Eggs started hatching.

Here is our first Ball Python hatching of 2009 as I typed my first post. We are hoping to see some real dark Black Pastels from this clutch. These 3 eggs came from a clutch that also had 6 slugs(infertile eggs). The female is very dark colored snake and the sire is a beautiful VPI Black satin Pastel. Lets see how it pans out.

Lots of breeding action.

Well it's been a while and we have had lots of breeding activity. On 03/07/09 we had our second clutch of Bearded Eggs eggs and on 03/12/09 we had our second clutch of Ball Python eggs laid.

We have also seen some more soaking and ovulating of some other females. This is a CH reduced pattern female we are trying to prove as genetic and an orange ghost female who we caught begining her ovulation. This OG ovulated 3 weeks exactly after begining her soaking period which lasted almost the entire 3 week period.

Today 03/26/09 we had our third clutch of ball python eggs laid from a cross of Pastel Orange Ghost male and a Spider female. This girl wasn't supposed to lay until next week but instead she laid 25 days after pre lay shed. This will be a fun clutch to watch hatch, bumble bees are one of my favorite combinations and het for ghost is always a plus. We have been waiting on our first ball python clutch to hatch since 03/24/09 and I just saw the first head pip out at 3:30 pm pacific time. This will be the first of many ball python clutches we should be hatching this year. We have a clutch from out granite girl due to lay next week. It is a very fun time of year around here.

Dragons in the Jungle

So since we had our first clutch of dragon eggs laid recently I thought I would do a post on these colorful lizards.

Bearded Dragons(Pogona vitticeps) are probably one of the friendliest and hardiest reptile pets you can own. Many reptiles tolerate handling to different degrees but beardies seem to enjoy the change of scenery and can be one of the best reptile pets to take out and spend time with. They are great for the beginer and expert reptile keeper alike. Beardies are very easy to take care of and will give you many years of lizard fun. I have enjoyed keeping and now breeding these personable lizards for over 13 years. We are currently working with the orange and red colors with a mixture of Sandfire, Blood, Chris Allen and Red Flame bloodlines.

Dragons are originally from Australia and enjoy hot, dry, arid conditions. A good source of UV lighting and heat source is required to keep them healthy and happy. Adults brumate or sleep for long periods during winter and then wake up, eat and begin breeding. We feed our dragons a staple of crickets and mixed greens with a variety of worms for treats. We also alternate calcium and herpvite vitamin powders to their food for additional nutrition. We also have outside enclosures and are able to let them bask in the sun when weather allows which is almost year round in sunny Souther Cali.

Our biggest female just laid her first of several clutches for 2009. The sire is "Rocco" (with headshot pictured above) has produced some gorgeous babies for us. We always look foward to the hatching of the baby dragons, one of the cutest baby lizards you've ever seen. I will have an update and picswhen they hatch.

On another note it hase been raining here in Southern Cali which is a great time to pair ball pythons. Our female ghost is showing good signs of building and has been locking consistently with our POG so I am think she should be ovulating in the oncoming months.

Lots of action in the Jungle!

Cleopatra the Spider ovulates 2/7/09

Greta the Granite ovulates 2/12/09

Well I haven't kept up and alot of breeding action is happening in the Jungle.

First off we have had two more snake ovulations. It is two of the girls that have been soaking and according to my theory were approaching their ovulation. In each case after several weeks of on and off long term soaks they stopped, went to the warm side of enclosure, coiled for a few days and then began the swelling ovulation process. Ovulation is when the ova pass through the oviducts, separate from the ovary to be fertilized and pushed into the body cavity becoming eggs. The snake is then officially gravid. This process only last 4-8 hours and is often missed so we feel real fortunate to have captured 3 ovulations on camera in a row. The fact that we are documenting the correlation of soaking as pre-ovulation behavior has helped us determine the upcoming event. Our first girl Xena, mentioned in the last blog post, had her pre-lay shed on 2/10/09 and should be laying her eggs 30 days from that date. Our two girls pictured above will also enter a shed period and upon shedding should lay their eggs 30 days later. No other females have shown soaking or glowing behavior so they are still being cycled with the boys. We will keep updating as things progress.

We also have a 3 eggs in the incubator that were laid on 1/28/09 and the 55 day countdown has begun!

Our biggest development this week was the first Bearded Dragon clutch of 09 laid on 2/11/09. Ruby our huge Sandfire girl laid 29 healthy looking eggs. They are in the incubator and should be hatching at around 55 days. Baby dragons are the cutest. My wife Laurie says they look like little Teri Hatchers? LOL

More info on Dragons in future posts.

Welcome to the Jungle

Well where do we begin? Life is good and reptile breeding is in full swing. More and more I have been drawn in the the computer/internet world so here is a new chapter. Welcome to my West Coast Jungle blog. Smile and relax, we dont do negative in the Jungle, the animals dont take kindly to it and I am not a big fan either.

I have started a couple of threads on a breeding behavior that I have seen in my Ball Pythons and have never seen documented. Thus an inspiration to begin blogging, to document this pattern as well as other relevant reptile breeding and owning experiences. Yes, we may talk about other things in life as well but lets get back to our intial topic for now.


I have always offered my ball pythons fairly large water bowls in there enclosures for several reasons. Being in Southern Cali, it is extremely dry and humidity control is always an ongoing effort. My vet also told me it is always good to soak reptiles occasionally for proper hydration so the big bowl gives them the opportunity to soak if they should feel the need. Another thing I like to do is keep my enclosures a little crowded with hides and waterbowl, I find some Ball pythons are very insecure in open spaces and a secure BP is a happy BP who eats, grows, thrives and breeds the way I like it. Many snakes will soak when approaching a shed too, so there you go.

During the 2007 and 2008 breeding seasons I began noticing all my building and glowing females would soak on and off for weeks. Then as I caught some ovulations(I have missed many) it occured to me that the soaking was leading up to the ovulation. I began to assume that it had to do with hydration for the developing follicles/eggs, it is also possible it is for cooling as well. All the girls that soaked had a high hatchrate in the 90% and the one girl who didn't soak much, because she was too big for the bowl, laid 6 slugs and 3 eggs. This was a 3500 gram female that I was expecting double figures from. I made a good sized egg box, LOL, and it only has 3 eggs in it. Smallest clutch from the biggest girl, go figure.

Now this is far from definitive scientific proof but it has encouraged me to document the behavior and see what gives. I will be breeding and blogging from time to time and have updates of these breeding and other projects and plants we have blooming. My next mission is to figure out how to post pics on the blog so we can see what the hell it is I'm talking about.

Pics to come(I hope).