Put her with Zeus!

I don't have a ton of experience but it seems to me that they will either breed or they won’t and there doesn't seem to be much harm in trying (ball pythons aren't very prone to get egg bound and I'm not sure I buy the stunting theory - can't disprove it though either). If you give it a try with a borderline pair then if anything comes of it it's pure gravy.

I just saw a ghost female the other night that first produced at 850 grams. I didn't ask but would have estimated her in the 1,000 to 1,200 gram range now and he said she had bred several years in a row and produced decent sized clutches (like 5 to 7 if I remember right). Maybe this is an example of stunting but I'm thinking that given the extremely small initial breeding weight and apparently the extremely small egg size she is just an example of a small ball (maybe with ancestors from a local population of small balls). Maybe if he had waited for 1,500 grams he would still be weighting (probably not, but who knows, if she started breeding at not much over half weight then reaching 1,500 grams for her might be like reaching 3,000 grams for normal balls, most probably have that potential but some might not and will at least take a while).

It was really an interesting visit as he also had an example of confirmed sperm retention (bred ghost X ghost in year one and got all ghosts, bred to a pastel in year two and still got all ghosts and no pastels, no reason to think the pastel just happened to be het ghost). He also had a friend with a male pastel who successfully bred at some outrageously small size, like 360 grams or something like that (defiantly under 400 grams, just don't remember exactly 300 what).

So, how has your borderline female done the lately? It sounded like she might have been hitting the “breeding imperative appetite surge” so might well eat through the breeding season and be well up to 1,500 grams by spring.