The babies are hatching! (ball pythons)

Here are some pictures of the breeding season....

Female Ovulating


Female on eggs-from the clutch that is hatching today


Second female on eggs


Third female on eggs a few days ago. I had a fourth girl lay, but they were bad eggs.


My incubator, the blue light is a computer fan


The eggs this weekend, they deflate when they are about to hatch



and...........


The first baby to pip -stick its nose out of the egg


Tried to take a pic of the egg tooth, it's a tooth in that little indent of their lip.


The only pastel baby (yellow and black rather than brown and black)


One of the babies still in the sack, that's his nose.

They are cute!

I'm going to keep a few girls and sell the rest. This is my small business/hobby (Slitherin' Sisters)

Yeah I only breed ball pythons, sorry, lol. Ball pythons are way cooler than corns My largest male is only 2.5 feet and maybe 2 lbs. The males don't get huge. My boys are only a few years old so they will get a bit heavier, but I keep them on the smaller side so they don't turn into lazy breeders.

Thank you! It is really cool!

Thank you! I saw the zebra stickers for your nails, then saw the price, and went home and painted them myself. It's not the greatest quality, but I like them!

They are a really docile snake, which is where they get their name. Most would prefer to ball up rather than strike. Some people won't like me for saying this, but snakes aren't bright enough to know the difference between people. I don't really handle mine except for once a week when I clean their cage and they are all docile. My girls just about eat my face off when I open their tubs right now, but that's because they just started eating for the first time in 6 months (they don't eat during breeding season). Other than that, they can be a bit testy sometimes when I disturb them, but nothing more than a hiss or a twitch before I pick them up. I have been bit twice in the three years I have kept BPs and right now I'm up to 20 snakes if you include these babies. Plus, it was my fault I got bit one out of the two times.

I came home to a bunch of heads poking out of the eggs, the middle one on the bottom still hasn't pipped -poked his head out of the sack inside of the egg.


The pastel is easy to pick out -the head is really light





I'm keeping this pastel if it's female


I'm keeping this normal if it turns out a female


The bottom left is the normal I'm keeping if it turns out female

Lol, no problem, perfectly logical questions

1. It looks like she ate a Nerf football, or anything huge, I would never feed them anything that made them look that plump.

Here is another one I caught ovulating, they only ovulate really big like that for 4-8 hours usually. (excuse the dirty tubs, you want them dirty for breeding to get the boys excited. That's the dad of the clutch that is hatching, he was in shed so he's a bit grey)


2. The eggs are really big to be exiting their body, but they come out of the "vent" which is the nice term for where their bowels/urine exit.


3. I use a method called "popping". It's pretty crude, basically I push their sex organs inside out-which are kept between the vent and the tip of the tail. It's much easier to do when they are babies because they have little muscle strength, but I learned/practiced on adults. The other way to sex them is to "probe" them, which is to put a dousing needle into their vent towards the tip of the tail and measure how far it goes in. I'm not comfortable with that way because it's very easy to push too hard and puncture their reproductive organs, and I wasn't trained in it. I've spent hours with breeders watching them pop and letting me practice in front of them. Popping can dangerous too, but that's what I was taught and it's much more accurate than probbing. I would show a picture, but it can look pretty gruesome.

4. That one has a pretty neat pattern. It's not the typical straight laced pattern. I'm sure it's hard for anyone that hasn't looked at a gazillion normal ball pythons to see! I've had a few ball python people comment that I should consider keeping that one. It's also a lot lighter than the others, which would make it a great addition to my breeding program since she will enhance other morphs by making them lighter. It's selecting breeding pretty much.

Thanks It's Slitherin Sisters

No problem. The dad doesn't sit on the eggs. The female would if I left them in with her, but I incubate them to avoid losing any. The dad was just in the tub with her to breed, but once they ovulate the females won't accept any advances.

They all came out this morning!


Later in the morning after they were all cleaned up


I'm keeping the two normal females, they have clear bellies and neat patterns.

This is the normal female I liked when it was in the egg



Her belly, clear bellies can sometimes mean they are carrying some type of gene other than just being normal.


The other normal female




And the male pastel. He has a kinked tail, not sure why it happened