i have a 2900 gram het albino female i wanna breed to my male albino, would maternal incubation be a option size considered. if so what should i do to prepare for that
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Maternal incubation is definitely something you can consider at that size if she’s got a bit more chonk on her. If she’s a big girl length wise but not as much girth wise, I would reconsider.
With maternal incubation, some females won’t eat while incubating the eggs. This could potentially mean 5 months (maybe more if finicky) without food if she’s the type to not eat while ovulating and has a slightly longer incubation period. So you really need to make sure they are well prepared by offering enough food to bulk up a little beforehand.
I would also consider intense monitoring of the humidity and temps in her habitat for a couple of weeks. You want them to be as perfect as possible because eggs can more easily dry out if there’s too little humidity. Mom will tend to handle the temps well enough, but you’ll also want to make sure her hot spot isn’t routinely kicking up past 88-89f to keep from accidently cooking the eggs.
Regardless of how you’re incubating, remember to look into reptile specialist vets now if you still don’t have one. You may need it in case of an emergency like eggbinding or prolapse with mom or in the case of issues with hatchlings. Obviously housing and food sourcing for the little mouths since they can be with you for a while as well with the current market.
I personally haven’t let mine maternally incubate because I don’t want the added stress of fasting longer on them when they already put so much into making the eggs. Hopefully someone who has maternally incubated can pop in with more tips~
*Edit I would also look into incubation regardless as well incase for some reason mom refuses to sit on the eggs, rare with fertile eggs, but may happen occassionally
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@banereptiles @inspirationexotics @ballornothing @armiyana
I remember seeing a couple of videos about it on YouTube so I would check that out along with some other reptile related sites
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got here right before I posted 
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hahah, I just wish I could offer some more handy tips, but alas… mostly the basics
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@steamed there are also a lot of other forums about material incubation here so I would also check those out. I would also keep the hotspot at around 86-87 to allow for potential fluctuations so they don’t get cooked and also the babies will usually come out bigger a lot of the time as they have more time to develop.
@armiyana you helped more than I did and seemed to go a bit past the basics.
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she’s kinda fat not that long
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In my experience most females will eat after the second or third week they sit on eggs. The battle for most people is to maintain temperature so the female stands a chance at succeeding. My rooms are heated with an ambient temperature of 84* in the ball python room (82* in the more exotic stuff room) and it cycles down to 78 at night. I do not use heat tape. I just had an MI clutch shed out. I lost patience on day 82 and cut the eggs and put them in the incubator but they were only a few days shy of hatching on their own based on what I saw. Success rate was 100%. I have had poor results with MI a couple times however and in both of clutches I lost worlds first animals that failed to thrive due to what I can only assume was poor development 
If your room is warm enough, no reason not to give it a whack.
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I have also had fairly good but not perfect results with maternal incubation. I stuffed the tub with damp sphagnum moss and put the thermostats probe in the tub just outside her coils a bit. I normally feed live but picked good feeding females and most ate fresh killed left a little bit away from them. I do think taking the eggs can be stressful for them too and it was a lot of fun to watch.
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If you take the eggs and don’t follow up with a warm soap soak for mom and a complete sterilizing of habitat or change of tub, yes. It can be stressful because they’ll still have the egg pheromones and they’ll constantly be looking for them. That would Definitely be something to avoid
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