Yay! The winter fast is over! (pics)

[Bristen]

What a nice feeling when they start eating again! Everybody (of the few snakes I have left) at my place is eating again. They at least ate once, but by the way they ate last night, I don't think next meal will be complicated either :-)

My female het-albino also ate, which is a good thing. She was slightly over 1500g before winter, but she's rather long and slim. When I placed my male het in with her early in 2004, they appeared to have been copulating quite a few times (at the very least courting). She's now a little less than 1500g and I sure doesn't look like ovulation has occured so far (not looking good right now for this year), so hopefully she'll eat like there's no tomorrow and at least produce a few eggs for me... at least one being white and yellow!! pleeeaase...

Here are pictures of my normal male eating (I didn't mind taking pictures of this one as it was not as important as the others that he finishes his meal heh):

http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/bristen/BallPythons/smFloyd1.jpg

http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/bristen/BallPythons/smFloyd2.jpg

http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/bristen/BallPythons/smFloyd4.jpg

http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/bristen/BallPythons/smFloyd6.jpg

Thanks for looking!
Bristen

[mykee]

Glad to hear your balls are eating again, it's a great feeling after a long winter fast. If your female ball is long and slender at 1500g, chances are she knows she's not carrying enough body fat to successfully breed. JMO, love to see a pic of her though.

[BoidKeeper]

Awesome Bristen! Now come over here and do to mine what you did to yours!
Cheers,
Trevor

[Bristen]

Originally posted by mykee
[...]If your female ball is long and slender at 1500g, chances are she knows she's not carrying enough body fat to successfully breed. JMO, love to see a pic of her though.

I'm pretty sure we won't be seeing any eggs this year from her unfortunately. When I got her close to fall last year, she didn't start eating until mid-Fall, which meant only a few meals before the winter. She was also quite thin when I first got her. I was hoping for the odd chance that she would produce something, but it's not looking good so far.

Anyways, I had posted pictures of the het-albino pair courting a while back... here's one of those pictures:

http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/bristen/BallPythons/HetAlbinoBreedingPic2.jpg

The flash washed out the female's color.. she's very low yellow, but not as bad as in the picture (looks axanthic on the picture). I took a picture of the female today and did not use the flash. The colors in this picture are closer to what they really are (a little generous actually, but closer than the previous picture). Anyways, here's a picture of her after eating a small meal 3 days ago (she'll be eating again tomorrow hopefully):

http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/bristen/BallPythons/Igora03.26.2004.jpg


Thanks for looking!
Bristen.

[Bristen]

Originally posted by BoidKeeper Awesome Bristen! Now come over here and do to mine what you did to yours!

heh, well I didn't slap any of my snakes, just for the record :p Nothing special Trevor... The snake room window has no curtain in it and faces east, so they get plenty of sunshine coming in from the outside and the days are getting much longer now so maybe that has something to do with it? I dunno. Normally all my snakes have always stopped eating November 15th to March 15th (including the other snakes I used to have that were not Ball Pythons). I tried in early February and, to no surprise. nobody ate. I however should of tried early March and just lost track of time completely. Anyways, good luck and keep us posted!

Bristen.

[BoidKeeper]

I'm sure mine will start soon. I did try F/K this week and still nothing. Maybe it's a good sign that they are gravid and are off for that reason.
We'll know soon enough,
Trevor