Do you cool your ball pythons?

Hey I was just wondering how many people that breed ball pythons actually cool there breeders... Also how do you cool them, like do you only drop night temps or drop night and day temps together? Any advice would be appreciated as I'm thinking of breeding for the first time this year.

I usually just bump the thermostat down a couple degrees during breeding season. Best piece of advise I can give is make sure you pair them up every time a weather front moves through your area...that always seems to make them frisky...

Huh that kinda makes sense... so you don't lower the temps at all?

Not useful here but I wanna watch this posting:D

I have dropped Temps day/night previous years. But this year I am actually going with a different plan. I plan to keep temps the same maybe just a couple degrees lower during the day, and heat off at night. Maybe... Lol I have a friend who the past 10 years has had a 99-100% success rate. I'm still trying to find my zen. I'll be watching this thread bc I want to try something different this year.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

This is my first year, so I don't have a set way yet, but I have decided not to cool. I've read about quite a few people having success with it and I have a combo rack so I'd have to cool everybody and I only have 1 pair up to size this year.


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Ya I'm in the same boat I have 6 snakes in one rack and only one pair to breed so I don't really want to cool the whole rack... I also live in oregon and the temps in my room drop to 65-70 at night during the winter so I don't want to shut heat off at night. I'm also a college student and don't have the extra $135 to get a herpstat nd. So should I maybe drop my rack to the high 80's like 89 degrees instead of 92-93 it is now?

Last year I had my room thermostat run with a 3° variance instead of the normal 1° and had a night drop on my hot side to 88° and none of my non breeding snakes seemed to mind

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Haha seems like alot of us have multi-snake racks and only one pair ready for the season. Im curious to see where this goes.

I was planning on dropping my temps for all snakes from 92 to 82 starting oct. 1. Then on nov. 1 i was gonna start pairing up my couple. If dropping the temps really isnt required i might just start pairing them up a few days after there next feed.

When is everyone gonna start pairng up?

I've been pairing for a couple months now and never cooled. I have 1 pair of 6 that are of size so I don't want to cool everyone.

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Well my het pair I bought from a guy off craigs list, he seemed like a good guy not like he was trying to screw me over. He sold me them for $150 and he said they were from bob clark, they have nice markers but it's still a little sketchy buying hets with no paperwork or any prove. Anyway she went off feed for awhile (like 5 months) I got her on ASF's and she's been pounding them but she's only around 900 grams. Shes probably 4 feet, maybe a little longer, she's just skinny. So I'm probably not going to start pairing till atleast oct I might wait a little longer and start her late like nov idk anyone have any suggestion for that. Other than wait a year lol, I know if she doesn't get up to atleast 1200 I'll have to wait but the way she's been pounding the asfs I think I should be able to get her up to size. I just really want to prove them out, if they aren't pieds it's not the end of the world but I really don't want to wait another year to find out lol.

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Originally Posted by DakotaB

When is everyone gonna start pairng up?

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I am trying me my hardest to wait till Nov 1, but if the temps in my area keep cooling like they have been I may have no choice but to start in October.

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I've never cooled and I start pairing at the end of Oct. Never had a problem.

Well this morning just for the heck of it i introduced the two for the first time. Just to see how they got along. The female is very aggresive and almost 3 times the size of the male. But after a few hours they seem to be doing fine. Just coiled around each other.

I might just keep them together for the next few days then seperate and feed them. IDK ill see where this goes.

DakotaB I take it you are breeding normal to normal? why do that?

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Originally Posted by benwallage9

DakotaB I take it you are breeding normal to normal? why do that?

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To see what hatches out?

I just want to see if i can do this before i go into spending big money on morph breeders right now. Also i work at a petstore that doesnt carry reptiles and alot of people come in asking for normal BPs.

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Originally Posted by benwallage9

Huh that kinda makes sense... so you don't lower the temps at all?

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I drop my thermostat down a few degrees and leave it at that. Room still stays upper 70's to low 80's...It's a great room to hang out in during the winter months...:D

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Originally Posted by sho220

To see what hatches out?

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wouldn't you just get normals? I mean if they aren't hets or dinkers or any reason to think that they would be anything but normal why breed? There are way to many normals out there why make more?

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Originally Posted by DakotaB

I just want to see if i can do this before i go into spending big money on morph breeders right now. Also i work at a petstore that doesnt carry reptiles and alot of people come in asking for normal BPs.

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Ok thats legit I thought you were just breeding them cuz you can

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Originally Posted by sho220

I drop my thermostat down a few degrees and leave it at that. Room still stays upper 70's to low 80's...It's a great room to hang out in during the winter months...:D

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So you have a basking spot of like 88 instead you low 90's? has this worked well for you? It seems to make more sense to me to low temps all the time instead of just night temps.

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Originally Posted by benwallage9

Ok thats legit I thought you were just breeding them cuz you can

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Yeah this year was strictly a trial run for me. So nothing major. But if it goes well im going to be pushing for a Nuclear Spider next year.

Just a few degrees. None of our non breeders seem to mind at all.

I don't cool. I just let the ambient room temp drop.

I pretty much do what the others here seem to do...it's just a few degrees...I'm not even sure it it does anything or if they even notice...

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Originally Posted by benwallage9

wouldn't you just get normals? I mean if they aren't hets or dinkers or any reason to think that they would be anything but normal why breed? There are way to many normals out there why make more?

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You never know...there's weird stuff popping up all the time...I see people posting pics all the time of weird looking babies from supposed normal parents...

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Originally Posted by DakotaB

Yeah this year was strictly a trial run for me. So nothing major. But if it goes well im going to be pushing for a Nuclear Spider next year.

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Ya that kind of what i'm doing with my het pieds... Whats a nuclear spider?

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Originally Posted by sho220

You never know...there's weird stuff popping up all the time...I see people posting pics all the time of weird looking babies from supposed normal parents...

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Ya thats true there are so crazy dinkers out there

This is a Nuclear Spider. It was just produced for the first time this year.
http://pythonregius.com/images/produ...Spider1649.jpg


Spider x Butter x Fire

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Originally Posted by DakotaB

This is a Nuclear Spider. It was just produced for the first time this year.
http://pythonregius.com/images/produ...Spider1649.jpg


Spider x Butter x Fire

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Thats pretty sweet I like how you can easily see the fire butter and spider influence. Some of the bps coming out now are so difficult to see what morphs are exactly in them

I'm in Minnesota, and don't adjust my thermostat at all. The room temps are lower which lowers the cool side some during the winter. So not anything I "do" but I guess they are cooled kind of. Seems to be more "natural"? Works for them I guess, I just got my third clutch this year today.

I don't cool my collection Mother nature does it for me... :D Where I am located in the northeast I have found that my reptile room gets cooled naturally when the season's change. The only thing I do is adjust the light cycles and lower all temps 1-2 degree's at most for my breeder's. By following the wonderful New England weather I have never had to do more than that and have had 100% lay rate from females I intended to breed.... This works for me for the climate I'm in but if I was somewhere else I would still cool them as I find better lay rates when they do.. :gj:

we sleep with the window open usually. we have corns, balls, and rainbows, but they're all used to night drops so we just let the window do it's thing.

mind you, we've only had 1 successful clutch of BP eggs hatch so far, and that was last year. we had another clutch go bad, after the female kept them inside for 85 days post-ovulation! we have another clutch in the bator that is looking FANTASTIC actually!

so don't take my word on it, but i don't think it's major weather or not you cool

i didnt do..but work well so far.

Definitely!!! Night and day temps are cooler for breeders.

The one time I didn't cool a bunch of females I got over 50 slugs...Won't do that again!

I have had several females lay perfect clutches of eggs being kept at night time temps around 74 and day temps about 85.

IMO heat is a follicles worst enemy!

I live in Florida and have only been breeding for 2 years but I don't lower any temps but cages get a little lower when the fronts move through it just gets naturally lower temps. I have hatched 44 good eggs with no slugs in the 2 years of breeding and I usually start pairing when that first good weather front comes through.

i do not cool. the room itself gets slightly cooler come fall\winter but the temp on the hot spot stays the same.

Cooled our first year, had decent results. Didn't cool last year and the results were anything but spectacular. I think living in Arizona may have had more of an impact on the need for cooling as opposed to everyone speaking up from the midwest and east coast. Going back to cooling this year, so that they get the hint that breeding season starts in November rather than February when it finally gets cool around here for about a week.

That being said, will probably only be dropping night time temps and keeping daytime temps normal or at least within a few degrees of normal.

I thought it is necessary for burmation to cool your BP for breeding?

Lance

When I last bred them I never cooled them and it didn't dissuade the snakes one bit. 4 out of 4 females produced clutches.

First year breeding I have 3 snakes as of right now. I am going to follow this recipe. http://www.jkobylkareptiles.com/pdfs...hedule_Doc.pdf (He has had success and hoping I do.) Hope this kinda helps.

In the beginning I dropped temps on my thermostat's and it seemed work just fine. The only problem I ran into was that I had animals that I wasn't breeding in the same racks and the lower temps seemed to effect their eating, many slowed down and other's went totally off food.
So I did this for two or three years and then last year I didn't touch the thermostats but rather cooled the room so as to get their cool spot colder i.e. down in to the upper 70's. What I noticed was that I could tell who was really doing what. Females that were breeding but hugging their warm spot I didn't even bother to palpate. I would see females breed and never move off of their warm spot for weeks then boom! they have that belly pressed against the cold end of that tub they'd stay there for weeks even months and once I saw them move back to the hot side I knew to watch for an OVY soon. This allowed me to let the females develop at their pace on their schedule and not mine. As a result I only saw 5 slugs out of 78 eggs this year. Do I cool them down..no but I let them cool themselves as they need and want to. The other thing this does is for the animals that aren't breeding in that rack they aren't deprived of heat so they eat through the winter and do just fine.

Hope that helps.