Maternally Incubating

[Quiet Tempest]

I checked on my brooding girls last night after and offered each of them a big rat pup since I had some extras. The younger girl ignored her meal, but the older one wolfed it down faster than I could find my camera to get a pic. Last year she refused food and I assumed that this year would be no different. I wish I had tried offering food to these two earlier. I did get pics of them afterward.


Dewshine (48 Days)



Ailynn (45 Days)




I candled the eggs as well and would have gotten a new video clip for each, but because the eggs are beginning to dimple and because the babies inside are getting bigger, it's hard to see any movement. Last year, my eggs started hatching on day 53 so these should be hatching very soon now!

[Southern_Boa_Gurl]

They look like proud mama's!!  Can't wait to see babies 

[1softkiss]

Great looking females and really nice healthy looking eggs. Sure will be nice to see the eggs hatching and the babies and Big Congratulations!!!

[Rick247]

Would have never tought they would eat while sitting on eggs. Thanks for sharing.

[Quiet Tempest]

Would have never tought they would eat while sitting on eggs. Thanks for sharing.

A poster on another forum is also maternally incubated and said that their female has been eating for them every 10 days. I guess it really just depends on the snake in question. 

[Donnie_K]

dimpling means the humidity is too low for the eggs, but they don't have much dimpling so it's not REAL low, just slightly. Congrats, how has your hatch rate been with maternal incubation?

[Quiet Tempest]

dimpling means the humidity is too low for the eggs, but they don't have much dimpling so it's not REAL low, just slightly. Congrats, how has your hatch rate been with maternal incubation?

Humidity in the tub was 80% when I last checked and humidity within the moms' coils is definitely higher because there is light condensation on their bellies and the surface of the tub beneath the mom and eggs. The dimpling is happening because they're due to hatch any day now. My guesstimated hatch date has already come and gone for these guys so it's just a waiting game now.

This is just my second year breeding ball pythons but so far I haven't lost a single egg using this method. Last year I had 5 eggs and they all hatched starting on Day 53. This year I have two clutches (4 egg clutch and 5 egg clutch) and they're currently on Day 58 and Day 55. The waiting is driving me crazy! I wish they'd hatch already!

[Donnie_K]

it'll vary incubating maternally because the temperatures aren't always the same. The warmer they are, the sooner they hatch, cooler they are the longer it takes... generally.

[Quiet Tempest]

 Yesterday the same egg that had rolled out of Dewshine's clutch twice before (several weeks ago) was sitting outside of her coils again and for whatever reason, I decided to snip that egg. I regretted doing so immediately afterwards because I had told myself all along that I would wait.. yesterday was lousy and I guess I just wanted to assure myself that it was okay and candling wasn't enough. I don't get my reasoning either. Anyway, I placed the slit egg back in the pile with its mother and she coiled around the group. Today makes Day 59 for Dewshine and Day 56 for Ailynn. I checked on them after I got up this morning and found this:












The egg I snipped yesterday was blowing bubbles through the slit last time I checked, but hasn't come out yet. I didn't get a good pic of that egg because the mom is partially covering it. She's going into a shed cycle, which might explain the moodiness, and I didn't want to disturb her any more than I needed to to get a few pics of what was going on in there. So far, all I've seen look like normal babies.

I'll check on the moms again later today to see if I have any new pips or any babies out of the eggs.

[Peter_Steele]

Awesome cant wait to see when all the babies come out