Babies, babies and more babies...

We are having a lot more animals hatching. Some are also eating now as well. Above are pictures of one of my dinking projects, currently called Charcoals. There seems to be something different about them, but not sure it's genetics will prove out to be valuable in the future. Interesting, but not as "clear cut" as I had hoped.

We have Pastels that hatched - 4 Pastels and 3 Normals. It looks like 1 male and 3 females for the Pastels. We had two more Spider x Normal clutches, but believe it or not, we didn't hit on ANY Spiders for those two clutches - blah! We were very excited about the 7 we hatched in that first clutch - not only because of the number of them, but also their quality! See below for a few examples of the outstanding animals we produced this year:

As for the Orange Granite clutch... it unfortunately doesn't appear to be genetic - blah! They so far appear to be quite normal, even though their parents had a very interesting orange look to them. I had expected the possibility that the Granite part may not be genetic, but was hoping at least the orange color would come out. They haven't shed yet, so maybe they will brighten up - but I'm not holding my breath on that one! See a few pictures below:

So we still have 4 clutches to go... we did end up loosing a couple of eggs this year, but so far, we've been getting great results over all!

Striped Mojaves! F32_2009 Clutch hatched

The F32_2009 clutch was one I was looking forward to see hatch. Last year, this pair produced an outstanding striped male Mojave. This particular animal was sold since I did not need a male, but did I ever wish it was a female. This year, I did the same pairing in the hopes of hatching a similar animal, but hopefully a female. Well, on 6 eggs, we hatched 4 Mojaves - and 3 were striped! Two of the 3 were outstanding - and females! One is a holdback and the other is spoken for already.

I'm quite partial to striped Mojaves and actually purchased the male I have before of his striping. However, even though there is some part to this that is genetic, it really makes a difference what female he is bred to. For whatever reason, this female throws some really nice stripes. On a total of 5 Mojaves that she's produced over 2 years, 4 were striped!

I also have a Pastel x Normal clutch hatching. This female has some nice blushing and I thought she would produce for me at least 2 years ago. For some reason, it just didn't work out. This year I finally got her to produce. She's clean and has some nice blushing so I hope for nice pastels. We'll have to wait until they come out to see if that theory is proven or not. This clutch is F11_2009 and had 7 eggs. I believe there will be 4 Pastels, so we can't complain about the odds we've been getting overall. Pictured are the first 3 to hatch out of this clutch...

Some of the animals have had their first shed, so they are really brightening up. It's incredible how "dull" they look before their first shed. Their first shed is like turning the light on in the room! Also, we hatched two Charcoal x Normal clutches. These are, as mentionned before, the result of a dinking project. And also as per normal, I'm not really getting the results I was hoping for... I was hoping the Charcoal project to be co-dom with some kind of super, but even though there are traits that I see being reproduced, I'm not convinced I'd hit a super line breeding... Proving out a project is an incredible amount of work that you can't appreciate until you try it yourself! It certainly works on someone's patience - making it better or worst, but rarely leaving it unchanged LOL! Hopefully I will get the opportunity to post about the Charcoal and Espresso projects. I'd like to get really good pictures of them and get your opinion on these at some point...

I took the male Super Dwarf Retic het Albino outside one sunny Saturday morning. A friend took a quick picture. I'm in my usual "cleaning clothes" because Saturday mornings is normally when the cleaning crew comes in and we clean both snake rooms - no fashion statement here. But the python on the other hand, is very handsome! Hope you enjoy :)

Hatched: Espresso and Mojave clutches

So let's start with the Espresso project... We line bred the original female as previously mentioned. Given the fact that in 2006 I had a normal pastel and a very pewter looking animal, it seemed to be obvious to me that there was something co-dom going on. So I line bred the 3 darker males from the 2006 clutch (this was her first clutch and this F15_2009 clutch is her second). I was expecting to hit some kind of super form - a patternless ball python I thought is what I was going to see.

I was extremely disappointed with the results of this clutch. There's a lot of work involved in this project, but the 2009 clutch produced basically a clutch of normals - what I had feared for this clutch. They are dark brown like the males I used to line breed. If we would have a co-dom project, from my understand, 3/4 of the clutch should be dark like mom, and 1/4 of the clutch should be supers. Now, on a 7-egg clutch, I actually could of just missed the super form. On 4 eggs you would normally get 1 supers and on 8 you would get 2 supers (in a perfect world). So the odds of missing the super completely is not that surprising really. What are you thoughts? Should I dump this project and move on to other things? Please feel free to email Info@RoyalGemReptiles.com, I'm interested in your opinion on this project - specially if you have experience proving out projects.

Now for the Mojave clutch.. F16_2009 is the clutch ID and my biggest female produced it. She'll hit around 3500g before breeding season starts normally. She was eating rabbits before I got her (I switched her back to rats effortlessly). These babies are normally large, strong and very alive lol! Odds were not as good as other clutches, but not bad. We got 4 Mojaves in this clutch. But the really cool part about this one is that we got 3 females out of the 4 :)

We have a clutch of another dinking project hatching now... this is from a very black male I have. He produced a clutch in 2008 and I have some held back. He was bred to two females this year, which produced to clutches. This first clutch is F31_2009. There appears to be a few very dark animals in there, so it seems like it is reproducing itself, but I'm not sure it would be co-dom as I had hoped.

All babies appear darker than normal, but some have some interesting traits. They have a black head (often some fading on top of the head). The eye stripes are normally olive green instead of the regular yellow or brown. They also have flames, similar to Yellow Bellies, but no orange in them (white instead). The bellies are interesting too. I hope to line breed these once the females I held back get up to size. I'll update once they are out and I'll try to post pictures next to a normal. Subtle differences, but I wonder what it would do in combos? And, the best part is - is there a super? So much work is involved to get those answers!

F4_2009 Clutch - all out

The Yellow Belly clutch is all out now... as incredible as it sounds, we had 6 Yellow Bellies and 4 normals... the odds are quite high on mutations for the first two clutches, so "statistically speaking", I'll probably get hit on some of the next clutches, like the Espresso line breeding clutch that is about to hatch in 2 days. Tomorrow is day 54, I believe that tomorrow night, if nothing is out, I'm going in. It was incredibly difficult not opening them up today. I really like to let them tell me when they are ready by slicing the eggs. I know it will be perfectly acceptable and safe to cut them open tomorrow night. The wait continues....

The Yellow Bellies aren't as bad as I first thought... They are not as dramatic as the male used to produce this clutch, but they are very nice Yellow Bellies nonetheless. When you breed a Yellow Belly to another Yellow Belly, you can produce Ivories - a white ball python, with ruby red eyes and a thin yellow stripe on the back. Very nice animals! They are also quite valuable in combinations - the Super Stripe being the most sought after Yellow Belly combinations I would assume. This is what we're hoping to see next year. We were hoping for it this year, but that didn't work out. That's one thing with Ball Python breeding - if it doesn't work one year, you can always try it again next year!

I'll try to update tomorrow night if I can with the results of the Espresso clutch - a bunch of normals likely :(

F3_2009 clutch laid today & F4_2009 clutch almost all out...

We brought the kids in the hatchling/incubator room today like most days, but today we brought the camera in. They really like this time of year. Every morning Caleb wants to see if there's a new clutch that was laid (he's 1.5 years old). He was very excited when we found one today. Both Caleb and Naomi got to each hold a baby from the Yellow Belly clutch. They both seem to understand that babies come out of the eggs that sit in the incubator. They love to see the babies hatch :)

For the Yellow Bellies, they are all out except two that are taking a relaxed approach to starting life lol! From what I can see, I believe that there are probably an even split of 5 Yellow Bellies and 5 Normals. I look at that carefully once they are all out. Very nice clutch, but so far I have to say, the Yellow Bellies re not as nice as their father, who is an exceptional (very visual) Yellow Belly.

So this should be our very last clutch of 2009. From what I understand and have seen, the other few females I thought may lay will not lay this year. It's quite disappointing for us that the possible het Super Stripe did not produce for us this year. Looks like a project we will have to look at for next year it seems. This F3_2009 clutch is produced by an interesting female that has a Granite look to her and is a very nice Black Back at the same time. She has produced for us in the past. Some of her babies to tend to keep her black back look and we've held back a male pastel that she produced and also a couple of female pastels as well. Some normals she's produced in the past had the same look as well. She was line-bred in the hopes that there is something interesting going on, but with little activity, we decided to breed her to the Mojave male (same story as the F14_2009 clutch laid a few days ago)... we'll have eggs hatching as late as September 21st this year - crazy!

First Yellow Belly leaves egg today...

The first to leave it's egg today was a Yellow Belly. The head markings, the sides and the edges of the belly are the traits that make it obvious which ones are normals and which ones are Yellow Bellies.


One of them is more yellow than the others and appears to be a Yellow Belly. I'm looking forward to seeing that one out of it's egg. Another day or two and we'll get to see them all :)

F4_2009 Clutch Hatched and F14_2009 Clutch just laid...

I started by finding another clutch tonight. I was expecting this female to lay soon, and I figured it would be a big clutch. However, I was surprised to see a clutch of 12 eggs! They all appear good to me, even though I did not candle them tonight (didn't have time). I will try to check them out at some point later, but I think they should be fine. This particular banded-type normal had produced for us a few years back. For the fun of it, I line bred her this year, but the male was not doing much. In the end, I paired her up with the Mojave male. I can't be 100% sure what will happen with this clutch as the line breeding may of worked - or may not of worked... Whoever is the father doesn't matter a whole lot, it looks like a healthy clutch and that's what matters most. We'll see who the father was when it hatches on September 19th :) I'm fairly confident it will be the Mojave though...


Also, clutch F4_2009 started pipping today. I cut all the eggs to avoid having any babies drown. Years ago, I had bred a few corn snakes and I remember loosing a perfectly healthy red albino corn snake (amelanistic) due to drowning. The poor thing was half tied up in a knot and could not get out of the egg. I open all the eggs up now, but I make sure to open them up only when they are ready! And that's what is most important... if you cut them too early, you can kill them if you don't know what you're doing you...

Since this is a Yellow Belly to Normal breeding, I can't be sure what the ratio is until they actually leave the eggs. This is our first time hatching Yellow Bellies. We are very confident of identifying them once they are out of the eggs as the markers are very clear. However, while still sitting in the eggs, we can't see the bellies, sides and most cases, not even the top of their heads. So we'll have a better idea what's going on in a few days once they leave the eggs...

Just for the record, the next clutch is the Espresso line breeding... 5 days from now... I fear the results won't be good... candling is showing what appears to be rather normal looking babies... we'll see soon enough...

F23_2009 Clutch Sexed

Turned out to be a perfect split for male/females on this one. 3.4 Spiders and 3.2 normals.

Males are pictured in the following (2nd picture being the surprise banded one):

Females are pictured in the following:

The following is a female also, but she's already committed to someone - Congrats JR :)

The clutch schedule is as follows for us this year (excluding 2 large females that have not laid their eggs yet):

• F23_2009 7/21/2009 [clutch above]
  
• F4_2009 7/27/2009 [hatching this coming Monday]
  
• F15_2009 7/31/2009
• F16_2009 8/2/2009
• F31_2009 8/5/2009
• F48_2009 8/12/2009
• F32_2009 8/13/2009
• F11_2009 8/15/2009
• F49_2009 8/21/2009
• F36_2009 8/24/2009
• F42_2009 8/24/2009
• F45_2009 8/25/2009
• F37_2009 8/29/2009
• F43_2009 8/30/2009
• F24_2009 8/31/2009

Thanks for reading... I'll try to post pictures of the next clutch on Monday...

Clutch F23_2009

All the babies of the first clutch are out of the egg today. Some beautiful Spiders in there. All babies are healthy, but the ratio was above average - 7 Spiders! For some reason, of the 5 normals, one came out rather banded... where does that one come from, I have no idea! Day 55 for the next clutch is on July 27th (Yellow Belly to Normal)...

Results for first clutch of 2009 are in...

Today was day 54 of the first clutch of the year, so I cut open all the eggs to avoid any of them drowning in the egg. All appear to be alive and well so far, but not ready to come out of their eggs just yet (a day or two probably). This female surprised us with a 12-egg clutch for her first clutch ever. She was approximately 2000g before she was bred. She was bred to our really nice male Spider. The results ended up being 7 Spiders and 5 Normals. This is an excellent ratio for this first clutch of the year. In theory we should of had around 6, but have had as little as 2 or 3 in similar sized clutches in the past.


The next clutch scheduled to hatch (in 6 days from now I think) is a Yellow Belly to Normal clutch. This is another large clutch and we're hoping to hatch a lot of female Yellow Bellies. We have the possibility of having, just maybe, some unproven het Super Stripes in our collection and we hope to prove them out eventually. That would require us breeding the animals we think could be het Super Stripes to Yellow Bellies. More long term projects I guess... a few Ivories would of made it easier, but that's not possible for now.


And just for the fun of it... Here's a picture of my male Super Dwarf x Dwarf Retic het Albino having lunch...

Eggs starting to hatch in only a few days now...

This is what a nice healthy clutch of Ball Python eggs should look like. This was a big 11-egg clutch. I had quite a few nice clutch this year with the average being around 9 eggs per clutch. The first clutch is due to hatch July 19th (day 52). This clutch is a Spider x Normal (Granite-ish) female. I believe it could be the clutch pictured, but since I did not pay much attention to tag the pictures, I don't know for sure... By candling, I have found at least a few Spiders in the clutch, but it almost seems like we may be low on Spiders despite the nice large clutch. We'll see in a couple of days :)


We had issues with a female laying eggs this year... this was our first time to have an egg-bound female. This happens when for some reason or another (there are multiple possible reasons), a female cannot pass or move out her eggs. In the end, we were prepared to intervene and try to help her out. However, we gave her a few days and she managed to move everything out. The problem with this particular female was that she had a slug and also a deformed, but viable, egg. The female is in good shape and ate a medium rat just tonight.



Ball Pythons make wonderful pets. We enjoy their great disposition, their perfect size (not too big, not too small) and their endless combination of color and patterns is a plus as well. This picture is of my 3-year old daughter hanging out with Floyd. He's the male of the first pair of ball pythons that we acquired back in 1999 (10 years ago). He is definitely the tamest Ball Python I have ever seen. A great looking snake, that is tame and a perfect size!