successful breeding tips if you have breed snakes before please take a look

Decensored’s Simple Guide to Breeding Ball Pythons:

Okay, so I figured this would be the easiest way to briefly explain the breeding process in regard to ball pythons. I won’t go into too much detail, as I don’t have pictures for step-by-step instructions but if I can find the time, I will put together a more complete guide. Keep in mind this isn’t the ONLY way to breed ball pythons, but this is how I do it, and I have had success.

#1. First and foremost there are a few things to consider when thinking about breeding ball pythons;

a) Size/ Breeding capability of your reptiles: There is ongoing debate about what the most appropriate time is to start breeding ball pythons. Males are relatively simple to breed, they can often start producing sperm plugs as early as a few months of age, and are often breed-able by 500 grams. This isn’t full proof though, some males may not breed until a year or two old, and some males will successfully breed at 300-400 grams. Your females require much more consideration. There is debate about whether a female is safe to breed at 1200 or 1500grams, and whether they should be 2 years or older. Females generally are sexually mature their 3rd winter. A safe way to decide whether your female is ready to pair is that they are 1500 grams or greater and have seen 3 winters or more (assuming they were born during the summer months).

b) Do you have a way to incubate your eggs? Maternal incubation is complex and often unsuccessful in most conditions relative to North America. Ambient temperature fluctuates more than is necessary for maternal incubation, so to help ensure that you have the greatest success it is important to have an incubator fired up and ready to go before you start the breeding process. I will go into greater detail on this subject later in the guide.

c) What are you going to do with all the babies? Keep in mind that a full grown adult female average clutches of 6 eggs, but clutches can range from 1-12 eggs. So let’s assume you have a clutch of 6 eggs, once those eggs hatch you are responsible for feeding 6 more snakes, housing them, and subsequently finding buyers for the snakes. If you have multiple clutches this can become an expense and time consuming endeavor.

It is important to take these things into consideration before making the decision to breed your snakes. The number one priority of any responsible reptile keeper should be the health and well being of the animals. It is paramount that you are ready for the responsibility that comes with breeding.

#2. So you have made the decision to breed, Congratulations! The first step to breeding, at least in the process I follow is the cool down period. I start this during the last week of October; however I have pushed it back to mid November if I think my females could use a few more feedings. I find my females will often start building follicles around October. Once they do this they will often go off feed on their own accord, although I continue to offer small meals up until ovulation in February-April. The cool down period lasts 1 month before I start to introduce males to the females. The temperature gradient I use when dropping the temps during the night is; cold side sits at 75 degrees, and the hot side sits at about 85 degrees with an ambient temperature somewhere in between. It is important to make sure that your females are healthy as cooler temperatures can increase the likely hood of contracting respiratory infections and can greatly impact the welfare of the animal during the breeding season.

#3. Breeding schedules: I generally breed at a 3 day interval. What this means is that I will introduce a male to a female’s enclosure and look for signs of courting. The female will often circle the bin, and the male will get as close as possible, and run his spurs over her. If you see this behavior it is a good sign that the pair will copulate and it is best to leave them alone. I will usually leave them alone for 3 days. However I check on them after two days and if they are not locked than I will remove the male and put him back in his own enclosure. Once the male is removed it’s important to give him some time off so that he can recover. Males have been known to breed themselves to death if left with a female for an extended period of time. After 3 days the male is ready to be reintroduced to the female, or can be paired with another female following the same schedule. Males can be successfully bred to as many as 8 females, although personally I don’t pair my males with more than 3 or 4 females to increase my chances of ovulation in each female. Some females will not take to some males and visa versa. Sometimes you can introduce the shed skin of another male to the female’s enclosure to encourage your sire to copulate with the female. I continue to offer food to both my males and females during the breeding season although I have found that they normally won’t take it.

#4. Ovulation: Usually in late February or early March I stop introducing the males and raise the temperatures back up to 80-90. Ovulation soon follows and can easily noticeable in females the further along they get. At first you will notice a swelling in the abdomen of the females. As they progress it will be easier to make out each individual egg. Before the female lays she will have a pre-lay shed. This usually takes place about 4 weeks before she will drop her eggs.

#5. Eggs/ Incubation: Once they female lays her eggs she will coil around them and protect them. Even the tamest snakes can become aggressive once they are sitting on their eggs. It is important to get them away from her as soon as possible to ensure a better chance at a successful clutch. Be prepared, as most females will strike at you when you try to take them off of their eggs. Once you get the eggs out you want to make sure that the eggs don’t turn at all, if an egg turns the developing snake may drown in the egg. From here there are two steps that you should already have completed in order to incubate.

a) Incubator: I use a wine cooler that has the compressor removed, heat tape wired to the back wall of the cooler and connected to a thermostat ( I use a herpstat 1), and a fan fixed to the top of the inside of the incubator to help keep a uniform temperature in the incubator. There is a hole in the bottom of the incubator that I feed all the wires though, but it is caulked around the wiring to ensure a unvarying temperature gradient inside the incubator of between 89-81 degrees. I set my incubator up 1 month before I am expecting eggs so that I can evaluate the heat gradients and ensure it’s in perfect working order before any eggs go into it.

b) Egg Boxes: I use a substrate less incubation method. Basically, this is a shoebox container made by sterilite, that has about 2 inches worth of perlite in the bottom. I add enough water so that the perlite is wet, but not so much that there is an excess of water sitting in the bottom of the shoebox ( This is usually about 3-4 cups of water). I use miracle grow perlite, as it is non toxic and I have had great success with it. On top of the perlite I lay a cut piece of egg crate grating (or light difuser). You can purchase this at home depot. The eggs get placed on top of the grate (being careful not to roll the eggs) and a sheet of glad press and seal is applied in between the box and the lid of the container to create an air tight seal in the egg box. This keeps the humidity constant inside the egg box. Once a week I will replace the press and seal in order to circulate the air inside the egg box and replenish the oxygen for the eggs.

#6. From the time the eggs are laid, it usually takes about 55-65 days for the eggs to hatch. I wait for the first baby snake to pip (break through the egg shell) before I cut the eggs. The purpose of cutting the eggs is to ensure that any baby, if for whatever reason, is lacking an egg tooth, that it will not die inside the egg before it can hatch. But it is very important that when you cut the eggs that you are very careful. If you cut too early you risk losing the snake, and if you cut too deep in the egg you risk cutting any unabsorbed blood vessels which can also effect the development of the snake. It can be a very difficult procedure for a novice breeder and I recommend watching as many videos on youtube and/or consulting with an experienced breeder before attempting this yourself.

#7. Once your eggs have hatched you can rinse off your babies under lukewarm water, and house them together in a single enclosure. This is recommended until their first shed which usually occurs between 10-14 days from their hatch date. Once the babies have shed you can separate them into their own enclosures. I usually wait another 3 or 4 days following their first shed to feed them. I start most of my babies off on live fuzzy rats and keep them on a 3 day feeding schedule. If you notice that a baby hasn’t shed or isn’t eating it can often be a sign of serious and often lethal ailments such as hard belly, and should be kept under close observation.

Well there you have it, a very brief overview of the breeding process. If anyone has any questions or would like further clarification, or has suggestions for things I should add feel free to PM me. :) Hope this helps. I will hopefully update this in the near future to include photographs, and possibly go into greater detail.

Cheers,
Chris.

Very good point! When I went I was looking for a light difuser and no one had any idea what I was talking about until an old guy spoke up and said I was looking for the egg crate and than everyone knew lol. I guess it depends on where you go but you are 100% right. It is a light difuser :)

thanks allot Chris. :D

one question i did some independent researcher like you guys said and allot of breeders do and don't cool down there snakes.
does the cool down help get them in the mood?

yes. It simulates the change in temperature in their natural environment during the winter months/ i.e. the breeding season. But there are many people who don't cool and have success as well so it really is a question of opinion. There are also people who have a level of control over their breeding facility's temperature where they can simulate a breeding season at any point in the year by using the cool down method. That's why you can see hatchlings entering the market in September, October, and sometimes as late as December.

All the information has been out there for a very long time. Many are just to lazy to search and read!;)

I actually had a hard time researching all the individual components to successful breeding. Reached out to a lot of experts for Q&A sessions, and had some trial and errors before I felt comfortable with the whole process. It would be beneficial to have a complete online step-by-step guide set up for easy reference. I'd like to do it but finding the time is the hard part. I'll continue to work on it, and hopefully when It's all done I'll open a new thread and perhaps we can get it stickied on the site for prospecting breeders. It's difficult to understand where to start and a lot of people, including myself, get over whelmed when the eggs are coming and we're still trying to figure out how to properly incubate. It took me weeks to understand how to set up an egg box.

Only stupid question or requests are ones that don't get asked. I'd rather answer the same question over and over than watch someone lose a years worth of work to poor planning.

Someone did do a guide: http://www.ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Someone did do a guide: http://www.ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html

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yeah that's markus jayne, his breeding facility is actually about 30 minutes away from mine lol.
Although all the information is there its relatively vague on some subjects.
It's missing steps about building incubators and egg boxes however.
That particular guide is what actually got me on the right track, still a lot of research needed to figure it out.
But his guide is probably one of the best that I have found.
Markus has some really awesome animals. quite an impressive operation he has going on. :)

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Originally Posted by cinnamonpython

one question i did some independent researcher like you guys said and allot of breeders do and don't cool down there snakes.
does the cool down help get them in the mood?

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you could put a male in with a female and do nothing else and get eggs. everything else we do just ups the odds.