slow growth

hey guys. i have a virgin female ball currently weighing in at 966 grams. she was born in july 2005. she is a very slow grower. with breeding season just around the corner. seeing as she is already 4 years old do you think it would be alright to breed her or would there be a high chance of complications. this will be my first year breeding and i have other females that are of proper age and weight so i was not planning to breed her. i am just curious of other breeders experiences.

Nope won't do it. I wait for atleast 1200-1500 grams to breed any female reguardless of age.

Age and size are both very important factors in breeding; a female that is too young may have trouble with egg development. A female like yours that is old enough to breed but not up to weight will have little difficulties forming the eggs, but may very well become egg bound, which is when they are unable to lay the eggs.

I'd never breed a female under 1500, preferably 2000. And remember, the bigger she is, the more eggs she will lay. :gj:

You would really have to read your female and decide whether or not she has enough fat reserves to lay a full clutch of eggs. Since she is older (four years old) it is a possibility if she is a consistently good feeder. Also, you would need to decide if it would be worth it.

I had a female that I receieved in 2006 when she weighed about 1185g (she hatched in 2004). From the summer of '06 to the summer of '08 she gained between 150g-160g, and that was only because I didn't try to breed her during the '07-'08 season, so she continued to feed longer. She finally got up to just under 1700g at the beginning of this past season, so I bred her this past year. She produced four eggs - two slugs and two fertile eggs. I was nervous breeding her because she was so small, but she gained the girth and the "look" that she needed. I could tell that she was ready after a while, but I kept an eye on her.

Another thing that I just remembered: I looked at her feeding record before the breeding season and realized that she went off feed about the same time every year (in the fall/early winter), so I began breeding her early. She was first paired up on September 27, 2008. This was, when she would go off feed regularly, she's be off feed anyway because she was gravid.

Breeding a smaller (but older) female worked for me, but you really have to read your female. What is your female telling you? At less than 1000g, I don't think that I'd breed her. I'd wait until she's at least 1,300 before I'd consider pairing her (and that's if she's a short female that I know is ready).

cool, thanx for the replies guys. like i said i dont have any plans on breeding her this year. however this sheds a little more light on why and when in regards to breeding. i've been trying to figure out what most people meant by "reading their snakes". so part of this is knowing how much fat reserves they have? how do i gauge this? and another part is following their yearly patterns? ( good thing i started keeping records this year )

What are you feeding her? Rats IMO are better for keeping or putting weight on a BP. Also how often are you feeding her/what size? I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong I'm just curious. Have you ever tried power feeding? Power feeding for a short period of time won't hurt. A small rat every 4-5 days should put some weight on her.

As for your question she should be pretty plump, when you hold her in your hand she should be pretty solid. If she's squishy/boney she doesn't have a lot of fat built up. My breeder girl, that I'm hoping will go for me this season, is pretty solid. Granted she weighs over 1.900 grams, but you can really feel all the weight she has on her.

I wouldn't breed under 1,500 grams. A 1,000 gram snake seems too small to breed IMO. Eggs are pretty big and I wouldn't chance losing her.

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Originally Posted by Isis

If she's squishy/boney she doesn't have a lot of fat built up.

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I forgot to mention she could be squishy because she's a bit fat. I assume a person could tell if the snake was squishy because it's fat or because it needs some weight. I don't want to confuse anyone :D You don't want your female to be too fat either because there's a good chance she'll slug out on you.

i recently picked her up so i havn't been feeding her for long. however the breeder that i got her off of gave me pretty detailed records for her. she would not eat F/T so she would always refuse to eat for him. he would give her live every so often just to keep her healthy but she never got a chance to grow. i feed her live ASF rats and she pounds anything i put in front of her ( so far ). so far she has had 1 to 2 med. ASF ( or the equivalent in smalls ) once a week. i am hoping to have her ready for next year.

I have a petite 06 cinny that went for me last season. She never weighed more than 1400gms. She gave me 5 eggs and weighed just over 900gms afterwards.

Some girls are just smaller. If she starts bowl wrapping and starts to develop follicles, I would put a boy in with her. She would mate in the wild at her current size so why not?

I would feed her every 5 days or so and let her fill out. Good luck!!