I've seen this before in other species of snake, but this is the first time I've witnessed it in ball pythons. This female is only a couple of years old and has never been with a male, she's never even been in a cage with another snake of any kind. I picked her up a couple of years ago as a captive hatched female along with a few others from Ben Seigel. I just wanted to throw this out there as an example that ball pythons can and will lay eggs when THEY feel like it and not when WE decide they should.
I found her this morning while I was going through tubs changing water bowls and doing some spot cleaning. I saw her coiled up in the classic bee hive position and thought, 'she looks odd, what the heck is up with her?' So when I went to examine her a little more closely I found that she was coiled around three infertile eggs. I thought I'd take a few pictures as proof.
Here she is still coiled around her eggs.
Not very big is she?
Three slugs, weighing less then some single fertile eggs.
Look how small these things are.
Here she is without the eggs, 700 grams and that's it.
It'll be interesting to see how she grows after this. Will she keep putting on size? Or will she stop and just stay small while producing small clutches?
I thought this would be a good learning opportunity for anyone who had questions about whether or not their snakes can lay eggs without a male present... Yup, just like chickens.
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