How I breed ball pythons!! Long post.

This is by no means the only way to breed balls. I had a friend bred his this way and took his ideas and it has worked really well.
PREPARTION FOR BREEDING
I start early in the year. I pick out which females I feel could be ready for breeding come time to do so in the fall. These females are fed really heavy. Usually 2-3 times a week. I feel this gives the females enough fat reserve to produce good eggs and fewer slugs. The less slugs the better right.
Males are fed once a week just to maintain good weight.

MY RACK SET UP
I use home made rack systems. I have 11 in heat tape for belly heat. The tape is hooked up to Johnson controls thermostats. The hot spots are between 88-92 degrees. Ambient temps are around 80-82. These temps are for the off season not for breeding.

COOLING FOR BREEDING
When it comes time to cool for breeding I hook up an oil filled electric heater to a Johnsons control.I set the ambient temps to stay at 80-82. If i do not do this the ambient temps will drop lower. Starting around the first of Oct. Cut the food off to all the snakes. I hook up a timer to the Johnsons Controls. Around the 15th of Oct. I cut the JC thermostats off for approximatly 2 hours at night. (usually from 8-10 PM) This allow the snakes to slowly cool down to ambient temps of 80-82 degrees. After a month I increase the time the heat tape is off. Usually 2 more hours(from 8pm - 12 am) I also reduce the ambient temps to 78-80. After another month or so at these temps I do the same thing again. Increase the time the heat tape is off from 8pm - 2 am. Then lower the ambient temps to 76-78. (this is the lowest i let the ambient temps drop). On or around January 15th I cut the thermostats off from 8pm - 4 am keeping the ambient temps at 76-78 degrees. Come Feb 1st increase the time for the last time that the heat tape is off from 8pm - 6 am. I will keep it this way to around May first. I then turn the ambient temps back to 80 degrees and slowly return the heat tape to stay on full time.
HOW TO ROTATE MALES
My racks are 8 tubs high. I try to keep the male I am breeding above the females I plan to bred him with. So if the pied is in tub number one I have his girls in tubs 2,3,4 etc. Again this is my way of keeping them. I usually put a male in for 2-3 days and give him a rest. I check on them early in the morning between 6-9 am and also late in the evening between 8-10 pm. Most of the time this is when I see most of "THE ACTION" happening. I write down what dates the were actually copulating. I rotate the males in and out with there ladies. I also plan this season to offer food once a week to both the male and females. This should keep the males in good breeding weight and keep the fat reserves on the females and in return have bigger clutches with the fewest amount of slugs possible.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
As I do the daily checks on who is breeding I look for the signs. Females laying cold or huggin there water bowls. I also look for females that are swelling up. If i notice one female that is swelling up I put her male in with her more often.
TAG TEAMING THE HONEYS

Alot of people put different males together with a single female.
I do this with only Dominant or co - doms. I feel the best time to switch up is when you notice a female swelling. Once you see her swelling put one male in with her in the morning and if they are seperated at night put a different male/morph in at night. Do this till you see ovualtion.
IS MY BALL OVUALTING OR NOT
You see this posted alot on the forums and for good reason. When females are building and not ovualting sometimes they look like they are actually ovulating. I have on a couple of occasions notice a female swelling and she will do so for a week or so. But then I noticed her ovualting(or so I was thinking she was) only to check on the same female a day or so later and she looks like she ate a football and was actually ovulating at that time. Why does this happen I have no clue. To be safe keep the males rotaing throught the females. No harm in keeping them in until you are 120% sure the female is gravid.
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This has worked very well for my friend and I. I hope this helps make your breeding season one to remember. Again this is not the only way to breed balls. Its just my .02 cents.
Any questions feel free to PM or e-mail me.

Nice post Thomas - thanks for sharing your methods! I'm sure it will help someone! :D

nice post and I think this should be stickied for easy reference. :D

Thanks so much. I missed breeding snakes last season due to help open a new Pet store in my area. I spent alot of time drilling glass and plumbing up Salt and fresh water tanks. I did end up with one clutch of eggs a very small clutch of 2 eggs from a pastel male to a proven female. I hatched out 0.1 pastel poss het pied and 1.0 poss het pied. Good luck to everyone this season.

Thomas, just wondering if you palpate your females or not?

nice post btw

Yes I do. But I start around Mid January to First of Febuary.

Thanks Larry love REPTILE RADIO!!!

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Originally Posted by Thomas Jones

Yes I do. But I start around Mid January to First of Febuary.

Thanks Larry love REPTILE RADIO!!!

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Thats pretty much the same time I start givin them the big squeezzzze.

It's really cool seeing other breeding techniques. I like to steel bits and pieces..:D

:headbang: Thanks for the comments and for listening :headbang:

Thats what I done Larry. I took these ideas from a friend. But it so simple I was trying to make breeding more complicated than it is. With this method snakes get cooled down slowly over time. Only thing I plan to do different this season is offering food to the snake.
Good Luck this soming season Larry.

Thomas,

When you say you fed them 3-4 times a week what size prey do you give them? I'm curious because all of my adult females will only take 1 or 2 small - medium rats a week if I give that to them. I usually only feed once a week. These are my 3000+ gram girls I'm talking about.

I will feed them a sm-med rat/rats say on Mon. Then again on Wed then again on Fri Sat.
One female that laid 13 eggs for me ate 2 small rats and 1 large and one jumbo in the span of 6 days.If I feed her small rats she will eat 7-10 in one week. They are usually swollen up nice and good after feeding like this. They usually eat like this till they get ready to shed. It makes for more cage cleaning but it is worth it in the end.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thomas Jones

I will feed them a sm-med rat/rats say on Mon. Then again on Wed then again on Fri Sat.
One female that laid 13 eggs for me ate 2 small rats and 1 large and one jumbo in the span of 6 days.If I feed her small rats she will eat 7-10 in one week. They are usually swollen up nice and good after feeding like this. They usually eat like this till they get ready to shed. It makes for more cage cleaning but it is worth it in the end.

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No offense but isn't that a little excessive? How big was the girl? If I fed my 3000+ gram girl a jumbo she would let out a huge poop vs smaller size rats where she would have a much smaller poop. I wouldn't want to clean up this girls mess. :)

Maybe I'm doing it all wrong. I've only bred ball pythons for a few years and never fed any of my girls more than twice a week and even then only small - medium rats. All my girls grow up fine and breed well. Lucky for me I've never had to cool and my ball pythons breed all year round if I let them.

Then again I'm sure I have a much smaller collection than yours. Anyway, great advice on the cooling and prepping for breeding but I just don't agree with that heavy of a feeding. Anyone else care to chime in on this? I'm curious to see if anyone else follows this feeding schedule.

What you have to remember is this is not a year around feeding schedule. It usually only lasts a few months say from may -Oct/Nov. When they are in shed I do not offer food. So they get breaks. This schedule is only on the girls I feel have a real good chance at breeding the up coming season.

People are use to hearing to feed once a week. That is fine if you are happy fewer females going and having more slugs in the clutches. You can not over feed them. That is as long as you plan to breed them. If you have a pet ball python then one small -med rat a week is perfect for a pet snake.

Good luck this season.

P.S. No offense taking

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thomas Jones

What you have to remember is this is not a year around feeding schedule. It usually only lasts a few months say from may -Oct/Nov. When they are in shed I do not offer food. So they get breaks. This schedule is only on the girls I feel have a real good chance at breeding the up coming season.

People are use to hearing to feed once a week. That is fine if you are happy fewer females going and having more slugs in the clutches. You can not over feed them. That is as long as you plan to breed them. If you have a pet ball python then one small -med rat a week is perfect for a pet snake.

Good luck this season.

P.S. No offense taking

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i dont know how it can be said that feeding fewer meals to breeding females will result in smaller clutches. personally i think power feeding breeding, or any female 3 times a week is much too excesive especially during breeding season when the temps are cooler and the stress of breeding and such is present. a female during breeding season should already have enough size to endure the breeding cycle and should not have too power feed to try to "catch up". personally i dont think power feeding during the breeding cycle will result in bigger clutches and i actually feel it may hinder breeding results. if the female doesnt have what it takes by the start of breeding then she wont have what it takes a few weeks later with or without power feeding.

like yours thomas, this is just my opinion. i may not agree with things youve said but im not knocking your methods. like you said its not the only way to do it.

I was also under the impression that "power feeding" can not only cause smaller clutches, albeit with less slugs, but also lowers the life expectancy of the snake by years :tears:. I'm really not trying to bash your methods at all lol since I have not tried one way or another as of yet and I'm still raising up my BPs to hopefully have a couple ready to go next fall or winter.

I say this as someone who is just trying to learn because I only have one breeding size female as of right now and she will be on loan this winter to a friend.

But, I will say thanks so much Thomas :salute:! Its great information and I am printing it out to add to my ball python notebook if you don't mind :gj:. I can't imagine ever finding a single method that everyone can agree upon and I'm sure if you follow this and it works for you that it's the best way for you while other people have their ways that work also :weirdface lol thanks again :banana:!