Average breeding success.

This is mainly for those with moderate-large collections, and who have been breeding for more than a couple seasons. Of your females which are old/large enough to breed, what percentage, on average, end up actually producing eggs each season.

If you don't attempt to breed every female every year, I'd like to hear about that as well.

Even a complete total idiot should have at least a 50% success rate with balls. They're that easy.

It depends. Females that have had a year off I get around 80%-90%. Females that laid the previous year I only get around 50%. I don't feed my adults as heavy as most people though.

I have 90-100% each and every year. I must be lucky... If I pair her she gives me eggs and usually a lot of what I am wanting. Last year I wanted a certain snake to reproduce herself and it was her first breeding and she did just that out of 7 eggs she gave me 5 carbon copies of herself and 2 very normals so I was able to prove her to be a vanilla like morph. Got 7 eggs cookin that are due in one week from her this year to my pastel boy wanting a good mix... She wont do me wrong... I will be posting pics of the babies when they hatch.

I took the average of our 3 breeding seasons that we have completed and got just at 80%. We are not a big breeder but we have a small/med collection.

Our first year we had 1 female to breed and she laid 8 eggs, 4 of which hatched.

Our 2nd year we bred 8 females 7 laid and 38 of the 39 total eggs hatched the one that didn't hatch was a slug.

Last year our 3rd year we moved in the middle of breeding season and I think that through everyone off. We bred 30 females and only 11 laid. 4 eggs did not hatch (development ceased at some point during incubation) and 2 where slugs.

This year we are breeding 44 females and we shall see what happens. I am only expecting about 30 to lay but hoping for all 44 ;).

I wasnt sure if I was supposed to include % of females I own who bred (including those not breeding age) or % of breeding age. Including everyone, its about 40% because not all my girls are up to weight. Just breeding size is 90%.

I'm really beginning to believe that weather plays a pivotal role. Our '07 breeding season saw about 85% success rate-that winter was characterized by many good, strong frontal systems pushing through the Texas hill country.

In '08-09. the winter was bone-dry, with not a single good front coming through from October to April, and not a drop of rain in that period either. Despite herculean efforts on my part, only 30% of our females deposited clutches.

This past winter was another wet one-fronts have been one after another the entire time since last fall. And the balls have been hooking up like druids in the springtime! I just checked my records, and 90% of eligible females have either laid, ovulated, or at least hooked up more than four times!

My theory is supported by our friend Tattlife2001 above-who reports 90% success a year from the constantly stormy region of Spokane, WA....So when it comes to balls-pray for rain!

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Originally Posted by carolina444

Play behavior has been observed with birds dropping a leaf in the air and catching it in mid-air and these may possibly help young birds acquire aerobatic skills.

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:confused:

Yeah?

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Originally Posted by Big Gunns

Even a complete total idiot should have at least a 50% success rate with balls. They're that easy.

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oh really :D that's encourage me to breed my balls :taz::taz:

Agree with BC--worse luck last year, than the year before, though how many are laying this year still remains to be seen. They've all been locking like troopers, though. They're also starting to drop eggs MUCH earlier than last year. I have 3 clutches in the incubator now! I didn't get any until May last year.