How Many Grams Does a Male Need to be to Safely Breed 4 Females?

Hello all,

I'm sure this has been covered before so excuse me if you've seen this several times.

How many grams would you guys/gals put on your males before feeling like it is safe to take them to up to 4 females?

Second question is, does it really matter how many females you breed him to? If you are doing the same breeding schedule, in my case I plan to do 3 days in 5 days out does it make any difference how many females he is breeding from the male's point of view (losing weight, stress, etc)? I understand on the female side of things you probably don't want one male to 10 females because he probably wouldn't fertilize them all if you maintained the normal 3 days in 3 days out.

An example would be A.) one male to one female for a breeding season on a 3 days in 5 days out schedule. vs. B.) one male to 3 females on a 3 days in 5 days out schedule. The male in both cases will lock the same amount of times but the female in A will lock many more times then the females in B. But does this effect the male's health any?

Thanks,

You should be fine with how many females you want to breed him with as long as you give him a little break in between. As for size, they usually develop sperm plugs around 500 grams, could be under or over, depends on the animal. The real only way to know 100% is to pop him and see if he's got them or not ;)

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Most run a 3 day w/female - 3 day rest schedule. Offer food during one of his off days (I'd go with the first or second day to let him have a day or two to digest if he eats). Otherwise, monitor his weight and if you notice him losing a substantial amount, pull him from breeding. I've heard of people breeding as small as 250 gram males. I don't think I would breed at that size but I also won't criticize those who would. If yours is producing plugs and you want to give him a try, go for it.

Id have to agree.
"Size" perhaps isnt always the key factor. Its just like us people. We all matured at different ages and weights.
Just pop him every now n again to see if he has developed plugs yet or not.
Once he has... feel free to give the lil guy a shot!

As long as you are giving the male 3-4 days of rest between girls, it really doesn't matter how many female you are pairing him with.

I'm going to have to disagree alittle with some of the others.
Breeding a male to 4 females is more stressful than just breeding him to 1 girl.
The reason being is if you are just breeding him to one girl he only really needs to be paired once a month or so and if you can palpate possibly less. There is no need to pair them every week for several months.
But if you are pairing him with 4 females he is going to be in a breeding a female every week.
We only really want to see one good lock per female every month.
And with breeders that are lucky enough to have ultrasounds they may only pair a female 2-4 times in a season since you can monitor the follicular development very closely.

In the end it is just about monitoring the individual animals and making sure they remain nice and healthy.

This little guy is 155g now on empty so I'm thinking by Dec-Jan he should be 800-1000g. So he should definitely be producing plugs by then. How much weight is an acceptable loss before pulling the male out for the season? Or do you all mostly just eyeball him and if they look skinny you pull him out? We will have a backup male but he is very much a lower end animal ($400-600) compared to the male we just purchased ($5-8k). Come to think of it we will also have our C.H. Volta giants hatching so we should even have a third option for a male if we choose to.

Appreciate all the replies. :gj: