Any way to artificially inseminate?

Is there any way to like collect sperm from a male bp and like inciminate a female?

if you could, you could just like buy the sperm, and have any morph you want! i guess that would prob take bps down a whole lot in price and value though. its your call you decide.

Idk just a thought.

Inseminate

And... I don't doubt that you could try, but I am not aware of anyone who has actually done it.

How exactly you stimulate the hemipens and collect a sample from the males. Ball Pythons are so horny why would you need to use artificial insemination.



Chuck

Maybe it'll cost you too much you better off buying morph of your choice?

Is it true that ball python is horny? Must be about male only then, most of my females just ignore my male. They don't seem horney at all(or they're too small to begin with ;) )

And just how would a person inseminate the female with said sperm?

Artificial insemination isn't cheap either. Ask anyone that breeds animals using this method and they will tell you they pay big bucks for sperm straws from a quality stud or bull, plus the costs of the vet to come do the AI procedure.

There's also the issue of snakes needing to lock to encourage the female snake to ovulate. A few breeders on Reptile Radio have been discussing that, in that the first locks the male and female do are more about stimulation than about actual insemination. Inseminating any female creature isn't going to produce offspring if she isn't producing the mature follicles that are needed to be there in order to be fertilized by that sperm.

I'm not expert on snake reproduction, but AI doesn't seem like a viable option at least at this point in our understanding of how snakes reproduce.

Well Robin, you would need the right size tube, semen(whole nother story), and a good knowledge of the snakes anatomy, is she even going to accept semen withoutht the male being there

I don't think there is a way to stimulate a male to produce semen in the big enough amount you would need? You would need he tools I freeze it right as well as ship it! :)

I actually read about a university doing AI on snakes a few months back. Can't remember the type of snake, but I read about it on a green tree python forum. The only thing I really remember about the story is that the fertilization rate was low but they did get some live offspring from it.

I assume that getting samples would work the same as with mammals - you apply an electric shock to the gonads. Very unpleasant without anethesia.

Never heard of them collecting it like that before.

I've seen it done with farm animals. My friend, who is paralyzed, also had it done in the hospital so he could have a baby with his wife.

and I used the word gonads to be general - in mammals it's the prostate. in reptiles I have no clue what the anatomy really is

Ah. I've only heard of the old probably easyer way.

I don't want to get too explicit, but feel free to google - lots of fascinating articles out there. There are a few methods and I guess there have been studies showing that the older-fashioned way gives better counts. Score one for the animals :)

but where the animal is uncooperative, the electro- is the way to go.

Artificial insemination is not performed with reptiles for several reasons including the need for multiple breedings in most species and the difficulty in obtaining sperm. I believe some scientists successfully artifically inseminated some female colubrids with the frozen sperm of a male colubrid during an experiement, but can't quite remember the details and specifics so I will have to look around and see if I can find the article.

From the sounds of it... it wouldn't actually bring bps down a notch, as it is expensive and not a sure thing.

Further to this, I cannot imagine how a breeder would place a price point on the *product*...

Cheaper just to buy the morph or do a breeding loan.... I assume, at least.

Just a thot,
Bruce

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fishmommy

and I used the word gonads to be general - in mammals it's the prostate. in reptiles I have no clue what the anatomy really is

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You're using it incorrectly. I'm studying animal science and Reproductive Physiology is a huge concentration. Gonads are the sex organs (those which produce gametes), ovaries/testes. The prostate gland (as well as the ampulla, bulbourethral gland, and vesicular gland) are known as accessory sex glands. The accessory sex glands vary by species, but there is at least one in every species.


Just reading through this thread (bear in mind that I am VERY new to snake breeding, though I'd like to do it in a few years) someone stated that collection is the problem, I would absolutely agree. Someone also said that the problem is that they actually need to LOCK in order to produce follicles. Dogs and cats are induced ovulators and they can be artificially inseminated, generally there just needs to be stimulation to induce ovulation.

I've also witnessed collection of VARIOUS species, none of which were shocked... In most cases you simply allow the male to "mount" a dummy and deflect the penis into a collecting tube.

I would be very interested in any links to studies done on this subject,a s I was thinking that as a graduate thesis it would be interesting to see if you could chemically induce follicle growth in female reptiles. Any suggestions of where to look for previous research?
Thanks!

Reviving this thread out of pure curiosity. Have there been any newer studies or research on this?

Besides difficulty collecting sperm, you would then have to package it and ship it to buyers in special conditions without it going bad, and that would just be too expensive and too much of a hassle.

Let the snakes do what evolution built them to do.

I don't know how this would work considering we spend months of pairing these snakes to achieve our desired results. Even if you could get the sperm...I don't think the success rate would be very high for the "average" breeder. Just my thoughts.