• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Impromptu breeding

liquidleaf

liquidleaf

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Long story short - I find myself suddenly in possession of a breeding pair of ball pythons.

Now, my first pet snake, Ermy, is a ball python. However, after I got him, I got several boas (I've been trying to breed my adult Surinams, now for the second season, so fingers crossed)... but only obtained a baby female future mate for Ermy last fall. Obviously, any breeding there is a few years away.

However - my husband was told by a coworker that our local SPCA had announced on the radio that they currently had two ball pythons available for adoption. Our local SPCA isn't really too knowledgeable about herps, so my husband went over immediately to see what the situation was.

The animals had been taken from a home where the owner had a lot of pets, and then suddenly got sick, and all the animals in the household were removed (I'm not sure if cruelty charges were involved). There were two ball pythons, one large, one smaller. The SPCA referred to the larger one as the male and the smaller as the female (even though it's usually the other way around). When my husband arrived, only the larger ball was available - they told him that the "female" had blood in her stool, so they were going to observe her for a while longer.

Brandon came home with the large "male". I didn't probe "him", since he had a burn on his head he was recovering from and I didn't want to stress him further, but "his" tail shape, spur size, and overall size made me think that "he" was a "she".

No big deal. That was two weeks ago - this past Friday, we returned to the SPCA to see what had happened with the other ball. When we arrived, the vet was there, and gave more details - apparently the blood in the "stool" was more than likely caused because the two snakes were copulating, and the volunteers didn't realize, and they forcibly separated the two. Obviously, some trauma could cause a little bleeding. So, since the vet hadn't seen any more bleeding or other symptom, she released "the girl" to us. We brought "her" home and put her in the cage with her mate (we only had the one quarantine cage set up at the time). It made more sense to me that "she" was a he, especially if some minor trauma had occurred to the hemipene when the two were separated.

Well, not a half hour later when I checked on the pair, they were locked up. Talk about not shy! I've never seen my boas locked up, and never seen snakes locked up in person before, but that was pretty unmistakable. From the looks of it, I was right and the larger snake is the female and the smaller the male.

Let's just say I'm reading through all my ball python breeding materials now! I wasn't planning on having any ball python breedings for a few years, but nature doesn't really care about plans.

So, anything I should expect or look for? I'm more familiar with boa breeding - will the male "lose interest" in the female, or should I just watch for ovulation?

Isn't it a bit late in the season for them to be breeding? I'm amazed that they were breeding at the SPCA, because they had been housed in a tall glass arboreal cage with top heat, not to mention the kids and other people walking by the glass and tapping on it...
 
Ok, so that wasn't "long story short".

Anyhow, here's a photo of the happy couple I took moments ago. The lighter colored one is the larger one I think is the female, that we got two weeks ago. The darker one is in shed, and I believe is the male, picked up Friday.

Any opinions?

Their posture Friday made it easier to see, I could see both vents and it *looked* like the lighter colored one had inserted a hemipene into the darker one, but not much "bubble gum" was visible.

The lighter colored one ate 2 days after we got it, not sure if they go off feed during breeding. Obviously I haven't tried feeding the newer one, because of the shed situation and the two-in-one-cage scenario.
breedingballpythons5-18-08.jpg
 
Looks like the lighter one may be the male, but hard to tell for certain with your pictures. The male generally wraps his tail under the female's tail with hers on top.

Here are a couple of examples - the male is the bottom tail curling up in each of these shots:

EchoxOliver.jpg


WinstonBreed8.jpg


WinstonandPandora2.jpg
 
Thanks! Yeah, I also now think the big light colored one is male - the SPCA vet was right... the smaller female swelled up and has shed. It was also pointed out that males have barbs on their hemipenes - so if the two were forcefully separated while at the SPCA, the FEMALE could have had the injury from the barbs pullling out, hence the little "blood in the stool" that was seen before she was cleared for adoption.

The two aren't breeding any longer, we'll see what happens with the female though!
 
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