pair flopping about inside the tub

Is it normal that after putting the male and the female together that during courtship they are flopping about? I have paired the male to 3 females in a cycle 3 days on 3 off since Nov 1st. They have locked up multiple times.
The last two times with this female I did not witness a lock, but perhaps they did. In the past I didn't hear anything nor see anything I just put them together and a few hours later saw they locked.

Now, I just put the male with the female and this time immediately they were flopping about inside. I heard flop sounds repeatedly like the tub was shaken. I also saw them cruising around on the ventilation holes (my tubs are opaque grey). I opened the tub and they sat still, but already peed all over. I saw the female on top of the male and it was the male who "pushed" the female off him and made a flopping sound.

I never saw this before and I have been pairing since november the 1st.

i have same story last season,find out my nice pastel female is male :tears: and they lock for couple times before
yep,male to male lock until i think they figure out:)

Yeah it might be worth re-sexing them.

I would re-sex the "female"

Sounds like male combat to me too...

I have a male pied that will sometimes display that type of behavior. He is definitely a male with a female who laid the year before (both proven breeders). If it is a violent reaction, knocking around the water bowl, etc. then remove the male and give him a break for a day then re-introduce. However, be sure to re-sex the female just to be sure.

I have put the male alone now. I will recheck the female in a couple days but I want to let them rest first after all this action. If a mistake was made, then let them rest a couple days won't make a difference anyway as my 1800 gram lesser would not be useful for my project and probably won't sell for much at all. Of course I love it as a pet but with limited rack space I may have to let it go, but I have grown attached to it. Man this ..., they had locked consistently every pairing for over a month...

I am a little worried, that if you guys are right and that is a male, then who won? Will my prized male if he lost not want to breed anymore? I have a feeling that this is not the first time this has happened, because the last two or three pairings with this "female" I did NOT see nor hear any "fighting" but when I opened the box the next day it was a huge mess and the water bowl overturned etc. So that would mean that male has been left with the "female" which may be male, and has fought a few times, for up to a day or two, without me knowing. He HAS locked up with my other female since then though, in fact, just before this one.

I had asked about it before when this happened both on forums and emailed a respected breeder privately and everyone told me to keep pairing that they do pee all over when breeding and things like nothing wrong with a little WWE action during love etc. etc.

This is my first year breeding and of course mistakes are made, but man this would be a bummer is that was a male. I only have a few snakes to breed that are up to size and I worked all year to get them that size. I bought this female at 1000 grams and she wasn't the best feeder and took a year got her to 1800 grams. She only eat live too.

I am not experienced with sexing snakes, although I do it under super vision of my experience friend each time I buy a snake, and he double checks me. This snake has been checked by the breeder (well known), myself, and my experienced friend when it first arrived. It would be really a bummer if it was still mis-sexed and I am quite frankly worried whether many of my other snakes are mis-sexed as quite a few of the females being raised up are from that breeder and checked by myself and my friend in the same way.

Before buying, I had looked the guy up on the "boards of inquiry" also and always multiple posts of the guy being good guy. I got two female lessers from him, and they are both on breeding cycle. I have one male and 3 females breeding this year. The other female is a pinstripe that I got from a local guy who just bought it and sold it as a pet. The thing is, for BOTH these lesser females gotten from there, they locked consistently with the male for over a month, but starting the last two or three pairings, they did not lock. This is the first time I saw "fighting" but for both these lesser females, the last few tries of pairing resulting in no locks seen, which does not mean no lock occured I know. But I saw the "fighting" with this one, and the other one I did not see a fight, but the tub was a mess with pee all over and bowl overturned too, much more mess than with this one.

Don't worry about who "won". The male will still breed and in fact, may breed more readily than before. Also, it is a good idea to learn to sex snakes if you are going to breed. Get a good set of probes and learn to pop and probe. That way, you can be sure of what you have and what you are selling. Good luck!

I may add too, that for all the times that my pewter male has locked up with those two lesser "females", it was always the pewter male's tail UNDER the "females" tail. I know that males can lock up, but wouldn't that be a conincidence?

I really should go ahead and just probe all my snakes now, but I am feeling really kind of bummed out so not tonight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Don

Don't worry about who "won". The male will still breed and in fact, may breed more readily than before. Also, it is a good idea to learn to sex snakes if you are going to breed. Get a good set of probes and learn to pop and probe. That way, you can be sure of what you have and what you are selling. Good luck!

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I DID learn to sex snakes. I have a set of probes and I sexed all my snakes when they arrived. I just had my experienced friend watch me as I do it as I am not confident and also to double check me. I think that is a good idea, no? I learned to pop too but I can only pop babies I can not pop adults properly. I don't have THAT many snakes to practice on as I am just starting out, and it is probably not a good idea to probe every snake many times. So I have been trying my best.

Every time I had probed the snakes under my friend's supervision, I had gotten the sex that it was sold as immediately. Of the two males I had, both probed deep my first try. I am very surprised especially since my friend double checked me and he has been keeping and breeding since years before I met him, and I met him six years ago.

i wish you a female,i know how much work is bring her up to weight

With regards to the male will still breed, I always thought that for those who "battled" males, the winner would breed more readily, but the loser may get so depressed that he don't ever breed again? The "female" is 1800 grams, but the male is only 1120 grams.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by REBELLMORPH

i wish you a female,i know how much work is bring her up to weight

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Thank you. But is it possible at all given the "battling" that it is one male one female? I have my probes and really I should just probe them to get this over with. I just am not confident without my friend there watching me, even though its not like he holds my hands while doing it, I guess its a mental thing. He really helped me a lot he helped me when I built my racks help me look for snakes with genes I need, he used to supply me with live rats when he was breeding them before and a few times helped me get non-feeding snakes back on feed. When I have to leave the country for work for a couple weeks he takes care of my animals, even buying the rats himself. All for free. He even bought me flexwatt and bought me my thermostats. I am very thankful that I know I have such a good friend, but perhaps this means that I am relying on him a little too much which may be slowing my own learning curve.

if some of my females probe 3-4 scales deep then i will pop the snake just to be sure

to pop the 1800g. snake do it same way like the baby's but you have to push little harder and repeat couple time's

if my males lose the fight in "combat" they will breed just fine
good luck

Roll not push, you roll the hemipenes out :)

Sounds a lot like 2 males fighting, although some strong males will fight with a female if she's trying to hold him down, it rarely lasts for more than a few seconds of tussling.

I would practice popping sub adult males, it won't hurt them for you to pop them several times a week practicing, especially if you are rolling out the hemipenes instead of pushing them out.

Good luck, I hope she is a "she" :gj:

x2
yep,roll :)

At this point I'm not so much concerned about my breeding projects or any financial loss. I just hope that they are both alright and no one got hurt emotionally. They seem physically fine.

I'll go ahead and "roll" them after I take a trip to McDonalds to eat away my own emotions.

Well I probed and popped a few snakes just now including the ones in question.

Whereas I was only able to pop babies before, I find that I can now pop my 1200 gram snakes. However, for the two snakes 1800 grams or over, I just can not seem to do it. I think it is because I am only able to pop with my thumb longitudinally aligned with my snake, so I am rocking my thumb, rolling towards my thumb tip. I can't seem to roll with my thumb horizontal to the snake. As such, since my thumb surface isn't that far, I can't roll far enough for the bigger snakes.

I also probed them. Whereas before, I only probed the one side because I am right handed, this time I probed both sides. In the snake talked about in this post, on the right side it probed 1 subcaudal scale. On the left side it probed a little over 3 subcaudal scales....

It could mean that it is a female, or it could mean that I just suck at sexing snakes.

try again:)
pop the big mama

Sure I should do that right away? Every instruction I see say don't keep doing it you could hurt it and to try and let them rest. Although people on forums have said that you can't hurt them as easily as they make it sound.

Sometimes as I'm popping the smaller females I see their scent glands are white with a little pink but occasionally they get a little red so I am afraid.

What if it WERE a female. What then? Why they fighting?

Just out of curiosity, if you ended up putting two females together, what would happen? Fight too?

i think BP female x female will not "combat" fight but they can stress very easily
but good Q
can you post detail pics of the tail,we will try guess

Well thanks, I will try to send detail pics of the tail in a couple of days because I can't even pop him/her out, much less be able to take a pic of him/her while popped with two hands. I would need a friend over to do that at least. Regardless, they are separate now and I will not put those two together until I get further confirmation if that is a female.

When I probed tonight it was "female", one side one scale, the other about 3.5 scales. As for popping, I went through all my snakes that were not in shed, and every one I now popped and got the sex that they were sold to me as (I can even pop with my thumb across the snake now, not just along), except those two females as they are the largest at roughly 1800 grams each. Seems their tail seems "harder" with more muscle and I can't pop it out. Nothing comes out, the cloaca barely opens. I do have a 1500 gram that I did not try actually, but everything 1200 grams or below, I popped and got the result expected.

I am a little concerned about hurting the snakes while popping. How would one tell if you managed to hurt the snake?

Also, if he/she was indeed a female, what would explain the behaviour that I saw? It was very instant. I had put them in the past together and the last few times they did not lock, but made a mess. However, this last time as soon as I put the male in there it was INSTANT fighting. I must say that I had removed the male from another female's enclosure (they had locked) and immediately put him into the second one's tub and they fought.

Well today the snake was popped and probed by someone experienced, and is surely a female.

So my only question is, why are they fighting?

if you are worried about hurting the snake while popping you are doing it wrong.
You roll the tail up while holding your thumb on the opposite side of the cloaca.

Best video I've seen showing it done correctly ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPmIpc_gP9I

LOL Ralph Davis is quite entertaining

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrLang

LOL Ralph Davis is quite entertaining

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He's a character alright :P

At this point, if you're still doubting the sex of the female, I would take her to a herp vet and have them quick confirm the sex.

A female could still wrestle with the male. I think a little time off and then pairing again is the best solution. If a ball python isn't used to having a roommate, and then that roommate starts putting the moves on them, it could be a source of stress. (I've started introducing all my pairs to one another in mid-summer, because they seem to get to it faster if they're already used to each other.)

And don't worry about the male "losing". I've had males wrestle in the past, and the smart money is always on Floyd, my 2007 het lavender, regardless of the size of his competitor. But the other males all do seem to be more enthusiastic about mating after going a round with Floyd.

No I am not confused about the sex anymore. I got an experienced person to pop and probe the snake and it is sure a female today to confirm. I am just wanting to know why they were fighting.

Sure she may feel not used to it that another snake put in there, but they already paired before and locked for a month, I don't think it's that reason?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

if you are worried about hurting the snake while popping you are doing it wrong.
You roll the tail up while holding your thumb on the opposite side of the cloaca.

Best video I've seen showing it done correctly ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPmIpc_gP9I

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That is a good video, funny too.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

I've never seen an actual female combat with a male. Ever. Everytime I've seen that, its been male to male.
Just saying sexing popping an probing can be done wrong.
If you are totally confident, I have no idea why a male and female would do that. I would suggest placing perhaps another male and seen if the same things happen.


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

Well at what point do you just assume that it is male even though it pops and probes female? She has now been popped and probed by four different people now, all saying definitely female.

I just had a male and female have a little battle last night(yes, I am absolutely sure of the sexes)...I really don't know why they'd do it, and I'm not all that concerned about it. They've locked before, I'm sure they will again.

As for "feelings" being hurt, don't worry about it...they really don't have any.