Will Ball Pythons Breed Before they are Actually Ready?

[The Serpent Merchant]

Earlier today I was cleaning my ball pythons cages, and something very strange happened. When I clean cages I stick the snake from the cage I'm cleaning into the cage above it which has another of my snakes in it. So I stuck my 480 gram female normal into my 500 gram male spiders cage and started to clean the females cage. When I opened the cage to get the female out I found her with her tail wrapped with the males. From my understanding My 500 gram male could already be ready but I don't have any big females to stick him with yet anyway. So my question is was this just my male trying or will a female that is less then 500 grams attempt to breed? Also does this pose any risk to my female?

[crazyj83]

From what I have read and been told males will breed at a younger age and smaller size then females, however its been said that if a female is breed to soon it can stunt growth, and or do bodly harm, if not death. I am in no way an expert, just passing on what I have heard, or read... If i'm wrong i'm pretty sure later when all the true pros get on and read this you'll get an honest full answer, and i'll stand corrected...lol...

[The Serpent Merchant]

From what I have read and been told males will breed at a younger age and smaller size then females, however its been said that if a female is breed to soon it can stunt growth, and or do bodly harm, if not death. I am in no way an expert, just passing on what I have heard, or read... If i'm wrong i'm pretty sure later when all the true pros get on and read this you'll get an honest full answer, and i'll stand corrected...lol...

That's what I have heard as well. I certainly am not trying to make them do this, and I won't be sticking them together at all now. It simply didn't even cross my mind that they would even attempt anything.

Thanks for the reply hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.

[crazyj83]

No worries, I let my 800+gr female get within 10 of either of my males ahe will musk so strong I will smell insulin for hours...lol... Guess its a good sign showing shes willing...lol

[SlitherinSisters]

I wouldn't stress too much. I had about the same thing happen to me. I have 2 female het pieds, and 1 male het, I thought I put the female in with her sister while I was cleaning her tub, but it was the male. It was only about 30 minutes when I opened the tub to put her back in her own tub, and they were locked, both the male and the female were only 300ish grams. There's no way the female would be ready to breed so I didn't worry too much, but I made sure not to make that mistake again! Males will lock with each other, so it's not like they only lock with females that are ready to breed, they lock with anything.