Ball python female

[Maddumpling]

If my female is about 750 grams almost 800, will she be able to be over 1000 grams near the end of this year? I want to breed her to my pastel.

[mpkeelee]

Nope. Even if she is u should wait til she's atleast 1300 but the bigger the better

[snakesRkewl]

Age and size matter, how old is your snake?
If a female is smacking rats twice a week and you got 100 grams of actual weight gain per month she would be 1150 grams or so by the end of the year, too small IMO to breed.
She might be large enough for a late season breeding depending again on her age.

[Maddumpling]

i think a bit over two years of age not sure, eats 50 ish gram rats every week. I know, I weighed the rats. Excellent eater. About 750-800 grams couldnt get an accurate weight because she kept moving off the scale.

[mpkeelee]

U should wait til next season and she should be ready. I know some breeders have bred young snakes but they only did it to be the first to produce a certain morph. If u really wanna breed this year u can find female normal proven breeders for about 200.

[angllady2]

Just because you could breed her small and young, doesn't mean it's a good idea.

People always used to do this all the time back when I bred birds. They would always scoff at me for waiting until my females were 2 years old and tell me they started breeding at 12 months. I always ask, "So how many fertile eggs have your lain ? How many hatched ? Were the babies big and healthy ?" Usually I get a lot of stammers and excuses about then. So I told them, " You breed early, 3/4ths of the time you don't get eggs, half the eggs you do get are infertile and the babies that do hatch are small and weak. I wait an extra year, but I get big, fertile clutches right away, my babies hatch healthy and strong and sell quickly. So, why do you think your way is better ? if you get any babies before I do, they are pitiful examples of their kind, and you usually end up waiting an extra year for your female to catch up. So; breed early, get very poor results and then take two years for the female to catch up and start producing decent offspring, or do it right from the start and end up with twice as many good babies in half the time. " Not a hard decision for me to make.

Ball pythons seem very similar. Yes you can breed early, people do it all the time. But the rates of slugs and infertile eggs seems much higher. Hatchlings seems much smaller and weaker and more prone to problems. And roughly half the time and early bred female won't go the following season I've observed. Me, I'd rather do it right the first time and wait the extra time.

Gale