First eggs of the year, can small females breed?

[SatanicIntention]

Yes, one definitely needs to have a feel for things, especially if there are adhesions inside the snake. If eggs are moved when adhesions are present, the oviduct could tear/rupture and the snake may bleed internally or require extensive surgery to repair the damage.

[JASBALLS]

Congrats Mark! She looks nice and HEALTHY!!

[Petboy15]

Nice clutch Mark. She's a nice looking snake.

[MarkS]

Well, here's my 5th clutch of the year and my second smallest female. I received her along with the first one in this thread at the same time. She's slightly larger but still quite small.
Here she is on the eggs you can't see. There were 4 of them

Here are the eggs,

Here is her weight after laying. Only 722 grams

And here are her eggs on the scale. Only 300 grams


Again, just like the other one, she is a wild caught girl that I suspect had been imported gravid and sold after she dropped her eggs. I've had her for three years and she hasn't grown at all in that time. You can't see it in the pics, but you can still see what look like noose marks on this girl from when she was captured.

When I first received these two, they both had the sunken in 'flat tire' look of females that had just laid eggs, however at the time I thought, like most people, that they were simply too small to breed and were just starved half to death. (they looked really bad when I first received them) But, after keeping them for three years and seeing their complete lack of growth, and their apparent ease in laying eggs, I now believe that they were originally gravid imports that were dumped after laying. It'll be interesting to see how their babies grow. The male is also a wild caught. He has an interesting 'off' color (he was given to me as a wild caught axanthic) but is more normal size. I'll post some more pics when the eggs hatch.

Mark

[Spaniard]

Very interesting stuff Mark thanks a lot for sharing.

[Ginevive]

I think that the reason that many of us want to steer people away from breeding smaller females is this. We don't want relatively new breeders thinking "oh, I just got this hatchling female this year. Why don't I powerfeed her and breed her asap?" People that have experience and that can read their snakes, can safely breed smaller girls; that is proven by their postings of doing so successfully. But I don't think that this is something for a beginner to get into.. because they might have trouble seeing signs of bad sheds, parasites, and the like.. let alone, have trouble determining if a young female is ready. Now if it is a potential breeder who's already had BPs for awhile, and knows how to tell if they're in great physical condition.. maybe IMO. I am glad that breeders suchas JAS that have success with the smaller-than-1500g girls are coming forward. I admit to being against it in the past, but after seeing people with more experience than myself doing it, I think that it is definately a valid practice.
Isn't it true also.. that if a female is not ready, she won't produce eggs anyway?

[MarkS]

Well, here is he end result of the small female clutch. As predicted the caved in egg didn't make it, but I got three nice hatchlings out of the other eggs (2.1). They're smaller then normal babies, but not the smallest I've ever hatched. It'll be interesting to see how they grow.






So, what do you think of them? It's a special project that I'm working on and I think it's off to a pretty good start. Could have used more females, but I've got another clutch incubating from this male so I'll have to see what I get out of those.

Mark

[Seneschal]

They almost look like cinnies, with the black backs and patterning on the backs, and the overall darkness. There are also some dark edging in the brown areas around the black spots, like what you sometimes see on black pastels, although blushing and flames and faded eye marks are missing...they all look alike, and different from mom--looks like you might have something!

[greghall]

great clutch I don't know what the big deal is with smaller snakes breeding in the wild do you think they wait till they 1500g, I don't think so if they are ready they are ready,nice babies.But I do understand that the bigger the female the better the clutch.

[ChicaPiton519]

Small YOUNG females...

so the two rescues i have that are healthy weight, and atleast '05's... they are around 650-700 grams...

does this mean that it would be ok to breed them? i dont plan on it. but i am just curious

i have had these two sense january '07, and they were rescues that the zoo was adopting out... they started with me at 3 foot and 300g and now they are about 3.5' ish and as said 650-700 grams...