Any pointers for getting hatchlings started in frozen thawed as their first meal?
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There is… a lot to unpack here. I may not be able to get to all of it but I’m going to try before heading off for bed. And blast off a couple of bullet points for now.
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Please do not accidently cook you female in a shoebox in the bigger tub. These babies should all be individually housed in a smaller appropriately sized rack or shoeboxes on a shelf with 3" heat tape. BPs are shy and reclusive ambush hunters, so moving them to other tubs to try feeding can stress them out more even as babies. A small tub or shoebox is a great size to have them feed safe and secure without having to fight for the hides or move to where they are comfortable.
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Is there a specific reason for the communal keeping? If space is a concern, breeding may need to be off the table for a bit until the proper enclosures are available.
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personally I feel 92 is too warm. I try to keep mine to 90 at most and hover around 88-89. 92 is hot enough to leave no leeway for accidents.
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I don’t feed my hatchlings until at least 4 days after they shed. They are housed together in a tub until they shed then moved into individual tubs. That 4-5 days is time to settle in and then I offer a live hopper mouse or a live rat fuzzy. Once they’ve taken 2 live meals they can usually be coaxed into trying a frozen thaw, but every hatchling is different.
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It’s generally a poor breeding practice to send non-feeding hatchlings off unless you are very close friends with another breeder and that’s who’s getting them. I don’t know how much experience the baby’s new owner has, but generally 3 meals is my lowest bar for sales. Hatchlings that haven’t eaten are very risky since you don’t know if there’s an issue with them digesting and such.
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as far as IDs go, was there possibly a 2nd sire? 4 eggs is a low number to say for sure but do you have a photo of dad as well just in case? Oddly I just hit 3:3 bananas on a pewter het pied x banana het pied, so 4 non-bananas isn’t too far of a stretch either.
Can you post photos of the babys post shed? Just so it’s easier to see colors and possibly belly photos? It could be me, But I’m hesitant to say leopard on the super pastel. I’ve seen some wonky Super pastels and the chaining I expect the leopard to bring just doesn’t look visible in the photos here. I could be wrong because I’m a little too bleary atm.
Hopefully someone else will be by with some more advice.
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I’m a little concerned that you jumped into breeding without having a good setup/plan for hatchlings and how to care for them.
Some thoughts:
Take the female out of the small tub and put her in the FB70 adult size bin. That’s the size she needs at minimum and you’ll want her to be comfortable and back on food, because she’s probably very hungry
Separate out the babies and put them each in their own individual small bin, ideally with a small baby hide and a small water bowl. Feed them in there, do not move them somewhere else to feed.
As for temps this whole long paragraph is confusing to read and broken up into weird half sentences, but I keep my hot side at 88 for both hatchlings and adults and have never had an issue. It doesn’t need to be complicated
I’ve never tried to get hatchlings started on frozen thawed, so hopefully someone else can give you advice on that, but I’d try thawing a mouse fuzzy or hopper to body temp and offering it with tongs or leaving it in the bin in front of the hide for them and see if either works. Although if the little summary on your storefront that you linked is correct and you live in Philadephia, you should have no problem finding live feeders nearby. The whole area has plenty of reptile people.
Letting hatchlings go before they’ve taken a meal isn’t really a good practice and I’d avoid it in the future, athough in this case it might be best to try and reach out to a local breeder who knows what they’re doing and to see if they can help you and be a source of feeders.
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If you haven’t had issues with temperatures and your snakes have been acting like snakes with no issues - then don’t overthink it and worry about it now.
Move the mom back to her big tub.
Move the babies to individual smaller tubs (Walmart sells a 10pack for $6)
Heat the f/t hopper to about 118 - 120 (based on head) and offer
Feed individually, not together, and do not move them from their tub
If you have about $200 laying around I highly suggest you buy this moving forward if you plan to continue on breeding, and only breed when you can properly maintain adequate care for babies and adult snakes
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There is a lot to unpack here but Christina, Hilary, and Anna have tackled the lion’s share so I am not going to rehash it. I do very strongly advocate that you heed their collective wisdom and experience
The only place where I, personally, deviate from anything they have said is that I will keep hatchlings together communally until after their first shed and I begin feeding. I do not due this due to space limitations (I have four to five empty racks sitting around at any given time) but because there is enough evidence in the primary literature that the babies of many denning species remain congregated for a period of time after hatching/birth and there are some indications that that communal behaviour can contribute to a better start at feeding. But again, that is just what I do personally and I am not saying it is the only or best way to do it, it is just what works for me
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Thanks everyone for the replies. I apologize about my post and the way it was written. Thanks a lot Siri lol.
I see now that it’s hard to understand. To clarify things : Mom is is a FB 70 tub. Same tub she incubated in , except
Cleaned out and fresh bedding and her hides are back. Mom ate a medium f/t rat 2 days after being soaked and separated from babies.
She also just shed last week and ate again a couple nights ago. She’s already gained over 100 grams back. She’s doing great.
I was not planning on breeding the leopard pastel yellowbelly mom this year again. She’s getting at least a year off before I start highway projects using her.
I have a female Axanthic Lemonblast , she’s 1100g. She probably could breed by
November - January but I think I’m skipping this year entirely.
The reason I have the hatchlings together in a fb 70 tub is because I have no room.
That last of my 4 shelf AP rack is for the super pastel leopard female I’m keeping. Which now I really hope she is that morph. Since someone in here mentioned she may not have leopard. That was the goal here.
Here is a pic of mom and dad. And more pics of the babies.
The baby I gave to his new home at the night he was picked up 
so that worked out great. Yes the person is a close friend and I wouldn’t have given one up before they have had a few meals otherwise.
The other 3 will be put into their own bins on a shelf with heat tape , I just worry about their ambient cool side temp being too low 75-77 maybe.
For now they are still in their FB 70 tub. They seem fine. No
Feeding response yet. They all shed fully without any problems 7 days after they were
Born. Feeding attempt number 2 will be tomorrow night. F/t hoppers again. This time scented with live mice bedding.
By this time next week they will all be in their small tubs separated.
Once I sell the yelllowbelly and the pastel leopard YB the super pastel leopard het clown stays with me. And I always put babies. By themselves ! In large tubs. Just
Many many hides. I have never personally had a problem with it.
So I have listed them , but will not be letting them go until they have had a few meals each. This is my
First time really selling through MorphMarket and creating profiles and talking with other breeders.
I have been breeding reptiles as a hobby over 20 years. Just never got into it in a business sense until now.
And this is my
First time
Doing maternal incubation too. Which went amazing.
Thanks everyone for the help. Hopefully I have some good luck with feeding this week.
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Sorry for the confusion. Having a hard time typing and talk to text using my
Phone through MorphMarket.
I know what I’m doing. Hatchlings will be separated within a couple days. Mom is already eating again. Everyone is in their own tubs. That was a mistype.
Here’s some more pics of dad and babies.
Really just need help ID babies and mostly went into such depth with my temps because I get crazy when it comes to temperatures and how exactly they should be and how much area they should take up. You always hear about temps. Well how much space should be the basking temp? How about the ambient ? Cool side ? Things like that is what I’m wondering. Trying to really study in depth what a captive ball Python needs to thrive in its lifetime.
Now I just bred, did maternal incubation for first time , and got 4 beautiful healthy babies without really doing a thing. Except giving them the right environment.
So that is all I’m concerned in doing now. Just really studying and using data I have collected to perfect their temps and lighting as well as feeding and frequency and enclosure size.
Thanks for the help. Here’s some more pics of babies and dad and mom. Also my other female , axanthic Lemonblast.
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Lol, your momma snake shouldn’t be able to fit in a shoebox well, so I understood you meant the hatchling female. It just seemed odd because she doesn’t look like her brothers so if anything she should have had free roam with them.
I keep my snakes at around 85 degrees max on the warm side. The hot spot is 88-89. Cool side usually hovers around 76 for me.
That was me. Without seeing the bellys of the pastel leopard boys I would be a little bad at IDing YB.
The 3 boy is a YB
The female looks like a super pastel YB. Her pattern doesn’t have the stripes or chaining pattern I associate with pastel leopards.
@akmorphs do you think s. Pastel YB Leo?
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@royalserpentsss Do you have access to live? As long as the babies are in separate bins you could try instead of ft. A little movement by the warm rodent might start the feeding response……
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I don’t have anything to add here in regards to IDs or husbandry, but I am going to suggest you give MorphMarket’s Rules, Policies, and Beliefs as well as Selling sections an in-depth read. In your case I’d specifically take a look at the “Not Ready” Animal Sales section, because at your membership level, unless MM staff have told you otherwise, this is a rules violation:
In order to sell an animal that isn’t feeding yet, you must have at least a basic level membership, and they must have their maturity level set to “Not ready”.
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Thank you. I was not aware of this. Now I know. Appreciate the advice.
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Thank you for that. I have just sold the last of the 3/4 babies I was selling.
They all took at least 3 meals each thankfully , I thought that was going to be a lot harder without using live. I had to give their first meal live though.
I’m happy to report that all 3 are already feeding in their own with their new owners as well.
I kept the super pastel leopard yellowbelly , which the more I can see her colors come in and spots the more I believe she does have the leopard gene. She’s been feeding on rat fuzzies that are almost 20g so I’m only feeding once every 10
Days. She took one live , second was f/t!!! And third.
The recent meal I had to assist feed but I just gently put the rats head in her mouth f/t of course , and thankfully she did the rest herself.
I’m going to wait at least a month of her refusing food before I try anymore assist feeding. I don’t like to have to do that.
I do not have access to live , not easily
Anyway. So I am really hoping she gets onboard with the frozen quick for me.
Mom is doing amazing !!! Pounding down medium rats every 2 weeks since hatching. She went from 975-1200g in not even 2 months. She gets the year off. Hoping she hits 2000 plus by this time next year on her 4th birthday
You should’ve just left it. It’s not recommended to assist feed an animal when it’s already eating. You can cause more stress/harm than missing a meal can. Especially with a species that is known to be fussy, you can cause an aversion to the prey.
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hi!
So update. It’s been a most 2 months. All babies have had 5 meals each. One of them only 4. One of the pastel Yb Leo males ate f/t first try! Was impressive. They didn’t eat for almost a month after hatching. Most of them.
I already have them all with their forever homes , they are all customers of mine at a local pet shop so I get updates on them all the time. They are feeding well in their new homes too I am hearing. With the exception of the yellowbelly het clown female. The boy is 16 who bought her , I have mentored him for years. I told him to just be patient, he also got the male off me and he ate just fine for him so I beleive it’s just being stubborn and he just needs to give her time and make sure all his temps are correct and that she’s in a secure and comfortable setup.
This is my first time breeding using maternal incubation not my first time breeding , in case that was lost in the first post.
I admit I am absolutely horrible when it comes to communicating , especially through text , I always forget punctuation even though I’m actually very big into literature and language and of course sciences so you think I would be able to slow down and word things better. lol. I was reading it over and could see why everyone was assuming I was doing things the wrong way.
Anyways breeding year 2024 maternal incubation complete!!! I will never use an incubator again this was amazing. I will just personally choose to give the mother a year off always the year after in order for her to have a break and get all her weight back and more.
Here are some pics , as well as pics of mom and dad , and their soon to be pregnant Aunt Axanthic Lemonblast.
The baby I chose to keep was the female super pastel Yellowbelly het clown possible leopard ). The more time goes on the more I think she does have the leopard gene. It’s hard to tell with the super pastel making such a distorted pattern.
So the plan is for her to hit breeding age in 2-3 years most likely gonna be 3, then breed her back to banana pastel clown male and finally make some visual clown morphs. I’ll get a lot of killer clowns. Killer banana clowns and hoping for the banana leopard clown. But mine will be pastel unfortunately which dulls the pattern. I would like to produce at least one male yellowbelly clown though because I’m curious what the ivory leopard combo would do with clown. That’s way down the line but in the making.
So now I have 4 breeders in my little side family and business over here. That was the first breeding of my new projects after starting over. Was taking this year off and still am but my axanthic Lemonblast has never refused a single meal since I hatched her 2.5 years ago.
Shes about 1200g now. Very think. So I’m kind of thinking she may be ok to breed this year. If I do it will just be a couple of double het axanthic clowns to sell because the goal is to keep the 2 best offspring double het pair behind.
So i need to get myself another 4 tub adult rack from AP to stack on top of this one. I don’t have room really for more where I live at right now so I have to get AP unfortunately so it will stack properly. Then I’ll have 8 adult tubs. 4 of mine , then the 2 babies I will need to keep makes 6.
And right now I’m looking into getting a new male. something either with [crypton] so it will expand my clown projects and go well with my axanthic as well. Or I wanna go with something in the yellowbelly complex for mama , or finally something new all together. mahogany !
Thanks again everyone. Hope you like the pics.
Plz let me know if anyone can be sure about the genetics of the baby. Super pastel leopard yellowbelly het clown.
I
Yup, and I know that , I regret it already.
But I barely put the fuzzy to her mouth and she opened right away and once she shut her mouth she started constricting lol. So I just let her go from there.
She was 55g when she hatched 8-10-24.
Now it’s almost 2 months. And she’s 62g.
I would have thought she would be little
Bigger than that after eating …… 4 meals. The hopper only was about 12g. But the rest have been rat fuzzies 16-20g.
I personally don’t see leopard in that hatchling.
I recommend running shed testing withe RGI of you want to know for sure. They have testing available for leopard, pastel and yellowbelly.
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oh well. She’s perfect either way.
Sometimes I think I see it and sometimes I don’t. I guess as she gets a little
Larger I will get a clear idea. I know she’s got the super pastel obviously. And yellowbelly. So just hoping for that leopard to be in there as well.
Working on making my double het axanthic clowns next 
Thank you.
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