Some help for a first timer?

[JeweledPeach]

So this is my first season breeding my girls and I'm very excited! I've bred rabbits for years and show them at a national level, so I am aware of what I am getting in to, and I've done tons and tons of research to educate myself the best I can before I start this. My breeders are in a rack system with belly heat, and are currently in lower temps for the upcoming season. They are 86 during the day and 82 at night. The temp drop started on Oct. 1st.
All my girls are at or above 1500 grams each with the biggest one being well over 2000 and my males are all at least 1000 grams (closer to 1300 though), so I feel they will all be a good, healthy weight for this season. I plan on introducing males to the females on Nov. 1st and stopping when ovulation is spotted, or on April 1st..

I do have 2 questions though that I cannot seem to find answers to anywhere.

1) What sort of breeding schedule do you guys keep? I've seen a lot of people do the three days on/three days off method and feed in between if they will take it. But I have also heard that people will give the female a week off before introducing the male again, and the male will go to a different female in between? Thoughts on this? I've heard of overbreeding males and stressing out females with too much breeding.

2)What do you guys do for your egg tubs in the incubator? What's the mixture and I have seen people using a sort of grate that the eggs sit on? Links on where I can purchase things for incubation would be awesome!

Any other advice is happily welcomed! I have genetics under my belt pretty well, but snakes are a rather large difference from rabbits. I already breed my own feeder rats and mice, so no worries there. I will be building a hatchling rack over winter since I don't believe anyone is going to be popping out eggs within the first few weeks, lol!

[BHReptiles]

1) What sort of breeding schedule do you guys keep? I've seen a lot of people do the three days on/three days off method and feed in between if they will take it. But I have also heard that people will give the female a week off before introducing the male again, and the male will go to a different female in between? Thoughts on this? I've heard of overbreeding males and stressing out females with too much breeding.

2)What do you guys do for your egg tubs in the incubator? What's the mixture and I have seen people using a sort of grate that the eggs sit on? Links on where I can purchase things for incubation would be awesome!

1. Last season I put males in on Friday and removed them Monday (or after they unlocked) and then they were fed on Tuesdays...then repeat. However, this season, I plan on only pairing 1-2x a month. If you plan on breeding the same male to multiple females, I would do 1 female a week for him. Once he's cycled through all the females, give him a week or two off then go back through the females.

2. Last season I used a saturated vermiculite mixture with a light grate on top. I've bought some perlite for this upcoming season. Both are fine. The light grate I got at Home Depot. It's like $13 and you just cut it to the size of your tubs.

[WmHrbst]

The rotation really depends on how many females you are breeding. I typically place the male with the female three days and then give him three days rest. I continue to offer all animals food throughout the breeding session. I pay more attention to the females with larger follicles and make sure they see the male more often. Keep a eye on you're males and make sure they still look healthy especially if they go off food.

I use 6qt Sterilite tubs for all my eggs, I cut the plastic egg crate to size ( I purchase the crate from homedepot, typically found in the lighting section), I use vermiculite, and since no eggs are touching the vermiculite I don't worry about a water ratio, I just ad water and mix. For the top of the tub I use a piece of glass, 3/8 thickness.

Hope that helps and good luck!

[Ash]

Here are my two favorite breeding resources. Works well for me and a lot of my friends.

http://www.ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html

http://www.jkobylkareptiles.com/page.php?id=011

The grate you've seen to keep the eggs away from the substrate is called egg crate. You can buy it at places like home depot and the like. It's usually sold in big sheets so it's not very practical to order it over the internet.

For the ratio of substrate:water, I usually use plain vermiculite (make sure you get the kind without asbestos or other contaminants, it'll usually say on the bag) and mix it to the point where it'll clump together like a snowball but crumble apart very easily. If you can squeeze any drips out of it, it's too wet. Don't fret about it TOO much. It's not an exact science, after all, these guys have been hatching successfully for thousands of years in the wild, in holes in the ground! People generally use eggcrate as a safety measure, just in case they did mix the substrate too wet. If the eggs aren't touching too-wet substrate, it can't do them any harm.

For the incubator, I put together a fairly inexpensive one using an old rockstar energy drink display fridge with a glass front. I bought it off of craigslist. I didn't strip the fridge out at all, all I did was put a bunch of heat rope in there, kind of clumsily draped over the shelf and down the back and sides of the fridge, hooked it up to a spyder robotics herpstat, and insulated the whole thing with a metallic emergency blanket. It worked wonderfully and has since successfully incubated several clutches.

The only downside to that incubator was the fact that to get into it you had to open the door, which constituted one whole side of the thing, and heat spilled out of it really rapidly. If you go this route, please please resist the temptation to open it frequently and check on the eggs. Never open it during the cold of the morning or night, and make sure never to leave the door open. I lost my first clutch doing this. I opened it in the morning and didn't close it while I was candling the eggs, which caused the temp to go way down and when it warmed back up, it overshot the target temp and heat spiked.


If you need more help feel free to PM me!

Good luck!

http://youtu.be/frviiLuSsfU - it's really an awesome experience.

[JeweledPeach]

Thanks so much for all the info! I think I will try the Friday-Monday breeding, maybe every other week? I have 4 females I was going to breed this season and first was going to use 3 males, but 2 of them are lessers with one being 100% het for pied, and I wanted a little variety, so I will be using my vanilla as well.
I will be using a Hot Box incubator, they seem to be the best I've found and I just don't feel like I have the experience yet to make my own. I think that I will do well to use the egg crate as well, better safe than sorry!
Thanks so much everyone for all the help! I'm still open to suggestions.