Is my male "faking it"?

Hi,


Bear with me if this is a stupid question as it's my first year trying to breed my royal pythons.

I first noticed my male royal breeding with my biggest female on the 31 st as I saw them in what looked like the "lock " position.

So I left him in the tank with the females ( I normally house the 3 females in one tank and had put him in while I was spring cleaning his - hadn't thought about the breeding thing as I didn't cool them down in the winter but had lowered the daylight hours).

The thing is I have now seen him in the lock position with 2 of the females but have never found any "splooge" on the paper substrate. The thing that confuses me most is he keeps mating with the big female - he was in the lock position again today when I cleaned out the tank but they parted really quickly and I couldn't see any sign of his hemipenes.:oops:

I was fairly certain I saw a mid-body swelling in both the larger female royals but they have now returned to normal and the largest one has shed on the 22nd of april.However I thought they would stop mating once they were gravid? I have tried to gently feel for lumps in the back third of the snakes but can't feel anything at all. Both the females and the male stopped eating rats ( biggest female last ate on the 17th of april - but she was patchy at feeding anyway and had eaten 4 rats , 1 every monday , in a row so I wasn't bothered. And the middle female refused her rat on the 24th april but did eat a full grown mouse on the 1st of may ) the male now seems to be eating mice (I chain fed him 3 adults on the 1st as he was looking a little skinny to me ) but won't look at his normal half grown rat :confused:

The main question I have is ;

Could he just be "going through the motions" without actually doing the deed?

I keep looking at the incubator I have running ( though I'm expecting cornsnake eggs so it's not like I'm wasting electricity for nothing if the royals dont breed ) and wondering if I will ever look in and see little royal heads peeking back at me. :(

I'm also wondering about the reliability of the shed cycle as they were not cooled down and kept eating all winter.


Any advice ?


dr del

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Originally Posted by dr del

I thought they would stop mating once they were gravid?

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I always wondered about this myself..

I'm not really sure about your other questions, but I'm sure of one thing- housing multiple snakes in the same enclosure is a source of stress for each snake and would almost certainly affect their breeding behavior, probably with ill affects.

One snake, one cage. There's a reason why RDR and NERD and BHB have huge rack systems to house them individually and not just one big "ball pit," which is essentially what you have going on.

Hi elevatethis,

I know you are correct about the one snake on enclosure rule but I am currently unemployed and can't really afford the materials to build and equip 2 more cages. :oops:

The "Ball pit" just kind of evolved over the years as people kept giving me snakes they could no longer keep. The tank itself is 6 foot by 2 by 3 with hides all over the place so takes up a fair whack of room and I didn't want to move them into tiny enclosues ( I dont really have any more room and don't know how to go about building a stacked 6 foot tank materials and strength wise yet).The three females have been sharing the viv for 6 years now - all feeding in my collection is done in a different tank I keep just for that purpose, a small 2 footer someone donated with a 5 foot corn snake in it.

In a possible update to the breeding question I found a blood spot near the big female this morning (she hardly ever moves from her fave cork hide at the cool end lately) it's kind of half blob / half smear so I dunno what to make of it.

Naturally I visually checked all snakes and can find no trace of injury - though the male hissed at me which was sweet.

All my tanks are in my living room (the only room I tend to keep heated ) so I'm not really keen on the look of a rack system - plus in scotland you need more than a heat pad to keep up the temps and I dont know whether the heat cable available over here could do it either? Any advice on that would also be appreciated.All my tanks at the moment use ceramic bulbs as the main source with a supplemental heat pad mounted on a back wall, with uvb bulbs - I know the snakes don't need it But it makes them look good and I figured it couldn't hurt.


dr del

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I know you are correct about the one snake on enclosure rule but I am currently unemployed and can't really afford the materials to build and equip 2 more cages. :oops:

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what are you going to do with the babies if you get them to hatch? Throw them in with the adults?

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The tank itself is 6 foot by 2 by 3 with hides all over the place so takes up a fair whack of room and I didn't want to move them into tiny enclosues

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Ball pythons LOVE tight spaces. You would not be doing them any injustice by moving them to a smaller space.

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with uvb bulbs - I know the snakes don't need it But it makes them look good and I figured it couldn't hurt.

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Not only do they not need it, it tends to stress them out. You realize that they are nocturnal, righ? I'd recommend you keep them on only while you view them for short periods of time.

I'm really not sure where to go with this, but it just seems irresponsible to take in snakes without the means to care for them properly. Simply throwing them in a large enclosure to fend for themselves is not healthy for the snakes in the long run. Good luck with them.

Hi again elevatethis,

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what are you going to do with the babies if you get them to hatch? Throw them in with the adults?

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No I will probably pass them on to the local herp shop,If you re-read my initial post you will see it wasn't a planned breeding.I also feel that temporarily housing a hatchling is easier than permanently housing a 5.5 foot adult.

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Ball pythons LOVE tight spaces. You would not be doing them any injustice by moving them to a smaller space.

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What size would you recomend? I had assumed it would need a minimum of 3 foot by two just to be able to thermoregulate and have a waterbowl and a couple of hides. Coiled up 2 of my females are around 12 - 14 inch diameter circle if this helps you work out the sizes, with the smaller one only being 4 foot long.

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Not only do they not need it, it tends to stress them out. You realize that they are nocturnal, righ? I'd recommend you keep them on only while you view them for short periods of time.

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You realise they have sunshine in africa right? :P Sorry, that was unfair, but I couldn't resist :oops:

Yes I know they are nocturnal and use opaque hides for that reason.If you don't use lighting how do you compensate for the lack of "daylight hours reduction" some of the books I have recomend to bring them into breeding condition ? (the ball python manual by Philipe de Vosjoli for example).

I'm sorry you find my housing conditions so intolerable :( .The snakes at least have been eating and growing well (from hatchlings in 2 cases) for 10 years.

The only exception to that rule was my male who was force fed for 2 and a half years in a shop before they gave up and gave him to me - he started eating 3 months later and has bin eating defrosted rats since ( 4 years) until this whole breeding thing happened.



dr del

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Originally Posted by dr del

I am currently unemployed and can't really afford the materials to build and equip 2 more cages. :oops:

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So, put an ad in the paper, sell the 55g tank, use the proceeds to purchase 4 large sterilite bins with lids and then go to an office supply store and get some binder clips to hold the lids on. (about 30 bucks probably)

Then get some flexwatt and a thermostat.... on a budget, you could also use a rheostat... (dimmer) On a budget, this would cost you about $20-30 bucks.

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Originally Posted by dr del

In a possible update to the breeding question I found a blood spot near the big female this morning (she hardly ever moves from her fave cork hide at the cool end lately) it's kind of half blob / half smear so I dunno what to make of it.

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Use the search feature to the forum to look up blood smears. It has been said in many different threads that breeding males sometimes drag their "junk" across the floor of the enclosure. It is also possible that an "aggresive" shed has occured, and bleeding from the vent could be a non-dangerous result of that.

Keep in mind that continued arguing about how you think it would be "okay" or "better" or "its worked for the past eleventeen years" or other coments like that about keeping all of your poor snakes together will not change anyone's mind on this forum. One snake, one cage is a mantra around here because everyone firmly believes it. Besides... if you're on a budget and you're unemployed, then smaller cheaper enclosures would probably be cheaper. Not to mention the heating costs in the long run. Four strips of flexwatt would probably take up far less electricity than your CHE and the UVB light.

Good luck!

hi,

Ok I will go google sterlite and flexwatt - because I'm in scotland and have never heard of either.Bear in mind I used to work in a repltile shop ( mind you it was about 9 years ago ) so they must have different brandnames over here or something.

The tank they are in is constructed out of wood and a glass sliding front and probably has the resale value of 0 assuming it fits through the door ( I built it in situ).

I realize if the heating worked a kind of rack system could be built very cheaply I just didnt want something looking like a cross between a snake colditz and a rubbish heap in my living room if I could avoid it :oops:

Would this flexwatt be able to cope with the temperature variations we get in scotland ? - it is for example 18 degrees c in the rest of my house and 21 in the living room and we call this a warm spell at the start of our summer. :)

I've always been slightly worried by UTH as I have previously seen some snakes burned by malfunctioning heat pads.Though the male I have was badly burned by coiling round an ungaurded light bulb as a hatchling by the people who gave him to the local herp shop I got him from so basically any unregulated/gauded heat source is dangerous I guess.

I did look through the threads for the blood spots and saw that apparently a streak was caused by the males and a spot by the females.None of the royals have shed ( I would have mentioned it I promise) but the middle female and the male are starting to go into a shed cycle (darkening down b4 going blue at the moment).

I'm sorry this has become a complicated housing thread - I only wanted to know if multiple matings occured in fertilized females and if males ever went through the motions but I guess my rambling got in the way.:(


dr del

If NERD and RDR and BHB pretty much everyone else over here in the states who make their living breeding snakes spend tens of thousands of dollars in rack systems to individually house huge collections of ball pythons, that's ALL the convincing I'd need to know that they should be housed individually.

You asked what size would be appropriate- for adults, a 41qt tub (36"x17"x6") will provide more than enough space. Sorry for not using metric, I'm not sure what they'd be over in scotland. Whether or not they have a proper gradient depends on how you heat the container. Flexwatt heat tape comes in a few different sized and can be attached to the bottom of the outside of the tub, and when controlled by a thermostat, proves to be a very efficient method of housing in terms of cost and space.

Thanks elevatethis,

I never disagreed it was the best method. :)

Thankyou for the inch sizes (Scotland is metric I'm old enough not to be) the qt thing however isnt a standard measurement - we tend to go by dimensions rather than volume for most of these things.

I'm only really concerned it wouldn't be able to maintain the temperatures - it gets pretty cold over here for most of the year - though not really bad mostly my house stays between 5 - 15 even in the non heated parts (though worst one was an exceptional -10 in my bedroom ).The living room is really between 10 - 25 on a yearly cycle I'd say.

I understand the big breeders using racks but I really only want my snakes to be pets not products and would prefer an attractive setup - it is after all the main focus of my living room.The reason I was asking about the tape as I was envisioning a kind of half rack with glass vivaria decorated and the flexwatt thing underneath the back end.

Does anyone know the answer to my original questions? cos he's at it again with the biggest female and she raises her tail for him so its not like he's forcing himself upon her.


dr del

Ball pythons will frequently breed and not produce eggs. Without the proper stimulation, your females won't ovulate and you'll get zip.

Communal housing can actually be working against you in the breeding deparment. Males and females housed together year round are harder to get viable eggs from than when kept separate and then introduced for the purpose of breeding.

If they're still going at it, she's not gravid.

-adam

Ah thankyou,

I wasen't really trying to breed them in the first place so I wont be too disapointed at the negative results - I didn't reduce temperatures or lightcycles last winter or anything.I shall put him back in his own tank then to see if his appetite returns to normal. The other females might just be stuffed ( big rats once a week may be too much ) so I shall give them a week off then try again.


dr del

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Originally Posted by dr del

Ah thankyou,

I wasen't really trying to breed them in the first place so I wont be too disapointed at the negative results - I didn't reduce temperatures or lightcycles last winter or anything.I shall put him back in his own tank then to see if his appetite returns to normal. The other females might just be stuffed ( big rats once a week may be too much ) so I shall give them a week off then try again.


dr del

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Either you are or you aren't trying to breed. If you have put a male in a tank with three females, you are obviously attempting to breed. :rolleyes: Given that you don't have the income, I would think trying to incubate and feed juveniles would require more money than you have available. I would seriously advise taking a more structured approach. Research the requirements necessary for a successful breeding season.

I understand the initial dislike of racks, but in reality they are easier to heat than tanks. A different option would be to go for an enclosure like this. I love the rack system I have now. I only have 6 and consider them pets. Everyone gets named, and I couldn't love them more. The rack has been a godsend, since my house is a bit on the cool side and it's waaayyy easier to heat than the aquariums. The animals thrive in these racks. Better environment = A snake that thrives.

**sigh** Hi tigerlily,


from my original post;

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So I left him in the tank with the females ( I normally house the 3 females in one tank and had put him in while I was spring cleaning his - hadn't thought about the breeding thing as I didn't cool them down in the winter but had lowered the daylight hours).

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I do know the requirements for successfull breeding - I wasn't trying to breed them. The incubator is already running for the cornsnake that I was intentionally trying to breed this year so the cost would have been slightly raising the incubators temps and enough food for me to be certain they were eating ok before swapping them to the herp store for rats - which would probably have been covered by the corn snake hatchlings but wouldn't have killed me for a couple of weeks anyway.

The tank you linked to is indeed the kind of thing I was talking about building out of lumber.I realise its selfish but I get a great deal of pleasure from looking over and seeing my little wrigglers wandering about the cage and ,obviously, you dont get that with a rack system. No one yet has bothered answering my questions about whether flexwatt (or its british alternative) will be able to sustain the temperature reliably and without that I'm sticking with ceramics - which come in at around $160 or so each tank by my calculations/conversions.It also requires some carefull designing of the tank owing to the heat produced etc.

Also I don't use aquariums :) (never seen one yet I'd describe as escape proof to a large royal) ,my tank is made of wood on 5 sides with the heating and lighting recessed and gaurded on the top panel with an enclosure above it housing the thermostats and starters. The front of the enclosure being sliding glass doors which can be removed for cleaning - the inner edge of which is protected by rubber edging ( fitted round the cage lock) in case any of the pythons decide to rub against it.I've never seen mine do this but figured better safe than sorry.

I fully agree (and have never disagreed ) that one animal per enclosure is the best way to keep them - I just said it wasn't possible for me to arrange it that way at the moment.And although I know it carries no weight at all with any of you I have been keeping and breeding various reptiles for over a decade without any major problems and have 4 lovely royals who have never shown any signs of stress - I can't even get them to curl into the "ball" shape in order to take a picture of it. Aside from the male having a slight respiritory infection when I got him none of them have ever needed anything but a check up and sex determination at the local vetinary college. I'm sorry to come across as all defensive but I asked what I thought were a couple of simple questions and ended up feeling like this weeks punching bag.:(

Also the best way I have found to recognise if an animal is happy and healthy in its environment is to observe its behaviour, does it thermoregulate normally, does it drink, does it exhibit unusual behaviours (stargazing,twitching,bubbly mucus,unusual body positions ) etc. How do you determine these things in an opaque rack setup? Are there some stress indicators I am not aware of? don't be afraid to list them for me as I'm sure there are some I genuinely don't know.

As an addendum I have occasionally caught both the larger females lying belly up (last half of their bodies only :rolleyes: ) in their wet box in the last couple of weeks if, as now seems likely, they are not gravid does anyone have any advice about this? I'm almost frightened to ask honestly but you are the largest body of knowledge on this subject I could find. As I also said in the first post I thought I saw a definate mid body swelling (ovulation) in the 2 largest - this is why I was asking about multiple matings.If they are not gravid (and Adam knows a heck of a lot more than I do about it so I'll take his word for it) what could this have been - it was mid week I noticed it and I feed rats on mondays and am used to seeing what a full python looks like.

Do they suffer from "false pregnancy" like my mothers dog? :confuzd:


I guess I'll know for certain what is happening with them in a couple of months or so.


dr del

Wow this bring's back some memorie's. P.S , I want a rack soon!!!!

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Originally Posted by dr del

How do you determine these things in an opaque rack setup?

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You still check on them daily... replace water... clean urates and poop... etc.. The sterilite bins are not completely opaque... they're clear, and it's fairly easy to see what's going on in them.

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Originally Posted by dr del

Are there some stress indicators I am not aware of? don't be afraid to list them for me as I'm sure there are some I genuinely don't know.

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As soon as you seperate them into their own enclosures, they'll show you what normal behavior is like. :) (Sorry to keep pounding you with this)

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Originally Posted by dr del

As I also said in the first post I thought I saw a definate mid body swelling .......what could this have been

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Females will continue to build folicles when they are mature regardless of being introduced to a male. I doubt that if you actually saw an ovulation, you could mistake it for the swelling that happens during building vs ovulation... but without seeing it in Ball Pythons, maybe it can be mistaken. If a female ovulates, it will look like they swallowed a HUGE football. (or rugby ball possibly for you :) ) It's not just the middle of their body... its from about 6-8 inches from their head to all the way down to about 4-6 inches from their tails.. Look at some pictures of ovulations on the web. It looks like they're almost like.... Head.... HUGENESS.... tail.

Without the folicles that they are building all year long being fertilized by viable sperm, the folicles will simply be reabsorbed... no ovulation will occur to actually build the eggs... no nothin. Adult females go through a LOT of changes throughout their lives.. whether alone, or paired with males.

Yes.. is the answer to your flexwatt question. If it's used correctly, and paired with a proper thermostat, it will have no problems keeping temps for you. The problem(s) may be that you're letting your room that you house your snakes in vary in temps far too greatly. 15 degrees celcius worth of variation is HUGE. During the colder times during the year when it gets down to 10 degrees C, you may need a smaller section of flexwatt on yet ANOTHER thermostat to keep the "cool" side a little warmer. 27-28 degrees on the cool side, 33-34 on the warm side. With about a 29-30 degree ambient air temp.
(I did all the conversions for you so it'd be easier to read/understand :) ) From a "budget" standpoint, this may not be the most ecconomical way to go... but its the best option for your snakey kids.

On a side note... Please don't feel that anyone's attacking you. Just know that we're all just as passionate about our animals as you are about yours. We want the best for your animals.... If you could afford it, I'm sure you'd have 4 setups just like the one you have for your females.... but the simple fact of it is, that it's not necessary. You can get by with far less than what you're THINKING you'll need to spend. Trust me! :)

Hope this helps and doesn't come off as demeaning or in an attacking way.

Hi again ddbjdealer,

Ok - that helps - I thought the racks were completely opaqe to prevent light bothering the snakes and I'd really hate not being able to watch them when im sitting watching tv at night (and before anyone complains they can't see the tv as the couch is in the way from their point of view :P )

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As soon as you seperate them into their own enclosures, they'll show you what normal behavior is like. :) (Sorry to keep pounding you with this)

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It's ok pound away ( I think I'm getting used to it :) ) so you mean they'll stop acting exactly like my male who lives on his own and has done for his entire life as far as I can tell?

Ah thank you for the folicle thing - yes the swelling I saw was definately more centred in the middle/slightly lower end of the body their necks still looked normal - in the big female I'd say it swelled to a size just slightly narower than a 2 litre bottle of coke at the widest and tapers quite sharply - was only about 18 inches in length really .I can't think of another way to describe that but it was definately restricted to the middle/lower body not the whole length of the snake.

Thankyou for the answer to the flexwatt question - sadly there isn't a lot I can do about the temperature fluctuation as I don't have central heating or double glazed windows ( it's quite an old tenement) and , well, scotland is a land of extremes - some days it doesn't even rain. :eek: This is sadly why I think it costs so much to heat the snake tanks - there needs to be considerable reserve capacity in case we have a cold snap. You should try sleeping in the room without the heater in the winter - I even have a ceramic hot water bottle for my toes when I think no-one is looking. :oops:

I do keep the temps in the various enclosures at the right level via thermostats but by god you should see my electricity bill in the winter :tears:

And thankyou for the last paragraph - it was perfectly judged and kind of you to take the time to write it. I guess I might have bin a little sensetive as it's been one of those days, it started with the freezer failing and me opening it to get breakfast and getting a face full of defrosted rat - had to throw out a whole shelf's worth of snake food. :(

Here's hoping I get another job soon and plan an integrated stacking unit (similar to a couple of those boaphile things side by side ) for all my snakes that deserves to have the "hilton" sign at the top .

** off topic**
While I'm here does anyone have any opinions on putting a little nutrobal on the occasional pinky for hatchling corns? - getting a little ahead of myself as she's only just had her pre-lay shed but thought I'd ask.
**off topic**


dr del

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Originally Posted by ddbjdealer

Females will continue to build folicles when they are mature regardless of being introduced to a male. I doubt that if you actually saw an ovulation, you could mistake it for the swelling that happens during building vs ovulation...

Without the folicles that they are building all year long being fertilized by viable sperm, the folicles will simply be reabsorbed... no ovulation will occur to actually build the eggs... no nothin. Adult females go through a LOT of changes throughout their lives.. whether alone, or paired with males.

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OKAY, so now IM confused.. LOL :bubbles: So females have a noticable "build" if they aren't gravid? I had a male with a female (really?) and they stopped breeding. Then a couple days later i noticed the build, so i didn't put him back in with her. She has had this build for weeeeeeeeeeeeks now (they were together, lock observed, 4/16), but i never noticed a real ovulation (not that i've ever seen one, but i get this idea like i would know one if i saw one :rolleyes: ). Not trying to hijack, I SWEAR......:P

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so I shall give them a week off then try again.

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I'm sorry, if I came off I bit critical, but when I first read this I thought you were going to be reintroducing the male to the females, and instead was referring to the feeding. I apologize. :oops: It's still not the best of situations to put a male into a cage with 3 females, and not to expect some incidental breeding.

I can concur with the visibility on the racks. I can just sit and watch them, and I do. (A LOT :D ) I find it much easier to clean and heat, and I too have a monster heating bill. :O So I can sympathize with you there. Although I have to admit, that room is my favorite in the winter. ;)

I couldn't agree more with Ken. I think he said everything perfectly. :worship:

Females can build follicles, but reabsorb them. I think that might be the slight swelling you are witnessing, but I'm not positive. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by adizziedoll

(lock observed, 4/16), but i never noticed a real ovulation (not that i've ever seen one, but i get this idea like i would know one if i saw one :rolleyes:

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That's only 22 days ago... There's a pre-ovulation shed that hapens before the actual ovulation.. and then you see ovulation, and THEN you see a pre-lay shed, and then you see eggies...

There's a specific timeline for just about all of it. :)

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Originally Posted by ddbjdealer

That's only 22 days ago... There's a pre-ovulation shed that hapens before the actual ovulation.. and then you see ovulation, and THEN you see a pre-lay shed, and then you see eggies...

There's a specific timeline for just about all of it. :)

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I guess I worded that wrong, lol, cause i knew there was a pre-ovulation shed. I guess I just decided to skip that part!

I was starting to get worried though because the info I have is that........ ovulation will happen 6-30 days after conception......and it's been over 20. It usually takes what, 7 days for a shed?

So

even though im seeing the build, she might not be gravid?

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Originally Posted by adizziedoll

even though im seeing the build, she might not be gravid?

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Bingo... she's technically not "gravid" until you see an ovulation. Good luck though!

Hi again,

Well this is really just an update to keep everyone informed.

I built a test rack and the flexwatt heating I got from the local herp store just couldn't keep the temps stable in my living room - and this was in the summer :dead: warm summer too (for scotland at any rate)

However the guy in the shop said he had heard of higher rated stuff so he's going to try and get me some info on that - the good news is I should be able to use the thermostats I already have for the existing snake tanks (one dimming and the rest on/off pulsing - cant remember the name of that sorry).

Am I right in thinking I would need one thermostat per shelf in a rack because the higer shelves get the extra heat from the lower ones? :confused:


And now for the real reson for the update;


The male wasn't faking it.

cleaned out the tank today and found 5 eggs - sadly it was from the small female I hadn't seen him anywhere near at the time. When I say small she is around 4 foot and I honestly thought she was in no danger - the timeing seems off to me but he hasn't bin in the cage since I took him out after the responses in the forum - I had just given up on my cornsnakes and told someone I was going to switch off my incubator this week.Luckily I hadn't got ropund to it.

She has had a mouse tonight because I thought I read somewhere you didnt want to give them one large meal but a lot of smaller ones at this time - if I am wrong please tell me because she inhaled the mouse in seconds.She is a little skiny but otherwise seems ok so far **crosses fingers**

I am also slightly puzzled as the eggs weren't stuck together and she wasn't coiled round them - I was kind of stunned but I did manage to find evidence in at least two of them of veins by candling.They were dry and kind of chalky on the surface but one seems sunken and I suspect the worst for it at least. I will check the others once they have had time to settle down in the incubator - they dont fit the boxes I had ready for the cornsnake eggs so some frantic adaptation will be required tomorrow morning - it's 7.14 am here and im finally ready to go to bed.

Maybe I shouldn't let myself be so exited by these at this stage of my life :oops:


I notice I managed to get some positive feedback and am a little shocked but pathetically grateful.I would just like to say I know anyone who responds only has the animals best intrests at heart and I acknowledge that keeping royals alive and eating for a little while only means I havn't killed anything yet:oops:


I was at a job interview on friday that seemed to go really well so fingers crossed I can soon have the herp room of my dreams.


derek

Good luck on the job!!



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