Is Breeding Ball Pythons a Challenge? (Tips BEFORE You Breed)

[@timbow1356]

The best tip is to get out of the business It's toxic, snakes are routinely abused, drawers are still used in 99% of facilities AND THE MARKET IS TERRIBLE. ☝️☝️☝️ "Make sure you choose animals you want to work with so you can keep them in crappy racks for the entirety of their lives" Those of us in the hobby know the stain that is ball python breeding. "I've had my fair share of failures" #1: Your first failure is not caring that your animals will never get an opportunity to climb a single branch (Continued on Reddit)

[@NJPExotics]

I’d love to continue this conversation. What do you personally work with though? Do you keep ball pythons?

[@nataliesreptiles]

Kind of piggy-backing on you, is noth making sure you have space for babies once they hatch, but also not count your snakes before they hatch. We just went ham on ball python and cornsnake breeding this year. We have about 12 clutches in the incubator right now. But have about a dozen or more females we had paired up that were waiting to lay. So we have the rack space for the expectation that every female will lay and that every egg will hatch. BUT IN REALITY, be in the mind set thst only half your females will actually lay. And of those clutches thst lay, you have to factor in the mortality rate of eggs going bad. And even further, from all your eggs that hatched, not all might make it. There's always 1 or 2 "failure to thrives" that just happen. But factoring in that in the wild only 10% of eggs that are laid will actually hatch and thrive into adulthood, I'd say having a 10% mortality rate in captivity is a very real expectation. So kind of... expect the glass half empty, and be pleasantly suprised if it ends up more than half full.

[@NJPExotics]

Exsctly totally agree preparing for all scenarios is both practical and necessary!