Ron's Ball Python Blog

I read an interesting excerpt today about snake superstitions that I thought I'd share in the blog. I'm not a superstitious person at all but the irony is that I happened to speak with someone today who was extremely big on superstitions. I told him to say a few "good luck" spells for all the ball python eggs in my incubator because I don't want anymore "Cyclops" ball pythons hatching here again (see my blog entry on 05/22/06 entitled "Life finds a way to live..."). :)

Here's the excerpt, enjoy.

Snake Superstitions
from "Cassell Dictionary of Superstions" by David Pickering

Superstition has always regarded snakes with fear and respect,
crediting them with various supernatural powers. Snake cults have
thrived in many different parts of the world and snakes occupy a
prominent, if not always healthy, position in many of the world's
religions, including Christianity. Christian snake-handling sects
exist in the modern USA, practitioners believing that their faith
protects them from a venomous snake's bite. The idea of the snake
being in some way protective is shared by many traditions; tattoos,
for instance, often take the form of a snake pattern, and hanging a
snakeskin from the rafters will protect a house from fire. Killing
the first snake that a person sees in the year, will, meanwhile,
guarantee them victory over any foes over the next twelve months.
Snakes are also widely interpreted as a phallic symbol and are
therefore strongly associated with various forms of sex magic.

Superstition has cherished a number of misconceptions about snakes.
These include the widespread beliefs that all snakes hypnotize their
prey; that they inject their venom via their forked tongue; that
they can all spit their venom and that, according to US
tradition, `hoop snakes' can roll in the form of a hoop at their
enemies by seizing their tail in their own mouth. Another popular
idea has it that snakes cannot die until the sun goes down.

Seeing a snake crossing one's path is unlucky, as are dreams about
snakes; a pregnant woman who is frightened by a snake may give birth
to a child with a constricted neck (though it is also said that
snakes will never bite pregnant women). Tying a snakeskin around the
waist of a woman in labor will ease childbirth, while carrying a
snakeskin is generally supposed to be beneficial to health,
effective against headaches and in extracting thorns from the skin.
In the USA it is said that women in labor who are fed a drink made
from the powdered rattle of a rattlesnake will have an easier time.
Carrying a snake's tooth will ward off fever, and one may be carried
for luck in gambling. Other uses of snakes in folk medicine include
an old English treatment for swollen necks, which requires a live
snake to be drawn across the affected part three times and then
buried alive in a bottle.

Superstition recommends a host of animal and plant preparations for
the treatment of snakebite. Among the more bizarre is one which
claims that rubbing crocodile blood into the bite will negate the
effects of the poison. Another course is to tie the dead body of a
snake around the wound. To avoid getting bitten by a snake in the
first place the simplest course is to wear an emerald.

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Before I talk about how I breed ball pythons here, I wanted to let you know that we just launched a new pet supply store online! You can now order your favorite pet supplies for cats, dogs, reptiles, small animals, birds, and etc. from the convenience of your home and have your items delivered to your front door. Check the new site out at http://pet-supplies.RCReptiles.com when you get a chance. Don’t forget to support the sponsors listed on this page (see right column) as well. They offer some great deals on a variety of services. Try them out!

Now on to breeding ball pythons here at RCReptiles.com
Many people have asked me lately about breeding and how we do things here. I felt that other people probably had the same questions so I figured I’d write about how we do things here in my blog. Many breeders have their own ball python breeding recipes but this blog is about what works for us here. I’ll often make mentions to what some breeders do that differs from what I do throughout the blog.

Breeding season starts late in the season as the weather gets colder and the sun sets earlier than it does in the early parts of the year. My main objective before breeding season is to determine which animals I plan to breed and what their weights are. One important thing to note is that I allocate at least five females per breeder male. Anything less is a waste of your males breeding potential.

No “Weight-Watcher” programs here!
My personal preference for breeding weights in females is 1,500 grams. Males should be at least 600 grams and a year or more older. I have bred males as young as 6 months with success. You want to check your male for sperm plugs by “popping them” (See the Snake sexing article here http://www.rcreptiles.com/articles/snake-sexing-methods.html ) to see if they’re producing sperm. I generally check younger males in the later part of the year, closer to breeding season. If you pop them and they have sperm, they’re good to go!

I offer food to my snakes every three to four days. Some will eat, others won’t. My main objective is to offer the females food so they’ll grow and produce body fat. This is crucial to the egg development process in females because their fat is used for the egg creation process. Some breeders keep their males lean because they say a leaner male is a better breeder. I don’t personally try to keep my males lean. I offer them food and they’ll eat or they won’t, it’s entirely up to them.

I continue this process up to October 1st, the welcome mat to breeding season.

Cooling things down a bit
We control the entire environment at our breeding facility. Things are cooling down in Mother Nature so we have to bring the outdoor environment into our snake rooms. Snakes generally have a breeding season in Ghana, Africa and it seems to be programmed into many ball pythons. We capitalize off this by simulating Mother Nature so our snakes will know it’s breeding season and get into gear. We keep our lights on a timer and adjust the timer to reflect when the sun rises and sets outside. This creates a photoperiod that many biologists feel is extremely important in breeding a variety of snake species. I have to note that I know of a breeder who does not adjust his lighting at all, he keeps his snakes in the dark year round and he reports good breeding results.

The lights in the snake room come on at 7:00 AM here and go off at 5:00 PM each evening. In addition to controlling the lights, we control the temperatures as well. The ambient room temperature fluctuates between 80F during the day and 75F at night. We also adjust the “hot spots” in each tank through the use of a thermostat. Helix controls Inc. has a thermostat product with a “night drop” module that you can use to simulate night-time drops. 90F during the day and 80F drop at night when the lights go out.

We’re officially in breeding mode now
We cool them for a month and begin the actual breeding trials November 1st. We begin by introducing males into female’s cages. Some breeders recommend females into male’s cages but we do it opposite and it works for us here.

When a male is introduced into a females cage, a few interesting things might start to happen. I’ve noticed that some females will often “wag their tails” when a male is placed in their cage. They’ll often urinate in the cage as well. Why they behave this way is unknown to me at this point in time but I’m hopeful to understand the underlying reason for this in due time.

The male will often cruise the females' cage and will crawl over the female as well. This is courting behavior. He’ll often rub his tail along her body while prodding her with his spurs. If she’s receptive, she’ll allow him to place his tail under hers and copulate with him. The males’ tail under the females tail in a locked position identifies copulation. They’ll often stay this way for up to 24 hours or longer. Do not bother them or try to separate them when they’re copulating, you could injure your male.

I check each cage daily during breeding season. If a male is locked up with a female (copulating), I’ll leave them alone and check on them again the following day. If a male is not copulating with a female, I’ll then remove him from her cage and move him to another cage. This process is continued throughout the breeding season.

One important thing to note is that I faithfully give breeder males down time during the weekend. Sometimes I’ll give them a week off from breeding. I’ve heard stories that some breeders have actually bred their males to death by not giving them downtime. I also offer them food on down time. Some will eat but most of my males don’t feed, they just want to get back into a females cage and breed. I offer females food when males aren’t in their cages as well. I offer them very small rats because the environment is cooler and they need heat to digest their food properly.

Time to start warming things up
I continue the above cycle of rotating males through the cages of females throughout the entire breeding cycle. I start warming things up a bit in the beginning of February. The lights stay on longer and the “hot spots” stay at 90F all day and night. This alerts the animals and tells them that the breeding season will be ending soon.

I continue breeding throughout the warming process. Hopefully you’ve had much copulation up to this point in time.

April 1st, time to call it quits
I stop breeding on April 1st but some breeders continue to breed beyond this date. Some breeders actually breed year round. Hopefully you’ve had a stellar breeding season and you have some females that have ovulated. Ovulation is the result of a females' follicles entering her oviduct. They will show a major swelling in their mid-section. It looks like they just ate a large rat. Females ovulate early, others later. You can stop breeding and have a female ovulate several months later. I had a female ovulate 6 months after I stopped breeding a male to her!

You can also check the follicles in your females through a process called palpation. Remove the female from her cage and allow her to slide down or crawl back into her cage while you hold her with your thumb pressing against her belly. You should feel marble sized “bumps” near the lower third portion of her body. They might feel like marbles or small peas. It really depends where they are in their development cycle. When they’re big enough and it’s time for them to be released, she’ll ovulate.

Another good clue to look out for is when they start lying on their backs. Yes, some males do this as well but it's generally a good sign to see in females during the tail end of breeding season. Females will often spend much of their time on the hot side of the tank. Many gravid females tend to lay in a coil a lot on the hot spot of the tank.

Once you’ve spotted ovulation you can expect eggs at least 45 days later. She’ll have a swollen appearance for about 24 hours or so, after that she’ll look normal because the follicles will have spread out for the egg shelling and fertilization process.

Not sure if she ovulated? Look for a shed!
Females will shed roughly 16 or so days after they ovulate. This is their pre-egg lay shed. Once they complete their shed, they’ll produce eggs in 30 days. Write down their shed date and get ready for eggs.

You can let her maternally incubate her eggs or you can put them in an incubator. I won’t go into the details of incubation methods in this blog. You can read more on incubation processes in the library of this website here http://www.rcreptiles.com/links.html#anchor1 . The eggs should hatch in roughly 55-60 days at an incubation temperature of 89F.

I hope this blog answered some of your questions about how I breed ball pythons here at RCReptiles.com. Start a thread (or join a thread if one started by the time you’ve read this blog) in the Ball Python section of the reptile forum on this website located at http://www.rcreptiles.com/forum if you have questions or you’d like to discuss this topic in greater detail.

Bye!

Cutting ball python eggs too early
Although I don't have enough data now, I have a feeling that cutting ball python eggs too soon "might" result in premature low-weight hatchlings. I'm not 100% sure about this hypothesis because I have to examine more data from the past few years to see if I can form some conclusions. I have noticed that when you cut eggs too early or before a hatchling pips an egg on its own, the snake might weigh less than hatchlings from other clutches.

I had a clutch recently that I cut too early and several of the hatchlings were underweight. I've also noticed that some of these hatchlings don't absorb their yolk fully. You'll often see small hatchlings that leave their eggs and what remains is a large portion of un-absorbed yolk in the egg. This is a problem in my opinion because they use the yolk for nourishment and growth.

I think it's OK to cut a clutch of eggs ONCE a hatchling has pip'd on its own. What I'm talking about is cutting eggs that haven't pip'd yet. I'm curious to know if you've observed similar observations yourself. I've cut eggs and had them in an optimal environment in the incubator (correct temps, humidity, etc) and several of the hatchlings left their eggs on day 60 or so but a few of them didn't absorb their yolks.

I've also noticed that some hatchlings will get stuck to the inside of the eggshell. The liquid in the egg dries out and causes the snake to bond to the shell. They can be safely released with some effort on the part of their keeper but I wonder if they have the strength to escape on their own. I don't think I'm going to cut eggs early moving forward. I will only cut eggs when a sibling from a clutch has pip'd through its shell.

Please post a comment to this blog if you've had similar or different results. I'm curious to know your feelings about this topic.

Still going and going and going...
Females are still ovulating and producing clutches of eggs even though I stopped breeding for the season. Mother Nature never ceases to amaze me. I'm also gathering data now to see if I can spot pregnancy cycles for individual female ball pythons. I had a female that just dropped a clutch of 9 beautiful eggs on the 7th of this month. What's interesting is that she dropped a clutch of eggs on the 6th of this month LAST YEAR!

I have the data for all of my females that laid clutches for the past several years. I plan to analyze this data to see if females have their own " birthing cycle" with respect to becoming gravid (pregnant) in hopes that this data will lead to a better understanding of the birthing cycle in female ball pythons. Perhaps we can better target breeding dates to maximize our breeding efforts excluding the use of tools such as manual palpating and ultrasounds.

I'll keep you posted!

In my last blog I posted what I thought might be a double clutch of Spider ball pythons and a Pastel ball python. I wasn't 100% sure if the Pastel was a Pastel or a normal ball python. When you cut a clutch early, it's sometimes hard to determine if the hatchling is a morph or not, especially if it's a pastel clutch. It seems their color becomes more pronounced the closer to their hatch date. It's easier to tell when you have pattern morphs like spiders, pinstripes, etc. as well as extreme color morphs like Albino ball pythons.

I checked the clutch again today and lo and behold, there's a pastel ball python in the clutch! It's absolutely amazing when you think about what just happened with this clutch. There were two seperate copulations by different male ball pythons and one of the eggs was fertilized by the Pastel father whereas two of the eggs were fertilized by the Spider father! The other three eggs are normal ball pythons so there's no way for me to determine who the father of those eggs are. Perhaps I should contact the Maury show and try to get the spider ball python and the pastel ball python on one of those "I will prove you're my baby daddy through a DNA test" episodes! lol

Some of you are probably thinking, is it possible for both the male spider ball python and the pastel ball python to fertilize one egg? The answer is no, it's not possible. What does amaze me though is how a ball python female is able to "store" sperm and use it at some point in the future. For instance, I had a female breed with a single male throughout the 2005 breeding season. I stopped breeding them on April 1st of last year and she ovulated and produced eggs FIVE MONTHS LATER!

What baffles me is about this recent clutch is the fact that she was able to store sperm from BOTH males! Nature is absolutely incredible....

Here's the photo of the pastel and spider ball python from the same clutch. There's another spider but he hasn't pierced the egg membrane yet. I can't determine their sex yet because they're still in the eggs absorbing their egg yolk (very bottom of the egg) through their umbilical cords. They should be out of their eggs and roaming about within the next five days.

Christmas in May
And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a SPIDER! lol (will come back to this shortly).

It's been hectic around here for the last few weeks. A lot of babies hatching, a lot of females dropping clutches of eggs and a lot of excitement here at RCReptiles.com. Waiting for eggs to hatch seems to be the longest 60 days of your life but the last few days before they hatch are the LONGEST! It's a terrific feeling though when you hatch your first ball python egg. If you've bred before you know what I'm talking about. If not, you'll know what I mean when you get eggs from your female and go through the experience yourself.

The Punch Line
I cut a clutch of eggs today of which I thought was a pastel clutch. I bred a pastel to a female exclusively but I decided to put a spider in with her later in the season. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her clutch was going to be pastels. Although the spider male copulated with her late in the season, I would have bet my left arm that the clutch was pastels. Glad I didn't make that bet because I would have lost my left arm! Well, half of my left arm because the clutch has two spiders in it AND I "think" one of the babies is a pastel! I've heard of a clutch sired by two different males but I never experienced this myself.

Here's the photo of what I "think" is a pastel (what do you think?)

Here's the photo of what I "know" is a spider

I have to update the available page now and include the two new beautiful Mojave males that hatched out recently.

Bye!