Albino(03's)
2.0 100% het pieds(03's)(Vin Russo,CRE)
0.2 100% het pieds(03's)(04's)(RDR,TWL)
1.2 Poss het pieds(03's)(PETE KAHL)
2.1 Poss het pieds(00's)(01's) hoping to get PIEDS this year(Vin Russo, Pete Kahl)
25 Normal adult females
60 04 females
15 normal mixed 03's
20 Assorted weird ball pythons 04's

Hey Dave,

I apply Black Night to eggs the same way I apply it to animals. I give one quick one second spray into the container and close the lid. I usually spray in a direction away from the animal or eggs. No need to spray directly. For animals I then leave the lid closed for an 1/2 hour. Eggs... just 15 minutes. I didn't bother washing off the eggs since the amount I exposed them to was very light. It doesn't take much Black Night to the job... the stuff is great and I have never had any ill effects as result of using it. The stuff is GREAT! Every new animal regardless of the source gets treated as soon as it enters my place.

Ticks die fast. Mites on the other hand may take longer. Mites are pain in the a** and you should take every precaution to avoid introducing them into a collection.

I saw your 12 egg clutch... that's an awesome female and clutch you have their. Good luck! I hope you hatch a bunch of pastels.

Oz
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OZZYBOIDS

Great clutch! must be some kind of record. I sure hope this female acclimates to captivity, it would be such a waste if she didn't, in reality she should of been released back in Afrika after laying her eggs.

Good Luck with her

Brian A.

clutch being laid in Africa last year. Either way... I'm stoked.

Thanks.. Oz
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OZZYBOIDS

I've never seen so many ball python eggs in one clutch, thats more then I've gotten from 3 females before. I hope you get a lot of girls hatching from that group. Any idea where that 'special region in Ghana' is?

Mark

>>This girl weighed 4996 grams when I bought her at the Manassas show on the 19th... some of you may have seen her at Ian's table. She was clearly gravid and HUGE! The biggest ball I have ever seen. Well she layed last night... She is so big she totally covered the eggs...
>>
>>
>>Guess how many eggs? I'll let you count... I count 18!!!!! WOW!
>>
>>
>>A few observations with this girl that I find facinating. The first is she was captured, imported to the states, sat at the show all day, and then in my cold Truck for several hours and despite all of this stress she still gave me a healthy clutch of eggs!
>>
>>Another observation... like all wild caught animals she came in with ticks. Ticks are obviously a natural part of the ball pythons life cycle and they do little harm. (Just want to touch on a common misconception while I'm on this topic. Wild caught ball pythons never come in with mites, mites are NOT found in Ghana. If they get mites, it's after they arrive here.) Like all wild caughts I bring in she received a dose of Black Night and a thorough soaking. This easily wipes out the ticks. If you look closely at the eggs though, you will see ticks attached to the eggs. I know for a fact that I killed all of the externally located ticks. It's my theory that some baby ticks live in or are deposited inside the cloaca where they wait for eggs to be layed. This means that baby balls are exposed to this parasite even before they hatch. I remeber reading on Ralph Davis' forum about a long term captive female that layed eggs after years of captivity and they had ticks attached. Ralph was pretty stumped cause' he knew there were no ticks in his collection... but they were there... hidden up the snakes butt! I just wanted to share these observations... I hit the eggs with a liberal amount of black night before putting them in the egg container. All of the ticks fell off and died within 5 minutes. I have done this before with no ill effect to the eggs or hatchlings.
>>
>>Now I hope I can get this girl feeding! I have a male or two I'd like to put on her in a year or so! And the female hatchlings are HOLD BACKS, lol! The kind of Hold-Backs that never make it to the Classifieds! And if you guys run into Ian at a show and he has Giant Gravid Balls from a special region in Ghana... I suggest you buy em' before I get there! LOL
>>
>>Thanks for looking...
>>Oz
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>> OZZYBOIDS

.
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Tosha

8.10.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
7.9.5 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

Congrats Oz, that's an amazing story, animal and clutch! Good luck with everything this season.

Debra and Diana
Camlon Reptiles

Hmmmmm, I counted 18 too OZ I posted something about the tics coming out with the eggs some time ago. Your theory sounds good to me. Mamma's a monster, by the way. Not bad lookin' either.

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OZZYBOIDS

So you bought that monster! I saw her and she was the largest ball python I personally have ever seen. I ran out of money before I got to her. My wc axanthic female has given me 5 large eggs and the burgundy gave me 6 eggs Sunday morning! Not 18, but I"ll take healthy eggs! One more Hi gold wc still to lay , then its feeding time, I hope, and wait for my cbb girls to start! Then the boas, well that's another story! lol Pastel Dreams on the ground!
Great seeing you Oz as always and look forward to seeing you again soon!

see that Monster??? lol

Oz
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OZZYBOIDS

i was too busy staring at that little granite girl! lol

vaughn

Oz,

That is an amazing clutch from a HUGE female! Congrats!

My questions are these... Did you happen to get a gram weight on that clutch of eggs? Also, did you candle them yet? If so are all of them viable?

I have some huge females like that in my collection however mine only lay about 11-13 eggs each but each egg can weigh as much as 150 grams. I am trying to keep track of all of these numbers to come up with an idea of what some of these snakes are capable of. I still have several 4000-plus gram females that have never produced for me.

Thanks and Good Luck!!

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Sean Bradley
Owner : EbN
www.ExoticsByNature.com
www.BallPythonMorphs.com
www.CornSnakeMorphs.com

Hey Sean... thanks Man.

To answer your questions... no I did not even think to weigh the eggs. They look to be of average size though. After reading your post I did weigh the girl and got an approximate weight on the eggs.

The girl went from 4996 grams to 3410 grams. I weighed an empty egg container that was filled with the same amount of vermiculite/water as the one that currently contains the eggs and subtracted that weight from the the total weight of the other. According to my calculations the clutch of 18 weighs about 1900 grams. The female only lost about 1600 grams so I predict that these eggs weigh about 100 grams each. I have had bigger as well as smaller eggs in the past and like I said I think they are of average size.

I did candle and all of the eggs look good. I can't wait to raise up the females from this clutch and see how they turn out. Good luck with your projects and those big females!

Oz
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OZZYBOIDS

I looked through my past records of clutches over the last few years and most all of my eggs were about 100 grams. Our first clutch this season was about a month ago and I was surprised by her size that she laid 11 eggs. I thought that she may have had more. Upon her laying them I weighed the clutch at about 1400 grams. That makes the eggs about 127 grams each. Had they been regular sized would she have had 13 or 14?? I find it enjoyable to look into these little bits of info and try to learn more about my production and collection.

I agree... those progeny will be worth holding onto. I am looking forward to hatching that clutch of 127 gram eggs... they were from Piebald x Normal. Those should be nice to raise up... I have such BAD luck when it comes to growing up Pied stock.

Good luck... thanks for sharing...
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Sean Bradley
Owner : EbN
www.ExoticsByNature.com
www.BallPythonMorphs.com
www.CornSnakeMorphs.com

Looks like this girl's clutch was right around 32% of her pre-lay weight. The numbers I've seen seem to be pretty consistent around 1/3 of the pre-lay weight going to the clutch. The big variable is the size (and hence the number) of eggs. I had this theory that you could selectively breed for girls that tended to lay small eggs but so far I've seen several examples where a female lays small eggs one year and big ones the next so perhaps factors other than genetics play a bigger part in egg size. I'm wondering if females that have skipped years or certain conditioning factors cause more (and hence smaller) eggs to be produced.

Sean, what sort of problems have you had with pied lines? Is it just homozygous or hets too?

Randy,

We have some huge females that have been in our collection for about 3-4 years and NEVER produced! This season it looks like most of them are going for it so I will keep you posted. These females would be extreme long term captives probably about 8-15 years of age. Most are above 3500 grams in weight.

As for the Piebald situation... we have several Het. and Poss. Het. females aproaching age 4 and barely 1500 grams. They just don't seem to have any will to produce. Looks like about 4-5 of them may go this season. So frustrating! On the other hand... our Piebald male is enormous and grew very quickly. I've just about given up on a lot of production fro the Piebald project in the near future. I'm just going to buy up as many Homos as I can this year... I'm tired of waiting...

I'm sure that many people have good and bad stories about a lot of morphs but I'll be one to tell you... Albinos and Piebalds have been the slowest projects for me. The female Hets/Poss Hets just never grew well.

Good luck...
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Sean Bradley
Owner : EbN
www.ExoticsByNature.com
www.BallPythonMorphs.com
www.CornSnakeMorphs.com

Nice going ...would settle for half that size with my females !!!

Bill/Jake
JLSnakes@aol.com

nm

congrats oz! you didn't point that one out to me at the show! lol

vaughn

mj
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www.ballpython.ca

...ticks are vectors for a number of lethal diseases...they definitely do harm to their hosts...anyways...

SJM