Breeding Ball Pythons

Breeding ball pythons is actually fairly simple, and it starts with good husbandry. This means, you need to keep your snakes in a correct environment--one that meets their physical and psychological needs.

Ball pythons come from the African Savannah, where they spend the majority of their time in rodent burrows or termite mounds. They are nocturnal, which means they are active at night, and sleep during the day. Ball pythons are fairly sedentary--they don't tend to move around a lot. They acquire prey primarily though ambush hunting--lying in wait until a rodent wanders within striking range.

What this means for keepers is that ball pythons, unlike many other animal species, don't require large enclosures, and in fact, tend not to prefer them. Most breeders keep adult ball pythons in 41 quart 'under bed boxes' made of plastic. These boxes fit like drawers into shelf systems that are heated in the back. Reptile shelf and bin systems like this are called racks. A rack is ideal for a ball python breeder, because the plastic tubs are very easy to clean and disinfect, they hold humidity well, and the rack provides a nice dark hole for the snake to hide in, just as it would in the wild. Ball pythons do extremely well in rack systems.

Ball pythons require temperatures of a minimum of 80F with a 90F basking area. This basking area can be provided with heat tape (such as Flexwatt), heat cord, or a radiant heat panel. Overhead heating is not recommended, as it tends to drive humidity out of the cage. Hot rocks are not recommended for any animal, and can injure ball pythons. Humidity in ball python enclosures should range from 60 to 80%. It is important that the cage not be damp or wet, as this can lead to skin infections. Low humidity results in chronic mild dehydration, which causes bad/incomplete skin shedding and may compromise the respiratory system, leading to respiratory infections.

Ball pythons eat rodents. If you've gotten good breeding stock, your ball pythons should be eating domestic rats. Many ball pythons will accept frozen/thawed rats. Most breeders feed small to medium-sized rats to their ball pythons, once every 7 to 10 days. Feed a rat about as big around as the widest part of the snake to juveniles--adults may be given smaller prey at times to control their weight. You will need a good scale that registers weight in 1 gram increments and goes up to at least 4000 grams. Track your animals' weight at least monthly.

Ball pythons are notorious for being 'picky eaters' or going on 'hunger strikes'. In reality, this species only needs to eat for about half the year. Feed your breeding ball pythons heavily when they are hungry--this will generally be after eggs are laid in late spring, and over the summer into autumn. At this point, some males will stop feeding, while most females will continue eating heavily. Don't allow either gender to become overweight--if you can see skin in between the scales, the snake is too fat! Obese snakes breed poorly. You want your females to have plenty of weight to form eggs, and you want your males to have enough weight to see them through until spring if they fast, but avoid obesity. If the animals do not at least reach the previous year's pre-breeding weight, then give them the year off from breeding. Breeding is very stressful, and there is no sense in compromising the animals' health. Many breeders give their females every third year off as a matter of course.

Equatorial Africa does not have marked changes in light cycle or temperature. Ball python breeding coincides with the rainy season, instead. In captivity in the Northern hemisphere, ball python breeding generally begins in October or November, and continues through spring. Most eggs are laid in the mid to late spring. Some ball python breeders brumate their ball pythons--lowering temperature by 10 degrees for about a month or two. Light cycles can also be adjusted, reducing the photo period to simulate winter. However, I do not recommend lowering temperatures for ball pythons. Fertility does not appear to be influenced by a temperature drop in this species. It can't hurt to reduce the light cycle, but what your ball pythons will react to most strongly is the autumn storm season giving way to the drier indoor environment most of us have in the winter. Reduce humidity by 10% (mist or raise humidity when animals go into a shed cycle), reduce light cycle, and this should be more than enough to induce your ball pythons to breed. If you use natural light through windows rather than artificial light, then you're all set--your ball pythons will commence breeding in the fall when you pair them up.

Of course, before you can pair them up, you need to know if they're ready to breed, and you need to know who's a boy, and who's a girl!

Male ball pythons should be at least 500 grams before they are bred. This is pretty small! Some people have bred males even smaller than this successfully, but it isn't recommended, because a breeding male frequently stops eating for the season. With a male this small, there isn't a whole lot of reserve weight for the animal to live off of, and some males have even died due to weight loss when bred too young. Some recommend that males be at least 800 grams before breeding, but this is probably not necessary so long as you track the males' weight carefully, and give him time off if he seems to be losing too much weight.

Female ball pythons should be at least 1500 grams before they are bred. Animals this size are usually about 3 years old. Breeding females smaller than this is usually unsuccessful, but when they do lay eggs, they will lay very small clutches. These small females often continue to lay small clutches in the years after this, even when they grow much larger. Being bred to young may also compromise a female's health and stunt her growth. It isn't worth it to try to breed a female one year sooner, and damage her breeding 'career' possibly for the rest of her life, so wait until your girls are 1500 grams before you pair them up. There are very rare exceptions...a few females may never reach this size. These little girls should be at least 4 years old, and be regular feeders on rats before you decide to breed them, but of course, if they're fully grown, they are ready to breed.

The adult size of ball pythons can vary tremendously--for females, on the low end, you have girls that will rarely exceed 1500 to 1600 grams--on the high end, some females can exceed 4000 grams without being overweight! Males tend to be much smaller, with few exceeding 1500 grams, and most staying around 800 grams.

So how do you tell them apart? Well, the first thing to remember is that you cannot sex ball pythons by just looking at them--length, weight, spur size, tail length...none of these traits can be used to sex ball pythons. They may work for other species, but not for ball pythons. There are only two ways to accurately sex ball pythons: Probing and popping.

Probing refers to the use of special tools, called sexing probes. These are made of metal or plastic, and generally have a ball tip. The probe is inserted into the snake's cloaca, along one side, toward the tail. Male snakes keep their hemipenes (yes, there are two!) inverted in pockets within their tail. As a result, the pockets on a male are very deep, and the probe can be inserted quite some distance. In a female, there are only vestigial pockets, so the probe goes in only a short distance. Before you attempt to use sexing probes, you should have someone who is experienced teach you how. If done improperly, snakes can be injured. One of the more common injuries is caused when too much force is used in inserting the probe--the vestigial pockets in a female can be ruptured, and she may be mis-sexed as a male. The male's hemipene may be damaged, or the cloaca may be punctured by incorrect probing, so don't attempt it without guidance!

Popping refers to manual eversion of the hemipenes. By bending back the snake's tail gently, and rolling your thumb along it, you can force the hemipenes out of their pockets so they are visible. This takes considerable practice, and males can easily be mis-sexed as female by those who are new to doing it. For a male, you will see two hemipenes dark red or purplish in color, along with two small buds which are the scent glands. In females, you will only see the small scent glands. You will find a couple of videos on popping on this page. It's important not to use excessive force, as bruising or other damage could result. This is also best done after someone shows you how, but the videos here can also be used, if you study them very carefully, and are gentle. This method is not considered as accurate as probing, but for an experienced person, it can be reliable.

Now that you have a male and female pair of the right size and weight, and the autumn leaves are falling...simply put them together. It doesn't matter whether you put the male into the female's cage, or vice versa, though most move the male rather than the female. If they're ready to breed, the male will crawl over the female, and tickle her with his spurs (the small claws on either side of the cloaca). They will probably crawl around the bin actively, and release urates and urine, as well as musk to scent mark. If she is receptive, she will raise her tail. He will curl his tail down underneath hers, and insert one hemipene into her cloaca. Then they will simply sit there while sperm is transferred. They will remain locked for several hours in most cases...some pairs may even remain locked for over 24 hours! Do not disturb them.

Once the ball pythons are through with mating, you may return them to their own cages for 2 or 3 days to rest...then repeat the pairing. Continue pairing them until the female refuses the male for several weeks and you no longer see him courting her, or until you see her ovulate.

While the female is developing follicles, you will notice several things happening. She will stay on the cool side of the cage, and may wrap around her water bowl. Most dramatically, her colors will change! There is a saying among ball python breeders: "They glow before they go". The female's colors will lighten and brighten dramatically--she may practically look like a different snake!

Ovulation is a dramatic event that lasts for only 24 hours, so it's easy to miss. The female's tail will take on a 'scrunched' appearance at the base, and she will develop a large swelling in her body that makes it look as though she has eaten a jumbo rat. She will have stopped eating by this point. If you catch the ovulation, stop pairing her with the male, and stop offering food. She will not eat again until the eggs are laid.

After ovulation, the female will go into a shed cycle. This is the pre-lay shed. Once it is complete, you can count approximately 27 days until she will lay her eggs. It's time to set up the incubator! Refer to the incubator article for information on this.

Many gravid females will engage in 'inverted basking'--lying with most of their body upside down. They will move to the warm side of the cage after ovulation, and will form a perfect coil there. A few days before the eggs are laid, females will have periods of restlessness, and will contort and twist their body, moving the eggs down into position for laying.

Laying the eggs will usually occur at night or early morning, and will take several hours to complete. Once complete, the female will completely wrap her eggs in her coils--she may do such a good job that you can't even see them! She may also strike out defensively if disturbed, guarding her eggs. Drape a hand towel over her head, and grasp her behind the head gently. Use your other hand to unwrap her tail from around the clutch, and move her to a holding bin.

Place the eggs into an incubator, then wash and disinfect the bin and water bowl. Give the female a bath--a small amount of chlorhexedine or dish soap in warm water, and a quick rub-down. This removes the scent of the clutch from her body. Without doing this, the female may coil up in the cage and act as though she is still incubating her eggs. Once she is clean, return her to her cage--she may accept a meal the very next day!

Incubating ball python eggs isn't challenging, but you do need to invest in the right equipment. The first and most important piece of equipment you will need is a reliable thermostat! Some incubators come with a thermostat, but many are simple wafer thermostats. You want a digital, proportional thermostat with a history of reliability. If you're not using a reptile-specific incubator with a built-in thermostat, some good thermostat brands are Herpstat and Helix.

There are several reptile-specific incubators now on the market which can function well for you. ZooMed's new ReptiBator is a decent choice for up to 4 clutches of ball python eggs, so long as they aren't in separate tubs. The ReptiPro 5000 can hold perhaps 2 clutches, and the Juragon reptile incubator can hold probably around 2 clutches. There are also larger, more expensive cabinet-style incubators available, and some cooler-style incubators which have built in thermostats. Any of these would be an excellent choice for incubating ball python eggs. The ZooMed and ReptiPro are the least expensive of these.

You can also use a simple still-air chicken incubator such as a HovaBator. Remove the wafer thermostat, and use a more reliable proportional thermostat instead.

Most breeders incubate ball python eggs the same way they do other reptile eggs--in a moistened vermiculite or perlite medium. Vermiculite is mixed with warm water in a 1:1 ratio by weight (not volume). The resulting mix should be moist and stick together when you squeeze it, but you should not be able to wring water out of it. You can bury the eggs in this mix with just the tops showing.

More recently, 'substrateless' incubation has come into favor. A plastic grid (such as the type used in fluorescent light fixtures) is cut to fit in the egg box or incubator, and then water (sometimes stabilized with a little vermiculite) is poured in. The water should not come up over the top of the grid--leave ample space. Eggs are placed on top of the grid. It is important that ball python eggs never come into direct contact with water, so never mist them, and try to avoid condensation drops falling on them while they incubate.

The incubator temperature should be set at 88F. It is vitally important that temperatures not be allowed to rise above 91F at all, nor drop below 86F for long. Ball python eggs have a very narrow 'safe' range for incubation.

If you're using a larger incubator, or a model that doesn't let you put the media in the base, you will need separate egg boxes--usually just plastic boxes that will comfortably hold the clutch. Seal the top with Glad Press N Seal wrap. You will only need to break this seal about once a week for air exchange--some breeders never do, and their eggs hatch just fine.

The eggs should hatch in 55 to 65 days. First the eggs will dimple in and begin to 'sweat' (you may see moisture on them). Then, slits will appear in them, and then babies will start to poke their heads out. Leave them alone and don't disturb them. They may take up to 24 hours (or even more) to rest in the egg and finish absorbing their yolk sack. It is important that they absorb as much of the yolk as possible, as this will be their source of nutrition for their first weeks of life.

Once they have emerged fully on their own, you may move them into separate hatchling cages with a small water bowl (Do not use a large bowl, to prevent the risk of drowning). Keep their environment VERY humid (80% +) and mist often. Their first skin is shiny and almost looks like plastic wrap--it's also not very good at keeping in moisture, so the new snakes are delicate and prone to dehydration. Once their shed their skin, you can lower the humidity level a bit.

About a week after their first shed, you can offer them their first meal. A live fuzzy rat is the best choice to get them started well. If they refuse that, wait 2 or 3 days, and try again. After 2 weeks, you can try a live hopper mouse. If this is not accepted, you have a problem starter...it happens sometimes. There are many tricks to try to get a new baby ball python to start feeding. Virtually all of them will, eventually, once you hit on the right trick. Never force-feed a hatchling. In extreme cases, assist-feeding or tube-feeding may be necessary. Don't try these without hands-on guidance from someone experienced.