I would like to report a breeding of Loxocemus bicolor, known as the New World Sunbeam Snake, or less appropriately as the Mexican Burrowing Python or the New World Python. I purchased my breeding pair from Don Soderberg at Southmountain reptiles, who had purchased them from Gus Renfro at Rio Bravo reptiles, and I would like to thank both of them for their invaluable advise. My pair was apparently imported from Chiapas, Mexico.
I keep the breeding pair in 34x17x4 storage boxes (probably too small) on aspen bedding with a large water dish, which also serves as a hide box. The boxes are on heating pads and air temperatures range from the high 60s to low 80s depending on the season. I feed them pre-killed small rats, though they have also taken rat pups and mice. They prefer to eat in the evening. My female is not a great eater, though I have noticed that the less I bother her or even walk around her cage on a feeding day, the more likely she is to eat. The male is a better feeder. I have read or heard a variety of accounts of how to keep and breed loxocemus bicolor, and my conclusion is that these snakes are pretty flexible breeders.
The key to remember is that they tend to mate in the winter. As my apartment cooled down in late October and early November, both snakes stopped eating. In November I noticed the male cruising around a lot, but still refusing food, and I decided it was time to put them together for a couple days at a time, once or twice a week. I never observed them mating, and I was not sure when was the perfect time, so I kept putting them together until early March when the male started eating again, and I was pretty sure the female had already ovulated. She laid six eggs on April 14. She started eating again soon after.
I incubated the eggs at about 86 degrees on vermiculite. One egg went bad in mid-May, but the other five hatched at the end of June, making for about ten weeks of incubation. The hatchlings shed about a week after they hatched and have been wolfing down pinkies and fuzzies ever since. I have included a hatchling picture.
