In 1998 I attended the National Reptile Breeders Expo in Orlando. My friend, Chris, and I walked around the show and entered the back room and found Dave and Tracy Barker’s table. On that table they had a variety of animals that were incredible, but one pair stood out. That pair of olive pythons was out of my price range, but were able to be afforded by Chris. We were roommates at the time so I did get to watch them grow up and knew they would be part of my personal collection at some point in time.
Fast forward about 10 years and a pair of olive pythons showed up on faunaclassifieds. This time I was able to actually purchase them. They were yearlings, the female was from Jeff Hartwig and the male was acquired from Outback Reptiles. That started my love for the species.
I have had a lot of species of snakes and have kept and keep other Liasis as well, but these are different. Their sleek look and small, smooth scales set them apart from other pythons. In my opinion and experience, from birth to adulthood, they are the most docile of the Liasis. Babies are fairly tractable right out of the egg. As they grow into their adult size of 9 to 13 feet, they can acquire a feeding response that will keep you on your toes, but as long as they realize food isn’t being offered, they are usually ok.
Olives & Space
I keep them just like I keep most of my other pythons. When they are small, I’ve kept them in 41 qt boxes in a rack with paper and a water bowl. As they grow, I move them up to vision boa tubs, 54”x36”x18” and 72”x36”x18” vision cages. I offer them a decent sized water bowl to drink from, but have never observed one trying to soak. I don’t keep them humid so the fact that they don’t soak and spill water everywhere is helpful.
They do like to cruise around and appreciate the space if you offer it to them. They will climb and will take advantage of hide boxes as well. I personally use thicker branches and big Rubbermaid totes with a hole cut in the lid for them. They will sit on the lids as well as hide in the totes. These totes also come in handy as you can just slide a water bowl over the hole in the lid when you want to clean the cage and not have to handle them if you don’t need to. I find that easier for me as I have a fairly sizable collection and anything that cuts down on time is good in my book!
I use unprinted paper I purchase at U-Haul as well as aspen shavings for them as substrate. I rotate these items depending on the time of year so I can tell what is happening better when I put them together for breeding. I also provide varying temperatures depending on the time of year. I keep my ambient temps at between 76-82F during the day from November-late February. I add a hotspot of 90+ in February for the female, this is helpful if she is gravid. I have had her move her hide box around the cage to place it under the light so she can get hotter. I have never had another species do that, but she has done it on multiple occasions. Once summer comes around my ambient temperatures will go to 82-87F. If the female has already laid eggs, I will take the hotspot away as it isn’t used and doesn’t appear to be necessary at that time.
A little side note, I take a very common sense approach to keeping snakes. If I watch them and they aren’t using something and they seem ok, I will adjust over time to give them what they actually seem to need. There are lots of things I want and do that aren’t always needed, so I try to adjust to them, not me. If you watch your snakes, they tell you what you need to know. This will come up again when we talk about food.
I don’t go out of my way to provide night time drops, if they happen, then I let them happen. In the winter my room can get down into the upper 60’s at night. This helps with breeding and is no issue if temps go back up during the day. I actually have my young animals in the same room and let them do the same thing. I think this goes along with getting them into a cycle and really makes things work when you start trying to breed animals.
Breeding
The way I go about breeding is just by putting the male into the female’s cage in December and leaving them together until I think the female is gravid. I used to put animals together for 3-day cycles and then separate them for 3 days. Now I usually just put them together and leave them until the female looks gravid. One thing I do is if I put them together and an animals is “running” from the other, I will separate and try again in a week or two. If I put them together and see breeding, I will leave them together until I see them on opposite sides of the cage on a consistent basis.
Again, watching your animals will tell you what you need to know. Once the female is basking consistently then things are going the right way. I will keep the male in with the female until she laid eggs with no issue. There are people out there that have had females eat males, so know your animals! Once the female lays eggs, I pull them, weigh them, take a picture with my daughter if possible, set them up in a box with light crate on the bottom and a water bowl and then put them in an 87-degree incubator for about 65-80 days. Clutch size for me has been between 11 and 14 eggs.
Now that we have eggs, we can talk about feeding from birth until breeding age. Some of the babies will start out right away on thawed fuzzies or hoppers, some will want live rat fuzzies, and some will hold out for quail. I have had some of each and have had to do scenting to get a few to switch over. The majority will go to rodents, but there seems to always be one or two that want day old quail instead. As babies I just want them to eat, so I get a meal in them weekly to get them going. I have had some go up to 3 months without a meal and then kick in and take off.
like to feed every 7-10 days for the first year or so and then I will move back to about every 14 days. Life can get in the way so they will have a few weeks of fasting here and there and it doesn’t seem to bother snakes, in fact, I think its good for them. Once the snakes are reaching medium rat sized meals, I start to slow down a bit. Then I go into more of an adult regimen. I like to feed a decent sized meal (XL rat or 2) every 3-4 weeks from January-April, then I will feed every 7-10 days in May and June (usually after egg laying), then I do a monthly feed for July and August and then I offer big meals (XL rats) every 7-10 days from Late August until about Thanksgiving.
This fall feeding schedule can vary as I mainly go by the activity of the girls. If I come in the room and they are moving, I feed them that night or the next day. If I feed them a single item and they are still looking around, I feed them another one. This is the time of plenty, so I try to let them get as much food in there as possible for this couple of months.
This really seems to help get girls ready for action, which coincides with when I am introducing animals for breeding so it gets us all on schedule. The meals you offer in January and February can help with ovulation from my experience so I try to make sure to get them in after I witness copulation. Once the animals are not interested in food, I just leave them alone and let them do their thing.
I think that Olive pythons are great captives, especially for people wanting a snake with size. My adults are currently about 9 feet and are almost 12 years old. I didn’t get a first clutch out of them until they were 8, but all of that food and work was worth it. They are deliberate and interesting animals to interact with as long as they don’t have food on their mind. I would recommend them to anyone looking for an intelligent, active python that is a bit different from what you have probably kept in the past.
