Breeding younger males

Follicles are the unfertilized ovum produced within the female. After breeding they are released during Ovulation to be fertilized by Sperm retained from the male. Over the next 60 days they develope a tough yet leathery shell then are laid as eggs.

Sent from my LGL45C using Tapatalk 2

If there is a good 24 hr.-ish lock at 20-30mm, they're done. You don't need to add any more locks to the mix. Give them a rest and let her do the rest of her work.

I let mine lock up many times before ovulating, one lock up is enough :rolleye2:
Most of my females will get 6-10 lock ups and some will lock more than that.
I try for 2-3 lock ups a month, no way I trust one or two lock ups to get the job done.
Most new to the breeding game will have no idea where the female is with her follicle growth so getting many lock ups helps ensure the males get the job done.
The key with smaller males is to not over breed them and try to keep them on feed as long as possibly.

This was last year when my tiny Granite Phantom het Hypo locked with my huge 4200 gram Normal girl. He only weighed 330 grams!!!! I got 7 good eggs from her.
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s...7512288301.jpg

We ultrasound, so I don't stress nearly as much about getting so many locks. My last few clutches had 1-3 locks total. Even with ultrasound, though, it's tough not to get the feeling that I need to be doing more pairing, but it just seems extra stressful to try and try and try for locks.

If you have no idea what size the follicles are, or at what stage of development they are, you are probably better off pairing them together way more often. But watching follicular development vs. locks kind of shows me that more than one good lock per month is probably overkill.

One thing I'm trying to determine is whether the introduction of the male is necessary to get the female to start developing, or if just the presence of a breeder male in the room does it. Or, for that matter, whether the proximity of a male has ANYthing to do with a female starting to develop. I lean toward thinking not. It seems that females just will go when they're ready. They'll start building follicles when they're ready. There certainly is a window of time when the male needs to lock with her to make sure she'll continue to build, but it doesn't take 1 lock per week to do that.

See I dont think any of my females are building follicles yet. I'm still new to all of this and I just started my season im little late. but the steps are to drop temps starting the first month correct? then star pairing the next following month and then the female will start to build follicles about 2 months or so later right? So hopefully my females start to build and then i will continue to pair them together and hope for the best
I have noticed that 1 of the females i witnessed a lock on is now seeking the cool side ever since they unlocked. i have a clutch in the incubator now due early Feb and i had clutch late last year but all of them females i just noticed build behavior so i put males in with them and got lucky i guess they where never really planned.

Got Balls, in reference to your 'steps', yes those are the steps that many people follow. Some people, like me, do not follow those 'steps'. I have yet to see actual scientific proof that those 'steps' -- especially the cooling thing -- are necessary to get the females to grow their follicles. If that were necessary, we all would have to drop temps, and all (or at least a large percentage like 90%) clutches would be laid within "X" number of months after the cooling period. This just isn't the case. There are clutches being laid during every month of the year.

I know I will probably catch some flack for even taking this position. So be it. With ultrasound, though, I don't see the evidence of the necessity of the 'steps'. I don't see that introduction of a male induces the female to start building her follicles. I don't see that dropping temps, then introducing males causes her to start the build/development of follicles. Instead, I see that keeping temps the same through the year works the same as dropping temps for a month. I see that females start to build when they're good and ready. I see that smaller females can build follicles just fine (our albino was ~1200 grams before laying, and around ~740 grams after laying 5 good eggs). I see that more than 3 locks are not necessary for a successful clutch. I see that one lock when the follicles are in the 22-30mm range is likely the one that will take.

Now, not everybody has ultrasound available. Before I did, I sure paired them a lot more often, and I tried to make sure that they had way more locks than 3, if possible. I'm maybe 30%-40% confident in my palpating abilities. I palpate often and then back up my guess with ultrasound. What I would recommend is to look for the follicle building/developing behavior, and then pair the male with them accordingly.

So what are the best signs of females starting to build? From what I see in my little experience (I don't have hundreds of snakes, only about 20 or so breeder females) they include bowl wrapping; seeking the cool side; voracious, aggressive apetites; cruising the tub; and scenting the tub when male is introduced. Others, feel free to add to the list.

Does it hurt to have lots of locks? Nope. Can introduction of a male help a female decide to start building? Possibly, but I can't say probably.

A little more info on where I'm coming from for less locks per clutch... If I have 20 females, could 2 males get the job done? Or in other words, how many females can one male handle? Most people told me around 5 or 6 females to a male. If he's going to lock with 6 females 5 times each, that's 30 locks. If I can get the job done with 2 locks, then 30 locks is 15 females, not 6. Quite a difference. It's kind of all a statistics thing to me. Or, if I'm just planning on putting him with 6 females, he can have much more break between locks, which lets him eat a few times before locking again. No need for hoping he'll eat in his short 3 day recess... (maybe he doesn't want a recess!)

Anyway, as stated before, if you don't have ultrasound, you may be less worried if you have more locks. If you're using a really young male, you may question whether he got the job done with his one little lock. I don't blame you there. It's not necessarily a bad idea to back him up with another male. However, if you have the goal of producing a certain combo, I'd stick with the one male.