My Ball pythons seem to have lost interest in breeding
I have 3 males and 3 females that are ready to breed, (1.1 fire, 1.1 yellow belly, 1.1 het albino). The males are all 800 + and the females 1300 + grams. I started cooling in november down to 77 degrees at night and around 88 during the day and have been turning off belly heat during the night. In december they all positively locked at least 3 times that I caught for 10 or more hours at least. My problem is that now they no longer are showing any interest in eachother. 2 of the females havent eaten in around a month and one still eats like crazy and 2 of my male will not eat and the other one pounds his food as well. I tried switching the males with different females for a few hours and this seemed to get them all pumped up a little but when I re-introduced them to the correct females everything seemed to die down again. If anyone has any thoughts on this or any advice it would be much appreciated. Thankyou for taking the time to look at this.
Aaron
Re: My Ball pythons seem to have lost interest in breeding
Do we see bowl wrapping or laying cool, laying on their side etc. Females will sometimes stop breeding when they are ready to begin the ovulation process. Others will breed right up until they ovulate. The females may be saying I'm done breeding and now its time for the eggs!!! Do you know how to palpate the females to see if they have follicles and if so how big they are? You might check that.
There also seems to be an eb and flow when it comes to breeding depending on where you live..Right now our weather has been warm one week and 18 below the next as a result the breeding has slowed down, it hasn't stopped all together but it has slowed down..Where we were seeing 8 males locking with 4-5 females now we are seeing 6 males locking with 3-4. It'll pick back up around Feb - march that's when we start getting lots of rain. keep pairing them up and feeding them. also check your temps big temp swings can sometimes put them off of breeding.. Good luck this year..
Re: My Ball pythons seem to have lost interest in breeding
Originally Posted by tonkatoyman
Do we see bowl wrapping or laying cool, laying on their side etc. Females will sometimes stop breeding when they are ready to begin the ovulation process. Others will breed right up until they ovulate. The females may be saying I'm done breeding and now its time for the eggs!!! Do you know how to palpate the females to see if they have follicles and if so how big they are? You might check that.
I have noticed that they have been on the cooler side of their tubs for the past couple of weeks and 2 days ago I noticed them coiled ontop of where the belly heat is and the male coiled in the corner on the other (cooler) side of the tub.
Re: My Ball pythons seem to have lost interest in breeding
Originally Posted by tonkatoyman
Do we see bowl wrapping or laying cool, laying on their side etc. Females will sometimes stop breeding when they are ready to begin the ovulation process. Others will breed right up until they ovulate. The females may be saying I'm done breeding and now its time for the eggs!!! Do you know how to palpate the females to see if they have follicles and if so how big they are? You might check that.
I dont have experience with palpating but I have seen videos on how to do so. I have done it and did not feel anything that I could recognize as follicles but this may be due to my lack of experience.
As long as your husbandry is fine, keep pairing, just because you are not seeing any locks, it doesn't mean it's not happening. Your fella could be a speedy gonzalez if ya know what I mean. As long as he's eating and on a on 3 off 3 or so pairing schedule keep pairing. Is he a first time breeder?
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Originally Posted by KingPythons
