Recently got a RTB female Ball Python from a trade deal, she finished her quarantine a couple weeks ago and I’m planning on pairing her up with my male soon.
This will be my first time pairing Ball Pythons so I’m just looking for general advice to start off the process. I am familiar with breeding colubrids so I have a good idea of how the process goes in an overall aspect, just not the specifics of Ball Pythons.
I switched the hot end of both the male and females enclosures to 82°F a little over a month ago, they are both eating regularly still. My male has exceeded 850 grams- the photo is from a while ago so he is a good weight to breed! The female is currently at ~1300g.
I’ll gladly take any advice from feeding to what is normal and not normal behavior.
Dam is a Cinnamon Lesser Banana.
Sire is a Banana Pastel Mystic.
I won’t actually be pairing them until I have a comfortable amount of research and advice so again I’ll gladly take as much advice as I can!
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How old is this female?
The frustrating thing is if she’s just hitting 2 years, she may not even ovulate. She may need to hit 3. Or she could reabsorb. That’s what ended up happening with my girl at that size at 2 years.
There’s also the risk of her just reabsorbing regardless because she had been moved to a new location. It’s just random luck.
I picked up 2 ready to breed / proven gals last year. One of which had already ovulated and been paired prior. She reabsorbed and the other girl didn’t even ovulate. This year thankfully I got eggs already from the one who didn’t go and the other is currently building.
Keep pairing. Hopefully things will work out. It’s a neat pairing but could be a bit hard to ID if you hit mystic lesser. You’ll be able to tell which are banana with the flashlight and eye trick, but super may be impossible to ID without shed testing them.
I know cooling and such is a big thing with colubrids. But honestly, I never touch the temps on my BP thermostats and just let the ambient room temps do their thing in the winter where I am in SoCal. They’re a lot easier in that aspect.
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How old is the female? If she’s well into the 3-4 year range then you could definitely attempt pairing at that size, but if she’s only 1250g and on the younger side I would personally wait another 6-8 months before starting to pair. Ball pythons use up a lot more of their reserve nutrition and fat than colubrids do in my experience, so she will need good size to have a successful clutch. Her body condition looks a little on the lean side to me for pairing right now.
Banana is a sex-linked gene, so you have the chance to end up with both male and female maker bananas, in addition to female bananas and super bananas, so it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with how that works. Also, know that you will have some snakes you simply can’t ID because you have a lesser on one side of the pairing and a mystic on the other, which means any offspring with both of those genes will be pure white with blue eyes and you won’t be able to tell what other genes are present.
Also, the biggest thing is just be prepared to keep babies for a long time. The BP market is oversaturated and it’s extremely common to need to keep babies for a year or more before they sell.
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Previous owner said she hatched in 2021. She is now currently pushing about 1350 grams but I might wait until next year when she is a bit heftier, pushing past 1500g. I only did cooling as a recommendation from another BP breeder. I haven’t paired them together yet as I still want to gather more information before I do. I already have a whole thing set up to help me ID hatchlings that includes photo references and descriptions of the morphs taken from Morphmedia and other sources. I do appreciate the advice!
Previous owner said she hatched in 2021. She is now currently pushing about 1350 grams but I might wait until next year when she is a bit heftier, pushing past 1500g. I only did cooling as a recommendation from another BP breeder. I haven’t paired them together yet as I still want to gather more information before I do. Thanks for the info!
I would also reccomend waiting another year. Sure she might be able to lay a healthy clutch now, but I think giving her another year to grow, mature and settle in would be beneficial for both of you.
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I definitely have considered just waiting because She is pushing past 1300 grams and I’ve had a few breeders say to wait until 1500g. The previous owner said she was ready to go and thats what got me considering to do 2024 breeding plans with her. That way it gives me time to do more research about the process. Thank you!
