Looking for breeders that breed for size...?

[zina10]

You should try to find someone that sells BP's from the Volta region. If you can get a pair, chances are that you will have large off spring.

But don't expect them to hit that crazy size quickly. The BP's that reach 2000 gr quickly are usually just overfed snakes. Not the same at all than genetically LARGE snakes. Volta BP's are large overall, NOT fat and sqishy. They have larger heads and big, muscular bodies. It does take a few years for them to reach that large size and then they keep on growing slowly.
That is the only way you will get a truly large (not fat, overweight, powerfed) Ball Python.

I used to have a rescue female that was 4500 gr. BIG, with a really huge head. She was gravid and her clutch weighed around 1500 gr. She laid 6 huge eggs, one went bad. The hatchlings were between 89 and 116 gr out of the egg. The female regained her weight quickly.

A few years later I had another large normal female. She weighed 3200 grams and kept putting more weight and size on, slowly. She also had a really large head, I will attach some pictures.

Right now I have a Pastel Yellowbelly male that seems unusually large for a BP, esp. a male (and yes, he is a male). He has always grown faster and bigger then my others, even though I fed all 5 BPs the same amount of food. I got 5 BP's that year, all approx. same age and weight (all from diff. clutches, though) So I absolutely believe that genetics play the largest role.

The smaller "big" female I had:





Sadly I don't have pictures of the huge one or her clutch. All pictures from way back then disappeared when one of the online photo hosting sites went bust and just shut down before people could save their pictures.


Here is the big male I still own, he continues to grow. He is now almost 9 years old.








I do believe he has something "genetic" going on with his size, esp. since he grew bigger and faster then the other 4, despite all being on the same diet with the same husbandry.