FEMALE BALL PYTHON

Question
QUESTION: I PICK UP 2 BALL PYTHONS FROM A LADY AND SHE SAYS THAT THEY ARE BRO AND SIS AND ABOUT 3 YRS OLD IF TRUE WILL THEY EVER MATE AND THE FEMALE IS VERY AGGRESSIVE AND IS ALWAYS STRIKING AT US WHY AND WHAT CAN I DO. AND HOW OFTEN SHOULD I FEED THEM THE HAVE EATEN 3 TIMES IN 1.5 MONTHS AND THEY ATE ABOUT 3 MICE  EVERY TIME SO FAR, LIVE ONES!!!???

ANSWER: Rico,
   The snakes should be housed separately. It is never a good idea to keep two snakes in the same enclosure.

In order to calm the aggressive one, I suggest handling her daily with gardening gloves until she is more calm, then move to no gloves. She will get used to you over time.

Eating 3 times in 1.5 months is acceptable. Ball's are notorious for not eating for months, so keep doing what you are doing. Make sure you are feeding them separately.

I suggest not feeding live unless your snake will eat nothing else. I would feed them frozen / thawed. It is much less risk to the snake.

Let me know if I can be of further help.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: THANK YOU !!!  WHAT ABOUT THEM MATING IF THEY ARE BRO AND SIS  WILL THEY AND HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY ARE BRO AND SIS

Answer
Rico,
  Please see my profile as I am not an expert on breeding. I did search the net and find an answer for you:

Inbreeding snakes is very common. It does not cause deformities unless it's been more than a couple of generations. Many of the biggest breeders will breed siblings, and even more so, parents to offspring. The reason they do this is to bring out certain genetic traits, often resulting in desirable appearing offspring. This happens in the wild too. Many snakes on small islands inbreed. A few may have originally drifted or swam to the island and bred, resulting in all of the snakes on the island eventually being related.


I do not think there is a way to tell if the snakes are related, other than DNA testing. Snakes from the same litter will often look very different, so no visual inspection will do. The best way is to assume that they are since the previous owner said that they were.