can you let the female incubate the eggs herself

[J.Coils]

or is that a bad idea..im just curious

[llovelace]

Yes, as long as you keep the humidity & temps stable, Quiet Tempest successfully does it , check out her threads, they are great!

[Melody]

its not the best idea. she could move over the eggs and tip them over, then they could die. You really cant go wrong with having them safe in the incubator. There you can monitor the humidity, the exact temp, and you can be sure theyve not been moved. The other main thing is, if theyre left with the mother itd be really hard to keep a eye on the health of the eggs because she'd always be wrapped around them, and unwrapping her could cause the eggs to tip over.With an incubator you can clearly see all the eggs so youll know if something is up.
Some people have had luck with letting the mother do it her self but most of the people i know who've done it had no luck. Personally i just think its better to be safe than sorry. Its your choice though

[Quiet Tempest]

Most snake eggs are naturally adherent and they are effectively glued together shortly after being laid. That's why you see many keepers having to carefully pull them apart so that they will fit into the egg boxes to be artificially incubated. Because of that adherence, clutches usually stay in place when a brooding mom moves off of them to feed or drink. So far I've only had one clutch that didn't follow this rule. The eggs were snowflaked and didn't stick together at all. As a result, one of the eggs rolled out of the pile not once but twice. The first time it rolled out was about two or three weeks into incubation. I was worried to death over this egg and tried candling it to figure out which side was "up" before placing it back in the pile. A few days later, I candled it again and saw the veins were still good and the baby inside was moving. Not even a week after that the same blasted egg rolled out again. This time I was more irritated than worried about the thing. I took the mom off the pile, put the egg back and then placed mom back in the tub and watched to make sure she gathered up all of the eggs in her coils. That egg went on to hatch out as a perfectly healthy baby. Not a thing wrong with it or any of the other babies in that clutch.

Egg rolling happens both in captivity and in the wild. The main reason I see that rolling can be dangerous is because a mom may neglect to pull it into her coils with the rest of the clutch when she's brooding and without mom's protection and the warm, humid conditions within her coils the egg may die. Now, a more forceful roll or fall is different. If the trauma involved is enough to injure the developing organs of the embryo, I don't think anything could be done to save it.


Personally, I feel that maternally incubation is safer but that's because I'm most comfortable with this method. I've not had good luck with artificial incubation and it's easier for me to simply continue maintaining my female's tubs the same way I do throughout the rest of the year than to set up an incubator. The temps are right for both her and her clutch and the humidity doesn't drop below 60% in any of my ball tubs. When I have a gravid female nearing her due date, I put a clump of moistened sphagnum moss on the heated side of her tub. She'll move it around as she sees fit and by the time her clutch has been laid, she'll have a wall of moss surrounding her nest site. This boosts and helps maintain a humidity in the 75-85% range which is safe for both mom and clutch. There is no need to boost the ambient humidity to 100% as you would in an artificial incubator because the humidity within mom's coils will be around 100% when tightly coiled. From there, I just watch the eggs develop and continue offering food to the mom on a weekly basis. If the moss dries out, I just mist it with some warm water. This, for me, couldn't be easier.

I think if you can successfully maintain the right temperatures and ambient humidity for ball pythons, then a female ball in your care can successfully brood a clutch.

[Redneck_Crow]

I've used the "momma snake" method of incubation in the past with good results. The big caveat I'll mention is that you have to resist the temptation to really crank the heat under the clutch. I kept the heat under the nest box (an old small trash can with the sides cut down) a few degrees cooler than I would incubate them at. This allowed momma snake to adjust the temps somewhat by her own means. I provided her with a heat lamp at the far end of her cage--something I don't usually do. That let her bask for a short period if she wanted to and then transfer the heat to her eggs by covering them with her warmed up body. I only saw them do this a few times, but it was available. I also gave momma snake a big pan of water that she could soak in then transfer moisture to her eggs if she felt she needed to. I didn't see her do that but she might have when I wasn't looking.

A couple of my females who were f/t eaters accepted small f/t rodents left just outside the nest box while they were incubating and they wouldn't take them unless I left the room for the night. For me the food that they did the best with were prey items about 1/2 their usual size. One of my ratters wouldn't take a rat the whole time she was on her eggs but she would take a small adult mouse every several days.

I don't know if I would have the guts to ever do this again with a super duper multiple codom clutch. I'd probably chicken out and toss those eggs in an incubator where I could watch them like a hawk. But when I did it way back when with my plain old normal females all but one did a great job of incubating her clutch. One dummy dumped the eggs and paid no more attention to them at all, so I had to incubate them and most of the eggs still hatched out OK in my last minute jerryrigged beer cooler and flexwatt improvised incubator. It's hard to resist checking up on momma snake frequently and let me tell you that she doesn't appreciate your interest in her personal business. She isn't shy about letting you know it either.

[Melody]

Most snake eggs are naturally adherent and they are effectively glued together shortly after being laid. That's why you see many keepers having to carefully pull them apart so that they will fit into the egg boxes to be artificially incubated. Because of that adherence, clutches usually stay in place when a brooding mom moves off of them to feed or drink. So far I've only had one clutch that didn't follow this rule. The eggs were snowflaked and didn't stick together at all. As a result, one of the eggs rolled out of the pile not once but twice. The first time it rolled out was about two or three weeks into incubation. I was worried to death over this egg and tried candling it to figure out which side was "up" before placing it back in the pile. A few days later, I candled it again and saw the veins were still good and the baby inside was moving. Not even a week after that the same blasted egg rolled out again. This time I was more irritated than worried about the thing. I took the mom off the pile, put the egg back and then placed mom back in the tub and watched to make sure she gathered up all of the eggs in her coils. That egg went on to hatch out as a perfectly healthy baby. Not a thing wrong with it or any of the other babies in that clutch.

Egg rolling happens both in captivity and in the wild. The main reason I see that rolling can be dangerous is because a mom may neglect to pull it into her coils with the rest of the clutch when she's brooding and without mom's protection and the warm, humid conditions within her coils the egg may die. Now, a more forceful roll or fall is different. If the trauma involved is enough to injure the developing organs of the embryo, I don't think anything could be done to save it.


Personally, I feel that maternally incubation is safer but that's because I'm most comfortable with this method. I've not had good luck with artificial incubation and it's easier for me to simply continue maintaining my female's tubs the same way I do throughout the rest of the year than to set up an incubator. The temps are right for both her and her clutch and the humidity doesn't drop below 60% in any of my ball tubs. When I have a gravid female nearing her due date, I put a clump of moistened sphagnum moss on the heated side of her tub. She'll move it around as she sees fit and by the time her clutch has been laid, she'll have a wall of moss surrounding her nest site. This boosts and helps maintain a humidity in the 75-85% range which is safe for both mom and clutch. There is no need to boost the ambient humidity to 100% as you would in an artificial incubator because the humidity within mom's coils will be around 100% when tightly coiled. From there, I just watch the eggs develop and continue offering food to the mom on a weekly basis. If the moss dries out, I just mist it with some warm water. This, for me, couldn't be easier.

I think if you can successfully maintain the right temperatures and ambient humidity for ball pythons, then a female ball in your care can successfully brood a clutch.

Thats very interesting... *scratches head*

[Quiet Tempest]

It's hard to resist checking up on momma snake frequently and let me tell you that she doesn't appreciate your interest in her personal business. She isn't shy about letting you know it either.

My females are ordinarily very lax about me checking in on them and their clutches. I've got one female this year that is definitely not cool with letting me candle her eggs this year. When she laid her first clutch she was perfectly fine. Second clutch she was okay until the very end and she was deep in blue when the eggs were pipping. Maybe that has something to do with it because I removed the eggs during a time when the world was still blurry to her. I don't know. Whatever the reason, she'll try to take your hand off if you even think about getting near her nest this time around. lol

[Redneck_Crow]

They do exhibit a very highly developed sense of ownership about those eggs, don't they?

One of my girls was a very shy snake who would go into a tight ball if you even touched her. That was before the eggs. Once she had those eggs under her she was like a dragon.