Show me your biggest ball python!

I'd love to see some big ball pythons to get an idea of how big they can get. Here's my Normal 100% het Caramel Albino Female that's just five years old and 3948 grams! I've been feeding twice a week (medium rats) now that we are in the beginning of breeding season and I'm sure she will put on more weight since her follicles are currently less than 10 mm. I put her in a boa tub once in awhile so she can stretch out, but normally I keep her in an ARS-8018 tub. This is one of my favorite snakes!

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...bigsnake-1.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...bigsnake-2.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...bigsnake-3.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...bigsnake-4.jpg

WOW!!! BEAUTIFUL big girl! she looks HUGE!!!

i'm looking forward to watching this thread progress. i love the big girls! ;)

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

WOW!!! BEAUTIFUL big girl! she looks HUGE!!!

i'm looking forward to watching this thread progress. i love the big girls! ;)

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I agree, can’t wait to see the pics that will be posted [emoji3]


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my biggest Balls are still humble 2k girls: https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...251056-2K-BP-s!!

well they're both slightly larger than that now. here they are breaking the scale a couple weeks back. :)

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/7bF9WaY.jpg
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/6fYjzTC.jpg

Godzilla 2700+ grams, only 4 years old, never bred yet. She is currently on a diet, as she was so frickin FAT when I got her.:P

https://image.ibb.co/cpruiG/IMG_1057.jpg
https://image.ibb.co/geiANb/IMG_1045.jpg
https://image.ibb.co/hQBL6R/IMG_0960.jpg
https://image.ibb.co/mMRdOw/IMG_0845.jpg
https://image.ibb.co/dfLsTk/IMG_0543.jpg
https://image.ibb.co/j8NHuQ/IMG_0540.jpg

I love the big girls! I don’t think I have any past 3000 grams but I’m not sure, I’ve been feeding them pretty good now as they are building. I’ll have to weigh a couple of my bigger girls when I get home tonight, pictures soon to come :)

OK, so I'll show you my second biggest snake too LOL. I have four big ol female Lemon Blasts (Pastel + Pinstripe) and this is my biggest one, also happens to be my second biggest ball python coming in at 3109 grams!

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...monblast-1.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...monblast-2.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...monblast-3.jpg

Well I was right, my big girls are nowhere near as big lol.
My largest is my vanilla at 2500 grams. Then I have a tie for second biggest at 2300 gram disco and then my pastel desert ghost also at 2300 grams. I think she has the potential to be a monster though, she is by far the youngest. Last year when I got her she was only 700 grams and I believe around 2 years old. In one year she put on over 1500 grams, more than any of my others by far!
Anyway, here they are.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...fa02be31d2.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...4b48e0aadf.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...dc70b96af3.jpg


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Well, I have a MALE that's big ;)

My Jag :) At least 5 feet long.


http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens...51629775_n.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens...37675949_n.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens.../large/j10.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens...g/large/j8.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens...large/Jag1.jpg

Jag is a beast! Do you know how much he weighs?

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Originally Posted by rufretic

Jag is a beast! Do you know how much he weighs?

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Been a while...but prolly between 2800 to 3000 or so? He is actually quite lean and muscular. Not as thick in the hind end as those girls..LOL!


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This is Wild Stephanie! Normal. Named by my wife and she is breaking the scale @ 3200 gms empty. She is gravid now and in shed.https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...age_113004.jpg

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

This is Wild Stephanie! Normal. Named by my wife and she is breaking the scale @ 3200 gms empty. She is gravid now and in shed.https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...age_113004.jpg

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She is a really dark scaled normal, would have guessed she was some morph, but it looks like she is getting ready to shed in this photo, so that might explain it. Great snake, Albert.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/29p88dx.jpg
This is my big girl, Elaine. She's a spider het pied and she's about 2500g, give or take a meal. I've had her in with my leopard het pied and I'm hoping for eggs this year. Fingers crossed!

My biggest is Dottie who is 3 years old, 4.5 ft and 2000g. But then again, she is my only BP lol.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...27ca737e_h.jpghttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...f8117660_h.jpghttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...055bcba2_h.jpghttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...bab794f3_h.jpg

These big bps are incredible! I need to fatten up my boys :D

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Originally Posted by Ashley96

These big bps are incredible! I need to fatten up my boys :D

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Lol no you dont. Dont give in to the new norm of having a fat snake for bragging rights. I see so many boas on FB that are fat sausages and people bragging about how their boa is 2 years old and 6' and eating rabbits etc. While that may stroke your insecurities or feeling of lack of worth, it does the snake nothing but harm. Just keep your snake on a nice moderate feeding schedule and let them happily grow old with you :) Dottie was fairly trim at the beginning of last summer but she got really hungry and was out running all over looking for food so i bumped her up to a medium rat every week. But this past week, she refused food again so I'm guessing winter is coming as she quits eating during winter.

I like to keep my snakes on the heavy side, mainly because I had one snake fast for eight months straight. Good thing she was on the heavy side because at the end of the fast she still looked good. I had one snake that was underweight and she fasted for a long time, scared the heck out of me, I was tempted to assist feed (although I didn't and wouldn't). I don't think the snakes above look overweight, they are just big! Plus I'm feeding to breed, if I were feeding a pet snake I would never feed that much.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Lol no you dont. Dont give in to the new norm of having a fat snake for bragging rights. I see so many boas on FB that are fat sausages and people bragging about how their boa is 2 years old and 6' and eating rabbits etc. While that may stroke your insecurities or feeling of lack of worth, it does the snake nothing but harm. Just keep your snake on a nice moderate feeding schedule and let them happily grow old with you :) Dottie was fairly trim at the beginning of last summer but she got really hungry and was out running all over looking for food so i bumped her up to a medium rat every week. But this past week, she refused food again so I'm guessing winter is coming as she quits eating during winter.

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I see many obese boas too. I have one bp who is a little finnicky with feeding (he just moved from mice to rats FINALLY) so he is kind of a string bean but will steadily gain now and my other is a fatty but still just a little boy. My boys will likely never be this big and I do not care as long as they are healthy :) Dottie is a cutie tho.

Boople at a wapping 550g lol. She is 15 mo old and on small rats
Every 7 days.


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Originally Posted by cchardwick

I like to keep my snakes on the heavy side, mainly because I had one snake fast for eight months straight. Good thing she was on the heavy side because at the end of the fast she still looked good. I had one snake that was underweight and she fasted for a long time, scared the heck out of me, I was tempted to assist feed (although I didn't and wouldn't). I don't think the snakes above look overweight, they are just big! Plus I'm feeding to breed, if I were feeding a pet snake I would never feed that much.

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There is no reason to keep a snake on the 'heavy side'. It's not healthy for them no matter how you look at it. Some breeders do it because they just want to get weight up and breed as fast as possible to stay ahead in the morph race. I'm not sure as i dont breed personally but i would think the age of the snake would play more of a factor in how well the breeding goes as they have more time to mature vs just being a fat baby that isnt mature enough internally to produce large healthy clutches.

And Dottie fasted for about 6 months last winter and she lost almost no weight at all. In fact, she pooped, shed and pissed during that fast which really surprised me lol. In the wild they could easily go 3 months without food and longer in the winters as they actually have to hunt and catch food vs sit in an optimally set cage and just lay there waiting for food to be served on tongs like clockwork every week or two. They basically need to expend no energy but just pack on food.

But they are your snakes but i am not a fan of power feeding simply to breed them. If i were to breed, i would only breed my females every other year to give them breaks and i would feed them normally. Rather have healthy snakes and less clutches/litters than to try and pump out as many babies as i could while risking my females. I know i would be crushed if i lost any of my females. As strange as it sounds, all my snakes are like my 'kids'.

I read a lot of stuff about how people say boas, BPs and other snakes arent active. I attribute it to overfeeding which i think 90% of people do. All of my snakes are fairly active at night and cruise around, climb on their shelves, shove their heads in between the litter dam and door lol, But i also only feed my adults like every 2-4 weeks, sometimes longer if its a boa that ate a rabbit.

Anyways /rant off and not really directing this at you CC, just using your post as an example lol. I've already ranted about this on the boa FB pages. About the only boa FB page i found with most of the guys feeding normally is Pure Locality Boa FB but it seems none of the hose guys really race to breed like you see with the morph market so often :(

There are some 4000 gr + BP's that look awesome weight/body shape to me, while I've seen some in the 3000 gr range that just look fat.

The "fat" snakes I've seen couldn't even wrap around an arm properly anymore. They just loosely coiled. They felt like fat sausages, squishy. They also had a weird body shape, almost the same width from high up behind the neck right up to the vent, with a small head compared to the huge body.

I had a 4500 gr rescue female once. But she was pure muscle. STRONG. Could coil tightly and still had a normal snake shape (not fat) she was just BIG. I believe she was simply a older snake that was allowed to reach that size over time, rather then in a hurry. She also had a proportionally big head.

The big male I have has continued to grow over the years, steadily putting on weight. I've had him for almost 8 years now and he is STILL growing. He, too, is very strong, can use his entire body to coil tight to hold on. No squishy-ness to him.

I've also had another "Normal" female that was 3400 gr. She, too, was "tight" , no fat, narrower tail region and big head. Here are some pictures of her..


http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens.../large/isa.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens...e/IMG_4561.JPG

http://photos.imageevent.com/morgens...e/IMG_4498.JPG


My point is, even "pet" snakes (non breeders) can and will reach large sizes, even if fed at a more conservative rate (no power feeding) and given time to grow. The truly BIG (rather then fat) looking snakes I've seen were all 5+ years old or older then that.