Maturity question

I am sure it has been covered before. I read through some of the sticks on here. I was wondering. I know BP are not supposed to be bred until the appropriate size, weight, age. But this is more of a curiosity question. When do males and females usual mature? What age and weight? Can a female that turned 1 in October ovulate or is that too early. I only ask because I have been weighing in once a month. My female has been on weans to small rats the entire time I have owned her. It was cleaning day yesterday as well as weigh ins. She just looked beefy to me. I know she isn't full grown yet and she has still some growing to do. But I noticed from even last week her middle section is chunkier. Now I have had a BP with urate constipation issues so I immediately checked the area. Was hard or didn't feel like it was a mass or anything. It is just her body. So that got me thinking that, could she be forming some follicles? I am very new to this so I am just looking for everyone's insight. Thanks.

My girl I am talking about. Just sharing cuz she is pretty😍

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...7161_thumb.jpg

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Originally Posted by JJpeep

My girl I am talking about. Just sharing cuz she is pretty😍

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...7161_thumb.jpg

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Oh my God, she's pretty!

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Originally Posted by JJpeep

My girl I am talking about. Just sharing cuz she is pretty😍

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...7161_thumb.jpg

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:gj: Thanks for sharing! Very pretty girl.

There's not really a magic number. Sure, studies show that things tend to happen at certain ages and as a community, we recommend certain ages and such because it is typically healthier for the animals involved. But there can always be exceptions. One of the saddest storys I know is a human girl who gave birth at 5.

There have been female BPs that breed when they are younger or smaller. I saw one girl at a pet store who laid eggs when she weighed around 1000 grams. But of course I don't know her age, only her size.
There definitely is the possibility that your girl is ovulating. Most likely she'll reabsorb instead of dropping slugs. Obviously, we will all still recommend waiting until she's at least 1500gr. and at least a year older.

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Originally Posted by Armiyana

There's not really a magic number. Sure, studies show that things tend to happen at certain ages and as a community, we recommend certain ages and such because it is typically healthier for the animals involved. But there can always be exceptions. One of the saddest storys I know is a human girl who gave birth at 5.

There have been female BPs that breed when they are younger or smaller. I saw one girl at a pet store who laid eggs when she weighed around 1000 grams. But of course I don't know her age, only her size.
There definitely is the possibility that your girl is ovulating. Most likely she'll reabsorb instead of dropping slugs. Obviously, we will all still recommend waiting until she's at least 1500gr. and at least a year older.

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Oh I definitely was not planning to breed her. She is only 813 grams and she will be only two in the fall. I wasn't planning on breeding. I was just wondering if she could be ovulating this young.
Let me get into the what ifs. If she does lay slugs. What is the protocol? Do I increase feeding? To help her get nutrition back. Or is that just something that occurs naturally and she should be okay going on as normal?

She also thanks everyone for the compliments. She is quite the show off. She is our brave girl that isn't timid at all. She is always looking for food and is our biggest snake (so far) that we have owned. She is such a good girl and I am looking forward to being a first time breeding project for me ever. I am going to wait of course until she is of age and a nice healthy size.

Like others said, there’s no magic number. It really comes down to the guidelines of 2-3 years of age and atleast 1500g(for females). A lot of it has to do with the body composition and how they look. I have a few females who are just getting to that 1500g range and 2 years of age, however they just don’t look like they have the right body composition to hold eggs and go off food for months on end. You want a thick bodied snake who looks capable of handling 6+ eggs when they need to be laid. For males it’s a lot different, you obviously want his body composition to be good as well since males tend to go off food for a while during breeding season. Males however can be bred in their first season and at 500g. I’ve had success breeding males in the 500g-750g range. If they go off food though I pull them when they start losing a significant amount of weight


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A female could definitely build follicles her first breeding season (whatever late winter-early spring after she is born). If that's what it is you would probably feel more than one though. They would be located about 1/3 of the body away from her tail. If its much further down, it's probably just her going to the bathroom soon.

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Originally Posted by JJpeep

Let me get into the what ifs. If she does lay slugs. What is the protocol? Do I increase feeding? To help her get nutrition back. Or is that just something that occurs naturally and she should be okay going on as normal?

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If she seems much hungrier than usual you can offer her a half-sized meal midway through the week, but keeping her on her usual diet should be fine as is.

If slugs DID happen, the easiest way to get her back to eating immediately is to do a complete habitat clean out and give her a soak/bath with a couple drops of dish soap midway through. That way you let her drink a little before you start sloshing soapy water on her. That will get rid of any risidual egg odor that will kick maternal instincts in and making her anxious and broody instead of hungry. It may still take a week for her to get back to eating. After that I just feed like normal. Again, if they seem overly hungry, I might offer a 'snack'.