No problems with Pieds eating, growing, thriving, or breeding. Have a look at the clutch records on our web site and you'll see plenty of clutches produced by female Pieds, especially the last few years since more of our holdback visual females have been reaching breeding age. We have produced visual Pied combo's with Pastel, Black Pastel, Spider, Fire, Lesser, and Yellowbelly by breeding the co-dom Het Pied males to visual female Pieds.
Our Pieds are just like any other ball pythons and the females are typically 1600-1800 grams when they produce their first clutch at ~ 3 years of age. We have had them produce at 2 years of age, but that is from individuals that are very determined to grow... We don't push meals at them hoping to accomplish that. For 2012, most of our breeding females were between 2000 and 3000 grams prior to laying eggs, only one (the oldest) bounces over 3,000 grams. Breeding adult females that gain a few hundred grams a year while producing around 700 grams worth of eggs is good enough for me!
-Paul
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