Patience is an art all ball python breeders must endure in this hobby. Back in 2006 we acquired our first piebald ball python female with hopes to produce more piebalds with her. As a hatch-ling, she ate with ferocity, but she hit the wall in her sub-adult (700 g) stage. She became an infrequent eater at times fasting up to eight months. We had no plans to breed her during the 2011 season but the lights turned on mid-winter, and she fed weekly. During some late season palpating, Stephan felt some large growing follicles and made the decision to introduce a male pied in with her. He locked instantly with her, and she went on to ovulate a few weeks later.
Being on the border, most breeders would breed their females at 1500 g; she gave us four nice eggs. Waiting for the eggs to pip was nerve wracking, because both parents were possible hets for the axanthic gene. The ball python odd gods smiled down upon us, 6 years later, blessing us with our first double recessive morph, the axanthic piebald aka the Lightning Pied. The rest of the clutch consisted of some beautifully patterned 66% possible het for axanthic piebalds.
Glancing in our racks, I notice there are a few females in our collection that are taking their sweet time getting up to size. They lay patiently to achieve optimum conditioning weight, so that they can make their inaugural breeding debut. If there is a lesson we learned, nature eventually takes its course. And when it is their time to go, we believe we will not be disappointed, welcoming the new additions of baby ball pythons.