04/29/2026
Well, Athena did it again. My 33 yr old solitary ball python laid 7 soft fat heavy eggs (twice the size of our duck eggs!). It’s called parthenogenesis, sometimes female snakes try to reproduce on their own. It’s pretty rare, and usually the eggs fail because 50% is ‘junk dna’ made up to fill the male dna void. Even rarer: sometimes they can completely clone themselves. Last time Athena did this was oddly enough exactly 10 yrs go after I had moved home to the farm, may 6 2016. One week difference. Strange indeed! She was doing her mama thing, but today I took the eggs away because
1) she’s incredibly emaciated from making these huge eggs and not eating for almost 4 months and she won’t eat again until some time passes and there is no egg scent left.
2) you can already see some of them failing (brown spots) but in the very slim chance any hatched the last thing I want to do is worry about placing baby ball pythons with lifespans of 50-70 yrs when thee are already so many exotic reptiles abandoned and/or neglected (as Athena was when I got her).
Last time in 2016 I supported her incubation but the eggs died off one per week until they were gone.
It truly feels miraculous, it’s pretty amazing
🔥🐍🔥