Hey y’all! We get a lot of questions on here about what an ovulation looks like/“is this an ovulation?” so I figured since I had a girl ovulate yesterday that I would post pictures for y’all!
This pic shows off two things. First of all, the actual ovulation - that “looks like she swallowed a football” look - and also the “glow before they go” that breeders often talk about in terms of females coloring brightening up when they’re ovulating or getting ready to ovulate. Here’s Vegas (mojave yellowbelly) ovulating last night:
Also - this pairing is proof that ball pythons can and do become gravid with just one lock! This girl has been paired one time in the last two years, roughly a month and a half ago, to my GHI specter desert ghost het pied male.
This is super cool and helpful for people trying to figure out what to look for, thank you for sharing! Here’s hoping I (or others!) may be able to spot and contribute pics of an ovulating ball python. Especially since different morphs may look different with the “glow before they go”!
I went back looking for some other ovulation pictures. I haven’t kept a ton, but here are three more:
Reese (leopard chocolate vanilla het DG) ovulating:
She ended up not having a huge ovy but she did act extremely uncomfortable/restless and had an intense tail suck, so much so that her tail was stuck curled inward.
She ended up having a large ovy with tail suck, but she wasn’t as restless as Nobara was.
With both girls the belly was really taught and firm with significant scale spread, both girls had obvious follicle growth looking larger on the lower third even before ovy occured.
I may have more examples to share further on, but I haven’t caught any ovys this year yet.
