Ball Q's need answering

[Herpguy2004]

Hey im looking to breed a pair of balls in the next years. i was wondering what the recommended weight should be before breeding attepmt. i would also like to know whether i should meternal incubate or with a incubator. ive heard for first timers that maternal is better but i would like some help with that one. i also would like to build a natural viv for them and am wondering if i should make it taller to give room for climbing. i know there terrestrial snakes but my male seems to like branches to climb on. im also looking for approximatly 1yr/o female balls in all morphs

[sapphire_moon]

well for starters, you should probably do tons of research before breeding, And get the video on "ball breeding" can't remember who it is by though.

If you give them to much height then they are likely to hurt themselves falling.
It is probably best to put them into individual cages up until the time of breeding, and then leaving them together for a few hours(some leave them in there for a few days).

I don' t think a 1 yr old female is anywhere near the size of a breeding ball python. But that is only my opinon after looking at a 1yr/old BP and some of the female breeding bp's on this site.

You would probably get a better/good responce in the breeding/incubation forum.

[justinO]

yeah, you need more than just advice from here, you'll have to do alot of reading!

if you are looking to get 1 year old females, you'll have to wait til at least next fall (2005) before breeding them.

they should be at LEAST, MINIMUM 1500 grams, 2000 would be better..... which most females wouldn't reach untill at least 2 years old, maybe older depending how well they eat. If you breed too early lots of bad things could happen to her!

Males are okay to breed at 800 grams, apparently they start producing sperm at around 700.

If you are looking to breed them this fall, look for a 2001 or older female that's big, and be willing to pay huge $$$$, even for normals.

[nita]

Your best bet if you want to breed morphs is to get het pairs. If you only have a normal male and breed it to the visible morphs you are only going to produce hets your first time anyway (unless of course you are going with codom or dom traits) and wait 3 yrs to raise up those babies to breed back to mom and each other anyway. Unless of course you have A LOT of money and can afford to pay out for actual visible traits still want to get pairs if possible or a homozygous male with a het female pairing would be good too. Check out Corey Woods, Jeff Favelle (sorry if I misspelled your name Jeff :) ), Henry Piorun (again my bad spelling) and just the classified section to see what people have available but you will be hard pressed to find 1 yr old morphs for sale. They don't seem to last that long, what is the term sell like hotcakes!! :) Good luck.

[Herpguy2004]

thanks alot. just one last questoin. how can u tell a reduced from a norm? some people ive talked to think mines a reduced but some think its a norm. one some parts of his body the patterns are considerably thinner than other BP's ive seen

[justinO]

Originally posted by Herpguy2004
thanks alot. just one last questoin. how can u tell a reduced from a norm? some people ive talked to think mines a reduced but some think its a norm. one some parts of his body the patterns are considerably thinner than other BP's ive seen

it's a normal.

everyone thinks that their normal is a morph because is has some thing on it that looks a little different. if your ball python is a reduced patter, there is litterally no pattern on it and is just huge long blotches of brown/beige. here's an example:

[Herpguy2004]

thanks alot for the advice. i dont know if i touched a soft spot about the breeding question or not. the reason im looking for a younge BP is because i really enjoy the face that i personally can raise them. also that way it gives me TONS of time to read up and prepair for breeding in the future if i do so. and your right mine isnt a reduced just a normal. but man does that snake look awsome