How to effectively delay a breeding season.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

I don't know how to do it! Hence the reason for this post.

Situation: This will be my 5th year breeding ball pythons. Every year I start pairing in late October or early November. I live in Jacksonville Florida so the winters are mild... but at the same time with central air it isn't cost effective to heat the house much so it does get pretty cold in the house. I knock the thermostat temp down a couple degrees but really the overall cooling of the house pretty much offers lower temps to go along with my breeding season. I have never had a girl who was old enough not go, and have only had a couple slugs out of hundreds of eggs.

Well this year I may want to attempt to delay my breeding season by maybe as much as 4 or 5 months, and maybe start pairing in March or April. The reason? I have completely replaced my male breeders. In an effort to streamline and only make higher dollar animals I have sold off my old breeders and replaced them with high dollar 3+ combo morphs that were all hatched out in 2011.

Now I am well aware that this recent move may result in me missing an entire season... but that is OK with me. The girls could use a break, and I am in no hurry. At the same time, if I could just delay things and NOT loose the entire season I would be much better off financially!!!!

So what should I do? You guys that breed year round... what does it require? Is the natural cooling of my house in the winter going to kill any hopes I have of breeding in later months?

Thanks for all of your help guys!

[Alex.B]

random, but i have a cousin named mike cavanaugh O.o freaky

[wolfy-hound]

Why not warm the reptile room during winter? If you have an enclosed room you can use a oil filled heater and keep summer going a bit longer, so that winter arrives late(to the snakes) all controlled artificially. You won't have to heat the entire house, just the reptile room(or even just the females, if you have the males elsewhere, since I think males would probably not care as much?).

[snake lab]

Dont know if this helps or answers your question but i breed all year round. To do this i have my animals seperated in breeding groups. My ambient room temps in my snake room stay at 80 degrees. Now back to the breeding groups. I have one group that start cooling in september, a second group that starts cooling in january and a third that starts cooling in june. I never deviate from that. For example the animals that start cooling in september will always cool in september and same with the other groups. By keeping a constant ambient temp year round in the room at 80 it allows for the 10 degree night drop at any time considering my racks are all set at 90. Of course its not a perfect science but my odds have been great doing this and ive been doing it this way for about 10 years. Before that i used to only cool in the fall but i also didnt have the amount of animals then that i do now. Plus i stopped doing boas and big pythons 10 years ago so that helped. Ive only been doing balls for the past 10 years. Now to keep your temps in the room all ya got to do is close off all air duct vents in your snake room and put an oil filled type of space heater in the room and hook it up to its own thermostat. I like helix and johnson controls myself. I also make sure that every rack has its own thermostat. Hope this helps