Pair up while Shedding?

[CeeJay]

My female is in full blue mode today. I was going to pair her up today but chose to wait. What do you guys normally do while a female is in shed mode?

[dr del]

Hi,

I would go ahead and pair her up as planned.

I have only ever had a male in shed lock up once (but haven't been doing this long ) but it never seemed to make any difference when it was the female in shed.


dr del

[CeeJay]

BTW they have only been paired up twice, so I don't think this is the "pre-lay" shed.

[coldbloodaddict]

I wait...I like to introduce the male with the female right after a shed.

[MKHerps]

I have seen that if the male is in shed he will not breed, but it doesnt make much difference if the female is in shed.

[muddoc]

Although I believe the original question was answered, I wanted to share my experience. For the last 4 breeding seasons, I did not put a pair together if either one of them was in shed. However, I have been reading Dave and Tracy's most recent publication (I know it has been out awhile, but I am reading it slowly), and she makes mention in the breeding section of female pythons (for the most part, the entire Genus) willing breed when in the deepest of Blue. After reading that, I immediately placed males in with 4 females that were in the blus (I wanted to see it for my own eyes), and the next morning, all of the males were locked with the females. So, I say, as long as it is the female in blue go for it, but like most have already stated, I have rarely seen a male show any interest when he is in blue.

The last part of this is the belief that I had, that kept me from pairing blued females. I always thought that when a snake goes into shed, it sheds it's entire skin (i.e. eye caps, spurs and even the cloacal lining). I say that, because you will sometimes get cloacal skin come out if you pop a female after a shed. What I theorized from that is if a female is in shed, and she copulates with a male, and he delivers sperm into the cloaca of the female, does it actually make it into the oviducts, or is the sperm trapped in the skin that wil be shed shortly? I have never really asked this question to some with explicit knowledge of reptile anatomy, but just theorized it on my own.

Just some food for thought,