Pieds are one of my favorite ball python mutations! This girl is no exception. She’s actually one of the favorite ones I’ve ever seen. Sometimes they will have a smiley face in there pattern like she has! Hopefully I can hatch out some more emoji pieds this summer! As you can see, I’ve named this girl “Happy” and every time I see her she brings a smile to my face!
Here are a few pics of her and a short video!
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Tonight I was checking on snakes and was very surprised to see that my albino female laid 6 eggs. I wasn’t expecting her to lay for another week or so. She had six really nice eggs this year. All the babies with either be albino or double het albino tri stripe, as those were the only males she was paired with.
I was expecting my pastel sugar and albino burmese to lay today, but neither of them have yet. They probably will tonight or tomorrow because of this tropical storm that’s passing over.
Anyway, here is a pic of the albino female on eggs!
I can’t wait for the next 60 or so days to be up so I can know what’s in these eggs!
This year my first 5 clutches of eggs have been incubating maternally. To learn more about that, click here.
Clutch #10 was laid this morning! She must be a patriotic ball python. This particular female is tiny. She is 9 years old and barely 1,000 grams yet she is able to have eggs every year. She will have her weight back up to prebreeding levels very quickly. There is nothing physically wrong with this animal, she is just a small adult and is perfectly healthy. Otherwise she would not have had a good clutch of eggs. Think about it like this: not all people are the same weight and height and yet somehow they keep having kids.
At some point this summer, I will be probably moving my ball pythons to a different location and I don’t want to mess with maternally incubating females. Moving the eggs from site A to B could be a bad situation, so for the remainder of my 2014 clutches, I am sticking them in the incubator to be on the safe side, should I end up moving sooner than expected.
And my new breeding facility will be MASSIVE…but I will post about that later once I move and get it up and running.
Artificially incubating ball pythons eggs is rather simple. I made my incubator many years ago out of an old refrigerator. We got the fridge for free from a family friend and modified it into an incubator. We gutted the inside and placed wire shelves so we could set to the eggs in it. I have always used the sterilite 6qt containers for egg boxes. They work well. For bigger clutches, I either separate them or use a slightly bigger tub such as a 12 qt tub.
For incubation medium, I have always used perlite mixed with water and have had great success over the years. I do not like my eggs touching the perlite because they can become “water logged” so I cut a piece of grated electric light diffuser and place it in the bottom.
To keep a constant temperature, I use a Spider Robotics Thermostat. You can also use a helix system. Anything that has a probe and can detect less than one degree temp changes will work. I have my incubator set to 88.5 degrees and the eggs hatch in about 55 to 60 days.
After the first ones pip, it is okay to cut the rest of the clutch. I would not recommend cutting prior to pipping. Whether incubating maternally or atificially, it is best to leave the eggs alone and not constantly worry about it. They will hatch when they are ready.
Comment below and let me know your thoughts!
-Peter vonLehe Ruegner
TheOddBall 