breeding weight

For the females I like to wait till they are 1500 +.

For males I'm still playing around with the weight, but most say wait till over 500 +.

I would like to wait until my female is back to a healthy weight... she seems to still be a bit on the porky side. She has vet apt. on Thursday. She doesn't feel fat, she is pushing 5 and a half feet, nice and toned if you ask me but well see what the vet says.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Both weight and age are important, however I personally believe that age is the more important of the two. I've produced several nice clutches from females that were more then three years old but less then 1100 grams. It depends on the individual. Some are just small and always will be no matter how much you feed them.

Mark

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I had a 3 year old female that was barely over 1200 give me 5 perfect eggs this last season all 5 hatched 60-65gram babies. She has been eating med. rats every week since 2 weeks after she laid and just weighed in at 1250 and is looking good to go again this year.

I remember when I first got into bps that most of the caresheets I read said 1200g was the minimum. I personally think thats way too small unless you have a 4 year old snake that just wont grow any larger. I personally think that 1500 is the smallest a female should be. Thats what I am waiting for atleast I have a few hundred grams for my remaining females to get their But I am not in a rush I have 2 other females that are plenty big enough. One being 1800g and the other being about 2500g.

I found this extremely useful, I also like reading why everyone prefers one weight over another. I adopted 4 female ball pythons recently all between 1179-1814grams. Three of them are about 5+ years old. So I'll keep in mind all of the weights I've heard today, and of course the weight of the male involved for this winter and see if we can breed. =)