Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This was the last egg remaining from a clutch of 5(4 went bad) it was day 55 and i new something was wrong so i cut it open and found it dead.The pattern is amazing.It was from breeding a pastel to a nice looking normal female.

Sorry to see the little guy didn't make it... Guess you'll have to try that pairing again next year!

The snake has a funky pattern because something went wrong with it during incubation. I've said this 100 times & usually get jumped on for saying it, but that is why it has a funky pattern. Some posts last year turned into nothing but arguments because I said this, but you don't see any of the people here this year saying I PROVED OUT or got a healthy weird hatchling from the same breeding. I know better, but most people here don't (lack of years of expierience). Get a healthy one like that from the same breeding next year & then call me a retard, until then it is just a screwed-up pattern because something was not right during the developmental stages of incubation (could be various things, not neccesarily your fault, and most likely not your fault).

SOOOOOO, Alan Bosch & the few other people who claimed me to be ignorant..........Where are these super-Duper Balls from the same breedings????????????? Prove me wrong!!!!
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Chad Bachman

Chad, i think you might be right as the only ones i have seen similar to this were dead.The only thing i dont understand is why it changes the pattern??????

I've seen it ALOT in various species, but could not tell you why it happens, but it does.

Good luck next year getting some pastels from your boy
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Chad Bachman

Thanks Chad,
I have 5 more clutches of pastels to come this year, hopefully better luck with them.

.
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Chad Bachman

..

I thnk Randy has a clutch that survived, all are gorgeous, but he attibutes their bizzare pattern to egg stress. And I'd have to agree.
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Tosha

"Stupid is forever, ignorance can be fixed." Don Wood

"Of course, that's only my opinion...and I believe I am God." =) Chris Bianco

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope John Paul)
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 Pool skimmer rescues for this season

his survived & have a fully developed look to them!! Usualy when eggs are stressed that bad a baby either does not make it out or dies minutes to months after hatching (usually within hours). I don't believe Randy's are genetic, but it is worth a try since they are healthy (you never know).
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Chad Bachman

NP

Here is the animal I think you are talking about.

His egg was top of a clutch in a Styrofoam incubator and he slit first and immediately crawled out leaving his yolk behind. He has an odd asymmetric shaped head too. I noticed the same separation of pattern elements with the run together alien eyes fading in an awesome VPI labyrinth that unfortunately failed to prove.

i can see if it had an actual deformity,but not pattern i think that snaked looked awesome but then again i am rather new to the game. so does that mean if a snake has an outlandish pattern it might be attributed to egg stress

You have to know what you are looking for/at. Egg stress will affect a snakes pattern Big-Time, but I cannot explain in typing why (I hate typing). That snake had developmental problems, no doubt!
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Chad Bachman

Hi all. I am new to balls and I have three now. We (my son & I) love them. I read in one of my newbie books that most morphs originally began with unusual conditions during incubation and temp etc can cause changes in pattern.

Also, please explain the system here of describing how many, what size etc of my animal/reptile brood.

Thanks!

If an animal looks odd because of an odd development environment it shouldn't be able to pass that on to its offspring to start a new morph. The reproducible new morphs are started by random mutations of the actual genes.

I'm not sure I understand the 2nd question but the general rule of thumb is that a gravid female will lay about 1/3 of her pre-lay weight in eggs. However, the size of the eggs can vary considerably. With bigger girls 110 grams might be a good number so if you take the gravid mom's pre-lay weight in grams and divide by 330 you will get a rough estimate of number of eggs. Some breeders have apparently developed a good method of palpitating the female to actually count the eggs before they are laid if you really need to know. And I guess ultrasound is also an option.