Smallest female successfully bred?

I also believe age, health and over all body condition matter more than weight. I have seen, and own some females that were/are picky eaters not loosing weight but not gaining much either. Some of them start pounding rats and put weight on once you begin pairing. Some even become your best feeder after laying a clutch so in my opinion at 3 years old if they have good body mass I start breeding no matter what they weigh. If they exceed 1500 grams in two years I will start pairing.

I raised almost all of my females from hatchlings so I know how old they are for sure and also their feeding habits. Some females will never get up to 2k grams or even 1500 for that matter, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't breed them if they are mature and healthy.

I have never seen any proof that smaller females lay more slugs, have more complications or shortened lifespan as some people claim. Any snake that you breed runs a risk of complication or something going wrong if your females are healthy your risk will be much lower but weight is NOT how you measure the health of an animal.

This myth also gets some people to over feed females to try and reach the golden weight faster which is probably not good for the snake. I believe most ball pythons will only eat what their body can handle so over feeding is not really a problem unless it is forced. In my experience they will stop eating on their own if you try to over feed but I have seen a few that looked like a sausage you could see the skin between scales and I doubt thats good for them either.

This is just my opinion, but I think some of those that propagate this myth just want others to wait longer to begin breeding knowing some females are picky eaters and won't reach 1500 or 2k grams for quite some time without any breeding activity. The purpose is to keep the market from getting so flooded with baby snakes before they make more money with their own. As we all know when supply goes up the price drops down if you can get people to wait another year or two to start breeding that means less babies for sale that year.

I'm not saying you should breed as soon as possible, but you need to judge each female on a case by case basis based on over all condition not a golden number given on the Internet.

This is one of the normal dinkers from the collection, I swear she looks like a lavender albino but with normal colors. Her whites are almost lavender. It's like they almost pop!
http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_2994.jpg

MY first Female Pastel, just hit 1800 grams!
http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_2990.jpg

My second female pastel, just hit 1653!
(In Shed)
http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_2989.jpg

And my third Pastel female, shes staying pretty small. Still at 1000 grams.
http://s1051.photobucket.com/albums/...3DIMG_2998.jpg

At last, the crown jewel. Can't wait to jump into projects with this gal
The Citrine ball python, the first ever recorded.
http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_2993.jpg

http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_2998.jpg

This girl is one of my pastels too, but she looks completely different from the other two. Almost like a pastave or something similar.

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Originally Posted by RideRed12

I swear she looks like a lavender albino but with normal colors. Her whites are almost lavender.

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:confused:

I am not sure those 2 posts are for this thread? I am confused as well.

X2 and let me add wait what

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jinx667

I am not sure those 2 posts are for this thread? I am confused as well.

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Oops sorry for not including a heads up. These females are the whole reason I started this thread. Therefore these are the exact females in question, Wingedwolf said that its more-so what condition they are in than weight. So here are pictures for you to judge.

Would you breed them?

Ah, makes more sense. I would say probably not the 1000g one. The others look good.

I have several other normal females that I wanted to get pictures of because they were under 1400 but the camera batteries went dead. They look similar to the first but a little bit lankier.

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Originally Posted by spitzu

I'm guessing this is relevant only because you forgot to say how big the female was? :P

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LOL. Yes! The guy said the female was 800 grams. Sorry... :please::D:oops::P