Re: You think she's ready for a mate?
I have a few females that are around the 1200g mark but hammering their food at the moment, I was under the impression that they can be bred bearing in mind they are eating well, 1500g is the recomended weight but surely that would depend on the snake..chunky, thin their all different
Re: You think she's ready for a mate?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jay_Bunny
While I don't think it would HURT your snake to try and breed her this season, I usually use the 2 year mark. These females are about to go into their 3rd winter but I start pairing early.
Breeding her this early will probably give you a very small clutch size. There is an article out there somewhere but I don't have time to find it. I'll look when I get home today. Basically the article states that in that author's experience breeding females for the first time when they had gone through their 3rd winter produced normal to large sized clutches, while younger females of the same weight or lighter females produced a smaller clutch during their first breeding season. The females that laid a small clutch continue through their breeding career to lay very small clutches in comparison to females that had waited to breed.
So my advice would be to give her at least till next season. By then she should be huge and should produce a nice big pile of eggs for you. :D
Adam from 8Ball said that smaller clutches throughout life was his experience if bred early. BG hasn't really noticed it. BG isn't sure it could be true though....mainly because wild females lay big clutches and BG is sure that every female is probably been bred by a male in the wild as soon as they are anywhere near breeding size. BG just can't see a male just slithering by a 1000 gram girl in the wild if she's giving off the right scent.
There is the possibility that a 1000 gram female in the wild is not giving off the right scent so no males attempt to breed her. In captivity we place a male with her, so the male attempts to breed her which gets her in the "mood for lovin"(she starts producing follicles) which might not happen in the wild if a male has choices. Who knows??? All BG is saying is that it won't hurt your females health to breed her early. It's a personal choice.
