East Coast Reptile Breeders » Ball Python Photography

Welcome to the World, Little Man

Colin Weaver — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:13:37 +0000

…hope you enjoy your stay.

The one moment in time toward which all other efforts point; that brief instant when a baby snake pops its head out of the egg for the first time. After all these years I still get excited. 364 days of cage cleaning, record keeping, feeding, water bowl changing and male/female pairing all comes to a conclusion at this moment:

Bumble Bee Ball Python Hatching

And it is so worth it! I’ve seen it time and again but it never loses it coolness. Earlier today I was checking eggs (and happened to have my camera) and caught this bumble bee just as he pushed his head out for the first time. Seeing their first tongue flick is such a cool thing to witness. In the photo this little guy is about 3 seconds old. How awesome is that?!

This is the best time of year.

Click the image below for a close-up.

[View with PicLens]

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

Paul McCartney Had It All Wrong!!!

Colin Weaver — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 05:00:00 +0000

I think he meant to write, “Ivory and Pastel Ivory, locked together in perfect harmony”.

Or something like that. Anyway, I can’t see much bad happening from crossing an Ivory with a Pastel Ivory. Seems all good to me. Sorry for the bum picture. I didn’t want to mess with my boy’s mojo so I snapped it in a hurry with my iPhone.

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

Panda Pied Ball Python Video

Colin Weaver — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:40:59 +0000

Back in November 2008 I was helping my friend Ian from Outback Reptiles at his table at the NARBC reptile trade show. Most of us know he produced a piebald super black pastel in 2008 and there was a lot of commotion on the web about whether or not it really existed. The snake was at the show. There are a few pictures out there but I was rummaging through some old files on my PC and realized I had made some video of the panda pied while at the show.

I posted the video to YouTube but the quality is kinda lame.
Better quality video: If you want better quality here is a larger version of the video of the Panda Pied Ball Python. Here it is:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtTHkZBqVoM

Update: October 21, 2009

I have received quite a few questions about how to produce this so here is a little information that should help you out. In the example below I assume that you are breeding two black pastels that are both 100% het for pied together. The results are crazy and you can get an idea of just how hard it is to make a panda pied. Over time, as more people get an actual panda pied it will get easier but for now we’re still playing the het game. Enjoy:

B -- Black Pastel
N -- Normal
p -- Piebals

A Few of This Season’s Pairings

Colin Weaver — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:10:23 +0000

I made a quick trip through my building with a camera earlier this season. Here are a few photos of who happened to be locked up at the time. It’s kind of like looking at a precursor to Christmas (Christmas being the day eggs hatch, of course). I continue to love the whole cycle. It’s filled with milestone all along the way. You’ve got breeding followed by ovulation followed by pre-lay shed followed by egg laying followed by hatching. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year through.”

Click on each thumbnail for a full-size view.

[View with PicLens]

Albino X Albino Het
Albino X Spider Het Albino
Super Pastel X Black Pastel
Bumble Bee Het Ghost X Orange Ghost
Clown X Pastel Het Clown
Ivory X Yellow Belly
Pastel Lesser X Black Pastel
Pinstripe X Pastel
Pinstripe X Spider

Genetic Stripe Ball Python

Colin Weaver — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:38:05 +0000

The Perfect Genetic Stripe Ball Python

The Genetic Stripe Ball Python is a stunner. They are, however, highly variable. The best genetic stripes are the truest representation of thier name; an unbroken stripe running the length of their back …and nothing more. The three photos above illustrate a perfect genetic stripe ball python (click on each for larger view):

The key features I look for in a Genetic Stripe Ball Python that I want to add to my collection are:

Lack of any breaks in the dorsal stripe (e.g. the stripe is solid, uniform and unbroken from head to tail)
Little to no pattern on the sides.
Not that it makes a difference in their appearance but they need to be rat feeders, too.

Genetic Stripe Ball Python: Great, but not perfect

The picture below is another Genetic Stripe Ball Python that I consider to be be a very nice animal, but not quite a perfect one. Her stripe is perfect, unbroken and exactly what I shop for. Unfortunately she has a small amount of pattern on her side. This is the functional equivalent of a beautiful model only being 5′ 5″ rather than the standard 5′ 7″+. It doesn’t really matter too much, she’s still a knockout. But she probably won’t make it to the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.

And here is another nice Genetic Stripe; he has a nice solid, unbroken stripe with just a touch of pattern on the sides. This picture was taken back in 2006 at Ian Gniazdowski’s facility (Outback Reptiles). She is not one of my breeders.

I have seen a lot of Genetic Stripe Ball Pythons for sale that are simply not very nice. Sometimes people try to sell them with special names to make it seem like they are something unique and different than a perfectly striped specimen. But seriously, calling an ugly Genetic Stripe Ball Python anything other than what it is (ugly) is like calling a brown diamond a “champagne diamond”. It’s just smoke and mirrors marketing. I don’t have any ugly specimens to show you because I don’t keep them in my collection. Do some searching on Internet and you’ll likely find some real brown-baggers out there.

As is usually the case, you get what you pay for when it comes to high-quality ball pythons. If you want to produce exceptional animals, price can’t always be your deciding factor. Sometimes it will cost you a little more on the front-end but it will pay off exponentially later down the line. Keep this in mind when you’re out shopping for a Genetic Stripe: No matter what the seller tells you perfectly striped parents (or hets that come from such) are MORE likely to produce nicely striped offspring. High quality begets high quality. Ugly Genetic Stripes with irregular patterns, broken stripes and lots of side saddling are more likely to produce the same. In a time when there is an even increasing amount of competition in the industry you don’t really want to be the one peddling champagne diamonds when the guy next to you is offering flawless gems.

Colin Weaver

Super Pastel Yellow Jacket Ball Python

Colin Weaver — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:52:51 +0000

The Yellow Jacket ball python is what some might call a super-exceptional Pastel Jungle ball python. It is not, however, a pastel. It is a different blood line and it is actually a multiple-gene animal. Ian Gniazdowski from Outback Reptiles was the first to produce the Yellow Jacket and the exact ingredients used to make them is something of a secret. Very few have been produced to date and the photo shown here is the first ever Super Pastel Yellow Jacket. She hatched out of a clutch of six eggs in June of 2008 and was the only super in the clutch. Click on the photo to see a larger view.

Pictures can barely do her justice and she was even more yellow than the photo shows. In person she was simply stunning.

Unfortunately, this girl was born with a congenital defect that made it impossible for her to survive. She died about a day after this photo was taken. So, to date, there is no living Super Pastel Yellow Jacket. With a little luck Ian will produce some in 2009 and we will slowly begin to seem them available to the rest of us. I will be fighting to be first in line for the first super pastel yellow jacket male he lets go of.