Het Candy x Pastel clutch

[bad-one]

Awesome! I'm so jealous... candys/toffees are my favorite morph(s) lol

[Dave Green]

Thanks everyone! I have high hopes for this project and hopefully I'll get a nice group of females to hold back.

[dturner100]

Not to be pokey, but where can you find "het candy"? I've actually never seen a het for sale. Just saw one homozygous for sale, and nobody would buy one of my children so I could buy it...

Just kidding about selling my children...

[Big Gunns]

Not to be pokey, but where can you find "het candy"? I've actually never seen a het for sale. Just saw one homozygous for sale, and nobody would buy one of my children so I could buy it...

Just kidding about selling my children...

Talk to The Man, The Myth, The Legend in his own mind. After all, he named the snake morph.


Good luck Daveyboy.

[Mettle]

Mike, here's a picture of my het candys breeding, I'm really hoping she lays for me but she's a little young. She's a 2008 but she was over 1600 grams when I started breeding her.

Given that she's so young and rather small, are you not worried - given the annecdotal evidence to suggest such a thing from many breeders around the world - that this female may clutch small (say 3 eggs?) and continue to do so indefinitely.

While I get why people sometimes attempt this because of excitement, it's really more to the detriment of the animal, is it not? Size isn't the only thing that matters when breeding. A certain level of physical maturity in the animal is also necessary, I would think.

Best of luck with your projects though.

[Big Gunns]

Given that she's so young and rather small, are you not worried - given the annecdotal evidence to suggest such a thing from many breeders around the world - that this female may clutch small (say 3 eggs?) and continue to do so indefinitely.

While I get why people sometimes attempt this because of excitement, it's really more to the detriment of the animal, is it not? Size isn't the only thing that matters when breeding. A certain level of physical maturity in the animal is also necessary, I would think.

Best of luck with your projects though.

It won't hurt the animal at all. If it can, it will lay eggs and be fine. As for the small clutch for life theory...BG hasn't noticed it himself, but he's looking into it.

Let me ask you a question. If a male happened upon this female in the wild, don't yah think he would try to get his groove on? Or would he say, nope, gonna wait till you're bigger next year?

[Dave Green]

Stephan, in my experience they either lay eggs or they don't. This female is approaching 1800 grams and feeds aggressively every week. I've never had a problem breeding a young female; however, only about 25% or 30% of such females will become gravid. In addition, I haven't had small clutches at all, in fact when my 18+ month old females do lay eggs I typically get 5, 6 or 7 eggs. Also, if the female is large enough to breed at that age she is obviously a strong feeder and should recover well after laying eggs. Just my opinion and experience..and I haven't found that they lay, or continue to lay small clutches indefinietly as you suggest.

[Dave Green]

Not to be pokey, but where can you find "het candy"? I've actually never seen a het for sale. Just saw one homozygous for sale, and nobody would buy one of my children so I could buy it...

Just kidding about selling my children...

You can find them but you have to make the call, you won't find them in the classifieds...

[Mettle]

Let me ask you a question. If a male happened upon this female in the wild, don't yah think he would try to get his groove on? Or would he say, nope, gonna wait till you're bigger next year?

He might. But in the wild they are also not confined to a small plastic box in which there is no method of escape. A female in the wild could simply ignore the male and meander off where as in captivity the chances of procreation are much higher due to confinement.

Also, I'm doubting that ball pythons in the wild eat as regularly or as well - in general - as our captive ones do. Thus her size would also be smaller.

Interesting to note both your and David's experiences though. I'll log 'em into the ol' noggin' for future reference.