First eggs of the year, can small females breed?

[aaramire]

To be honest, I don't have any good proof to back it up. I'll have to get my books out and then get back to you on that one.

The theory is, however, that females have time to develop as they age, and therefore are more able to handle the stress of egg bearing while being light.

ohh ok that does make sense. Thanks!!!

[West Coast Jungle]

I think age is the most important factor in breeding. Some snakes never get real big, some grow to be monsters but after their third or fourth winter most are good to go.

I myself still like the 1400-1500 gram mark as a minimum but then again I have never had a small adult to consider breeding or not.

My thoughts are you should know and understand the rules before you try to bend them a little

[muddoc]

I only have one question in regards to the discussion, and that is: has anyone ever had an egg-bound Ball Python? I only ask, because I keep hearing about the worrying oveer the female getting egg-bound. I have only heard of one female Ball Python being bound, and I think it was a rare occurance. From what I know, typically, egg-bound animals is generally a problem seen in colubrids.

Mark,
Congrats on the clutch. I would be interested to see how she eats and grows after laying her first assumed clutch in captivity, and have plenty of time to get acclimated to captivity.

Good luck Bro.

[FIREball]

I only have one question in regards to the discussion, and that is: has anyone ever had an egg-bound Ball Python? I only ask, because I keep hearing about the worrying oveer the female getting egg-bound. I have only heard of one female Ball Python being bound, and I think it was a rare occurance. From what I know, typically, egg-bound animals is generally a problem seen in colubrids.

Mark,
Congrats on the clutch. I would be interested to see how she eats and grows after laying her first assumed clutch in captivity, and have plenty of time to get acclimated to captivity.

Good luck Bro.

I think Alice on here had one.

[West Coast Jungle]

I had an eggbound Beardie once but never a BP.
The beardie eggs werent even fertile and she had already layed other infertile clutches.

Anyway that wasn't a size related issue, I think it has more to do with their female parts and health.

[jknudson]

I only have one question in regards to the discussion, and that is: has anyone ever had an egg-bound Ball Python? I only ask, because I keep hearing about the worrying oveer the female getting egg-bound. I have only heard of one female Ball Python being bound, and I think it was a rare occurance. From what I know, typically, egg-bound animals is generally a problem seen in colubrids.

Mark,
Congrats on the clutch. I would be interested to see how she eats and grows after laying her first assumed clutch in captivity, and have plenty of time to get acclimated to captivity.

Good luck Bro.

Tim, thanks for bringing this point up. I have often wondered myself...its one of those things you always seem to hear about and read about, but I've NEVER talked to anyone who has experienced it with ball pythons.

I've heard of a healthy animal that laid a clutch of eggs and had a large or hard egg get caught in the oviduct and had to be aspirated to help remove it, but I do not believe it was due to the female being underweight or young... just happened.

[Lexcorn]

Original post by muddoc
I only have one question in regards to the discussion, and that is: has anyone ever had an egg-bound Ball Python? I only ask, because I keep hearing about the worrying oveer the female getting egg-bound. I have only heard of one female Ball Python being bound, and I think it was a rare occurance. From what I know, typically, egg-bound animals is generally a problem seen in colubrids.

Original post by jknudson
Tim, thanks for bringing this point up. I have often wondered myself...its one of those things you always seem to hear about and read about, but I've NEVER talked to anyone who has experienced it with ball pythons.

I've heard of a healthy animal that laid a clutch of eggs and had a large or hard egg get caught in the oviduct and had to be aspirated to help remove it, but I do not believe it was due to the female being underweight or young... just happened.

Interesting discussion here.

I have many years experience with the corns, but, this is the 1st year that I have (expecting to have) Ball Python's breeding.

I raised this potential egg-bound issue with a good friend & I was informed that he had not experienced any problems with retained eggs in his female breeders.

However, I have experienced the sad reality of corns becoming egg-bound & ensure that my breeding animals are mature with good weights (450 grams + prior to breeding) AND that they strike feed, ensuring the continual use of their muscles.

I observed very early on in my feeding trials that the B.P.'s do not utilize a large portion of their bodies whilst constricting their prey item, therefore, the body mass is - in comparision to corns - can I say 'flabby' without upseting too many animals!

Now, I must say that our wild 'cousins' experience an excellent form of excercise, from constricting &/or roaming searching for food in the wild, these captive bred animals remain within the complete environment that we provide & are not what I would consider 'fit'

Therefore, a little more information on this subject is most appreciated although the aforementioned statements are re-assuring as I have just witnessed our 1st B.P. 'hook up'

Lex

[MarkS]

I only have one question in regards to the discussion, and that is: has anyone ever had an egg-bound Ball Python? I only ask, because I keep hearing about the worrying oveer the female getting egg-bound. I have only heard of one female Ball Python being bound, and I think it was a rare occurance. From what I know, typically, egg-bound animals is generally a problem seen in colubrids.

Mark,
Congrats on the clutch. I would be interested to see how she eats and grows after laying her first assumed clutch in captivity, and have plenty of time to get acclimated to captivity.

Good luck Bro.

Interestingly Tim I have had an egg bound ball python. She was small, but much larger then this one. This was last year, with a possible het albino female that I had bought as a hatchling. I have a picture at home somewhere of the ugly looking eggs I ended up squeezing out of her. If my memory is right, she was right around or maybe just shy of 1200grams. She was over six years old and had never been bred. I finally figured that six years was enough time waiting for her to get bigger and I bred her. She was WAY over a couple of months after her pre-lay shed and was obviously uncomfortable and had a little bit of a prolapse going on when I tried to aspirate the eggs. The eggs were already solid so I couldn't aspirate any fluid out so I had to just palpate them down until I could squeeze them out of her. She's OK, but I held her back from breeding this year. I'll re-evaluate her next year and see if I want to try breeding her again, or just retire her as a pet.

Mark

[muddoc]

Interestingly Tim I have had an egg bound ball python. She was small, but much larger then this one. This was last year, with a possible het albino female that I had bought as a hatchling. I have a picture at home somewhere of the ugly looking eggs I ended up squeezing out of her. If my memory is right, she was right around or maybe just shy of 1200grams. She was over six years old and had never been bred. I finally figured that six years was enough time waiting for her to get bigger and I bred her. She was WAY over a couple of months after her pre-lay shed and was obviously uncomfortable and had a little bit of a prolapse going on when I tried to aspirate the eggs. The eggs were already solid so I couldn't aspirate any fluid out so I had to just palpate them down until I could squeeze them out of her. She's OK, but I held her back from breeding this year. I'll re-evaluate her next year and see if I want to try breeding her again, or just retire her as a pet.

Mark

Thanks for the reply Mark. My main point was that although I have heard and seen an egg bound female Ball Python, it is a pretty rare event from all of the people I talked to. I don't really think that size is that big of an issue. I have a small female that is in her POS right now, and I palpated 6 eggs in her. Those eggs are smaller than normal eggs. Therefore, I believe that a MATURE small female can lay without problems, and just typically has smaller eggs.

What was the average weight of the eggs that your female just laid. I would guess that they are in the 60 gram range, if my theory is correct.

EDIT: I just saw the eggs in the scale pic, and my theory was pretty close I guess. The egsgs average 62.5 grams each.

[Tosha_Mc]

Congratulations on the eggs but (and please don't take this offensively - not my intent) but those eggs look horrible considering they've just been laid Are they fertile?