Has desert female breeding got anywhere?

[Serpent_Nirvana]

I wish I knew how close the caramel females are to infertile. I've got a chance to produce my first caramel this year. If I hatch a female that is very very unlikely to produce any good eggs I'll probably quietly look for someone to give her to as a pet rather than advertise her at a super low price ticking off other breeders who might think they should be more. Maybe the lack of for sale desert females is due to a similar reluctance to advertise them at what they might be valued at now.

Randy -- I know it's not all that scientific, but I did a rough tally a year or so ago based on data scrounged from the Internet that suggests a 2:1 slug:egg ratio for caramel females.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...=1#post1572476

It's enough to keep me from wanting to spend $100's on a caramel female, that's for sure, or even from really wanting a female as a cornerstone for a project. However, it wouldn't be enough to keep me from breeding a caramel female if I did encounter a really nice looking one from a good bloodline at a good price (or produce a nice holdback from a caramel x het breeding).

I haven't found a single viable report of fertile eggs from a desert female, however ... What concerns me even more about the deserts is, as has already been mentioned, the number of reports of desert females dying or requiring surgery secondary to pregnancy.

I love the deserts, and moreover, there are desert combos out there (enchi desert lesser, etc.) that absolutely blow me away. The prospect of infertile or subfertile females also doesn't really scare me. What does scare me is the idea that the females I produce may potentially die if bred. It's great to place animals in pet homes, but for an animal with the potential for a 40+ year lifespan, it would be easy enough for her to change hands a few times and wind up with an uninformed owner.

So for me to make an informed decision on starting a desert project, I would want to know not whether or not the females are fertile (to me it looks as though they are not, and I would only ever consider buying a male), but whether or not any attempt to breed a desert female is likely to be fatal to her. If it is highly likely to be fatal, then I would feel very uncertain about producing this morph due to the future welfare of my desert females.