What percentage of balls dont breed? Or how much "proven breeder" is important?

What percentage of balls dont breed? Or how much "proven breeder" is important?

Proven breeder is less because snakes are often duds and more because you KNOW the history. If you get a snake that's a proven breeder, you know that snake can and will get the job done, so if it isn't, you know it's a mistake on your end. You also know you're getting a snake that is ready to breed (usually), which can shorten your wait time as opposed to getting a hatchling or sub-adult and taking time to grow it out. Really good for newbies, but not 100% necessary.

Thanks thats clear. But what is the % of balls are duds.

I'm really interested in this answer.

A lot of snakes turn out to be misgendered, I get that since popping proves male, not female, so a female could easily turn out to be a male.

But very rarely have I heard people saying their snake actually cannot breed or has an issue breeding. Sure there can be issues with slugs, but sometimes those same snakes will produce good eggs the next year.

Sometimes I have heard people saying their male is reluctant to breed, but usually that comes up early in a breeding season and not at the end of it, to which I assume the snake just wasn't ready for breeding at the time and needs more time.

Other times people breed young or underweight and have issues with them not breeding.

Of 3rd winter females, second winter males, both of adequate size and in correct conditions, I'd really wonder how many snakes have been duds.

I don't think there's been any effort to accurately collect and record that kind of data, and yeah, you'd have to rule out things like husbandry errors, incorrectly sexed snakes, etc., which might be hard to account for if data is only gathered through self reporting.

In my limited experience, out of the 20 breeding size females I have now, i consider one a dud. She is around 10 years old and has never laid an egg. I have never had a female refuse to mate though.

That's the real issue. Honestly if you do your part correctly, I have a strong feeling "proven" isn't even close to something you need to worry about.

If you decide to breed underweight, misgendered, young etc, just don't expect results. Heck I bred my 8 year old pastel and 5 year old lesser and started breeding 2 months early, never expected results the entire time. End result was a whole lot of babies. I was pretty happy when it happened.

So now we have a 1/20. That's a REALLY low chance of a dud.