trying different length cooling periods

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Originally Posted by MarkS

I put my snakes together pretty much throughout the entire year. Just keep records on who laid when. I've gotten eggs as close together as 9 months apart from the same female. Keep an eye on the weather. I like to pair my snakes up when a storm is approaching. They seem to breed better with a drop in the barometric pressure. It makes sense since they mainly breed during the rainy season in the wild. Also, since these animals are native to the equatorial region of Africa, they don't have a natural cooling period OR a seasonal reduction in light levels so cooling them doesn't actually make any sense.

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see that makes sense to me that its something other than temps that trigger them to do there thing , its got to be several different factors , i wonder if anybody has ever tryed a humidity spike instead of a cooling period , maybe keeping the humidity a little low for a bit then jump it up to normal or maybe a little higher than normal ,simulating the humidity that would come with a wet season , i dont know , that might be a dumb idea, but could be worth a try who knows, i also read that some people put several males togeather when its getting close to the right time, sounds like it gets um all sauced up ready for action

In the ball pythons natural environment, they basically have two seasons. A rainy season and a dry season. The rainy season is a season of growth where the plant life flourishes as well as the animals that eat the plants and the animals that eat those animals. In the wild, a lot of the breeding occurs early in the rainy season so that eggs are hatching later on in the year when game is most plentiful.

Thats why pairing your animals up while in a low pressure zone before the approach of a storm is so effective. Misting is also a good idea. I use a hand sprayer that you can get at any plant store to mist my snakes. Although I mainly do it because it gets so dry here in the wintertime, I'm sure it probably helps in the breeding process too and will often spray them down when I put them together.

Our first breeding season we did cool for about a month. One of our breeder girls spent that entire month living in her water bowl & developed a nasty RI. As a result, this season we didn't cool at all. We began pairing in early November... as of today there is a a clutch in the incubator, 2 girls within days of laying, another 2 coming into their ovy sheds & 2 more with follicles. I don't think we will bother with the cooling cycle again...