Any snake enthusiast that maintains a collection of ball pythons has the necessity of having a good supply of feeder rodents available. Whether you choose to buy from a rodent supplier or choose to breed your own, both methods have their advantages and disadvantages.

Over time, we have become students of rodent culture, so that we may nourish our snakes with the highest quality feed.  Raising your own rodents is a quality control measure for providing your snake’s with the best nutrition. We choose to feed our rat colony a high quality lab block diet such as Mazuri 6F.  The best results are achieved when a rodent breeder utilizes a feed formulated specifically for rodents. Although the price of this lab block feed has risen over the years, our rodent colonies vigor thrives on this diet. We will not sacrifice price for quality, and believe in the philosophy of, “what you put in, is what you get out”. A nutritionally balanced fed rodent raised in a clean environment is the optimum food source for any ball python.  Your snakes will show excellent growth and health.  Some snake hobbyists and breeders have cut corners by electing to feed their rodent colony with economically cheaper alternatives such as dog food.

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Each year, it amazes me to see how quickly a season can pass us by.  It seems that it was only yesterday that I was sitting in my turkey blind watching the birth of that beautiful crisp spring morning. I was somewhat half-focused on my hunt that morning, because down deep in my thoughts, I was anticipating the season’s first clutch to hatch.  I now lay in my deer stand with the change of the seasons, awaiting that big buck and reflecting on the new 2010 breeding season that sprung quickly upon us. We are excited about the possibilities of the 2010 breeding season. We thought to take some time and share some helpful points to all the new hobbyists that will be preparing to breed their animals this season.

• Give your breeding stock a good inspection, checking for good overall health and body weight. Make sure that females have a minimum adequate body weight of 1500 grams or better for the breeding season.
• Double check and re-sex all of your snakes. Believe me it doesn’t hurt to double check everything. Especially, if you have a larger collection. We have screwed this one up once before by shifting snakes around and not keeping track of their ID numbers. It’s frustrating to see a female not go and later finding out it was actually a he.
• Plan your breeding season by creating a breeding plan. Plan and write down on paper, your anticipated pairings and any possible male back ups. Good record keeping in a journal can track your breeding season for future reference. Record everything that you see such as sheds and lock ups.
• Check to make sure that your thermostats are functioning properly. Double check your day and night temperatures to make sure your night drops are working. Save yourself some frustration and make sure your equipment is functioning properly We always keep an extra thermostat on hand in case of an emergency failure.

There are many breeding recipes out there for breeding ball pythons on the web and in print. Do some research and through trial and error you will develop your own confident style.  Have fun and good luck in 2010.

Watching a ball python hatch-ling slice through an egg with their egg tooth, pip and take their first breath is an incredible experience for a breeder, especially when witnessed for the first time.  Some keepers who keep ball pythons as pets will eventually develop the inspiration to breed these cool animals. Breeding ball pythons is a simple process when a few basic principles are in place, such as

• having healthy mature males and females,
• good conditioning of females through diet,
• temperature / barometric cycling to stimulate breeding,
• understanding / interpreting a females shedding cycle and how it relates to follicle growth, ovulation and egg laying,
• introduction of the male during the stages of follicle growth,
• ovulation and getting viable eggs and
• proper Incubation.

When all of these basic breeding elements are understood, the best advice for success we could give to any future potential breeder is simply, patience.  You can try and rush success, but things may not always work out.  When breeding any animal, we are dealing with biology, and there are ups and downs along the way.  We will highlight some points one may encounter along their breeding endeavors.

Maturity

Ball pythons like most animals will develop to maturity at different rates.  No hard and fast rule exists on when a ball python will become mature enough to breed. This is one part of the biologic equation breeders do not have direct control of. Examples in rapid maturation are males breeding in their first year, and females as early as 18 months of age.

While some people try to power-feed their animals to grow them up faster up to size, there is no guarantee that this rapid growing works. One can rush growth by feeding their snake excessively, but you can’t rush maturity. Also note that obese snakes make poor breeders and have a tendency to slug out. We have had males breed in their first year and up to four years later. We have had females lay eggs between 18 months to five years of age. A healthy snake will most likely breed in captivity, but again, we are on their biological schedule.

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We recently hatched a 4 egg clutch from a Graziani Pewter to a Yellowbelly (Het Ivory), which yielded 1.2 Pewters and 0.1 Yellowbelly. Odds dictate that the yellow belly morph should in theory be inherited  by half the clutch. To date, no research of ours has revealed what a Pewter Yellowbelly would look like. We are not aware of any being produced. We searched the litter for the common markers of the yellow belly trait which are faded heads, side flames and checked sides in the side of the belly.  With the Pewters reduced sides, no flames or checkering is evident. One  particular female that hatched, had a really faded head, almost looked purple pre-shed. We suspect that she may be a Pewter Yellowbelly.  One Pewter male in the litter  came out with a cool little yellow splash not common with the Pewter morph.  Yellowbellies have been known to do some strange things when bred to with certain morphs.  We are going to hold this litter back to test breed it.  This is the fun part of the hobby and patience and time will reveal the true genetics of these snakes.  What do you  all think? We would love to hear your feedback.

Pewter With a Yellow Splash

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Over the years, we have tried numerous bedding types on our ball python collection. We first started with using shredded aspen as it was cheap to buy in large quantities, absorbent,and easy to spot clean.  Its only drawback was that it would mould easily when wet or misted especially when trying to promote good sheds.

Next we tried using good old newspaper.  It was a medium that is readily found, abundant, free and easy to change.  Newspaper is a one shot deal because one urination or defecation from a snake would normally require an immediate bin change.  Newspaper is not as absorbent as aspen but using multiple layers helps.

We heard great things about cypress mulch and it was our next progression to experiment with.  At first it took us some time to track down a cyprus mulch supplier, but we eventually got a hold of a larger bark variety, not a finer shred like aspen.   This big chunk cyprus worked especially great on our adult animals.  One advantage of cypress is that it is highly absorbent when dry and can retain lots of  water  promoting excellent sheds.  Cypress resists molding more than aspen, adding a longer useful life to the product.

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