Is it absolutely necessary to cool during breeding season?

Hi everyone,

I am a first time ball python breeder, and I need advice about cooling during winter months. Basically I have read differing opinions, and it seems like people have success cooling and not cooling. I have a ten level rack, with belly heat provided by flexwatt hooked to a basic thermostat. I maintain a hot spot in the mid 90's in one end, with a cool end in the high 70's. I currently have a timer on the lights, and I am providing a 12/12 photoperiod. If I decide to cool at night i want to automate the process but as of now I have not found a "night drop" controller for my thermostat. Would completely removing belly heat at night with a timer be an appropriate way to cool at night, or should I just leave the normal temperatures? Essentially I am asking if people get good results without cooling, and if it is a common practice. Sorry if this is convoluted, I appreciate any help.

Josh

I can only speak from experience and I have tried both cooling and not cooling. I have had good success with cooling my animals down. The only thing that I have seen that is different is my males don't seem to be very interested in females when they are not cooled. I think that is has to do with the cool down causing some hormonal release that not only helps them produce sperm but also that will also cause more interest in females. I don't know how true that is but that is what I equate it to.

I normally cool my snakes down to between 78 and 81 with no hot spot only for 12 hours at night during the breeding season.

Just me experience, I hope that this helps. :D

People have had plenty of success both ways. Some do and some don't.

If your cool side is in the high 70's I would not try cooling. I dont cool at all, their cool side gets cooler because of the natural temperature change but I never ever ever drop my warm side below 88.

Their heat tape goes off at night. Their temps go down to about 78 degrees.

I never have cooled, I always leave the UTH's on. The room temp during the Winter gets cooler at night so maybe that might be some form of cooling.

Last season I was successful and this season I have females and males locking up great every time I pair them right now :gj:.

I sometimes mist them just once, but I don't do that too often. Usually pairing them right after a meal gets me the best breeding results, but that's how my snakes are.

I only cool naturally. In Winter when the cold fronts and storms come through their room gets colder so the ambient temps in their enclosures also lowers. This is when I begin pairing.

I don't cool, I let the ambient temps drop in the room, but leave my flexwatt the same. Last year I bred 4 girls, 3 of which were virgins and all 4 girls went for me. One of the virgins slugged out, but she still bred for me.

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Originally Posted by SlitherinSisters

I don't cool, I let the ambient temps drop in the room, but leave my flexwatt the same. Last year I bred 4 girls, 3 of which were virgins and all 4 girls went for me. One of the virgins slugged out, but she still bred for me.

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im with you. i dont cool the racsk, but i drop the ambient temps in the room.
spooky

Pythons do not need to brumate.

I cooled the last two seasons and was not going to this year. I have noticed that my animals are progressing a lot slower without the cooling process. In short, I'm going to start my night drops again as of tonight. To each his own though.

I've done both (even during the same breeding season) and got less breeding, fewer clutches and more slugs when I didn't cool. I now turn the heat tapes down 10 degrees at night for 10 weeks. There is also a natural cooling during the winter. I've had no negative effects from cooling at night and it gave me better results so I stick with it. I'm not saying cooling is "absolutely necessary" but it definietly works better here.

You can probably ask 10 people how they breed and you'll get 10 different answers...

I used to cool--the effect was that i would get one or two RIs over the winter. I read up on it, and stopped cooling.
It's had 0 effect on fertility, on male interest, or on how many females lay, so I have no plans to ever cool again.
Some years are better for breeding than others, and I suspect the weather has much to do with that. This past season was terrible, and we had massive flooding in the area. This season so far is great, with most of my females already locking. (Never had any issues with my males breeding, so long as the females are ready. Even my first timers got right to it, with only a couple weeks hesitation from the youngest).

It makes sense...if there is flooding, then eggs would not likely survive, in the wild. Normal storms passing through raise moisture, which means more prey and better conditions for incubating, so ball pythons like storms (we knew that). Drought means little prey--my guess is that they won't breed well in a drought, either. Be very interesting to track all of this.

The basement does get cooler in the winter, but not consistently. I keep the heat tape/cord at about 92F year round. I use natural ambient light from the windows, so it's always dim, but they know when the sun rises and sets.

I did a very interesting experiment this season, I dropped the temps on one of my girls, and just for poop and giggles didn't on the other much larger girl that I had rescued earlier in the year. TADA both were crawling all over the male tapping their tales within 5 minutes the female I hadnt cooled was in lock with the male and within 15 minutes the other female was in lock with the male. Lucky? The older female was just really ready to breed? IDK all I know is I have 2 potentially gravid females because they are no longer accepting the male. :banana::banana::banana::banana: