If up to weight, would you breed a 1 year old female?

I'm still torn on my opinion about breeding young or small females. Ultimately I guess what is meant to happen will happen. If she is not ready then she won't produce any eggs. I haven't heard of any females dying from breeding attempts but I suppose some could not be ready yet, get stressed and immunocompromised, and get sick in one way or another. Another downside would be if she produced a clutch of slugs, or mosly slugs, then that was pretty much a wasted breeding attempt, and wasted months that you could have been feeding her regularly to get more size on her. Also I'm going to make a generalized observation that smaller females lay less eggs than larger ones, so would you rather have a small clutch sooner or a larger clutch later? I'm not sure if there are any dry cut right or wrong answers here, but those are just some thoughts of mine.

I voted yes but I would not suggest that a first time breeder should breed all of his or her 1yr olds if they were heavy enough. As pointed out by a few others in this thread I would use my judgement and I would also feel for follicles. If the female in question is up to a healthy breeding weight, developing follicles and she is other wise healthy then she is telling you she is ready.

Ok here's my two little cents. The weight is only 1-3rd of the equation when it comes to breeding. As has been said before sexual maturity is another part. The other thing to look at is that Balls loose between 1/4th and 1/2 of their body weight when they lay eggs. I had a 3200 gram girl drop to 1500 grams after laying this year. Now you put all that stress on a younger female add in the weight loss and you might run in to problems. Then again you might not. You have to ask your self am I comfortable enough and knowledgeable with breeding and these animals in general to spot and handle a problem should one arise. IF the answer is no then its best to wait. That girl isn't going any where so why rush.

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Originally Posted by kellysballs

I voted yes but I would not suggest that a first time breeder should breed all of his or her 1yr olds if they were heavy enough. As pointed out by a few others in this thread I would use my judgement and I would also feel for follicles. If the female in question is up to a healthy breeding weight, developing follicles and she is other wise healthy then she is telling you she is ready.

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I agree with this. I actually have a 1050 gram het pied girl that I may breed this season. I am going to wait until around February or so to put her with my pied male. I will only breed the two if the male is producing sperm at the time, and if the female has follicles. I will not if the two conditions are not met.

We bred one of our 06 girls at around 1400 grams last Feb. She gave us 4 good eggs this year and is back on track eating and I'm hoping to gauge if she is receptive to a male early in 09.

We also bred our 1500 gram female (WC gravid- unknown age), and she gave us 5 good eggs, one tiny weird veined boob egg and one slug.

Both of these females went off feed on their own accord. We did not cool them, introduce males, hold food.... NOTHING. They began to produce follicles, remained off feed, hugged the cool side of the tub, so we took that oppurtunity to see if they were receptive to a male, and they took.

They were bred for a few months, from Feb-April. We got eggs in early June (Jun 5), they all hatched in September.

So, it's worth it to step back and let the females tell YOU when they are ready to breed rather than relying on their weight as the key decider in whether or not they want or can breed and lay successfully.

I would say wait untill her second or third winter. just because she is up to weight does NOT mean she is ready. Giving birth in any way is really really hard on any mommy.

She might not take, but if she's up to weight I don't think it will hurt anything to try pairing her up.

i thought they weren't sexually mature until they are 3

They are typically sexually mature earlier than by age three. A lot of people feel most comfortable waiting until the third winter and at least 1500g for the females.

If they went off feed and showed all the usual signs then I would give it a go.