keeping male and female BP in same room question????

[Jayare]

Hello my name is Jayare and I just got a couple Ball Pythons about a month ago 1 male Bumblebee and 1 female Pastel. Both are 2 years old now. The guy I got them from said when he had them in the same room the male wouldn't eat because he could smell her and all he wanted to do or think about was getting together with her. He went almost 5 months without eating and was offered food several times but refused it. (He is also a shy eater) After moving him to another room in his house he started eating again.

Does this happen or was he just not interested in eating for whatever reason? I have them in different rooms right now but I would love to get them in the same room. I have plans to make a rack system at some point when I get a chance.

Currently she is in a 40 gal tank and he is in a 55 gal tank. When I bought them I got the tanks and all their stuff with them. I weighed them last week before feeding them he was 790g and she was 970g. I was hoping to breed them but looks like i'm going to have to wait a little while until she puts on about another 500g.

Can/should I put them in the same room or wait a while longer?

Jayare

[ElliotNess]

Being in the same room has nothing to do with it.
It may have something to do with the enormous tanks.
Could be your husbandry (Temps, humidity, setup)
Also could be the prey size.

From the size you listed, he should be on mediums and she should be on Med-LG using the Layne Labs Rat scale.
http://www.laynelabs.com/frozen-rats

So get the info on your husbandry and maybe some pics and I am sure someone can help out. But snakes go on food strikes frequently it seems...

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Actually some males will go off feed during breeding season if females are present this does not represent the majority.

My males are in the same racks as females and I never have issues.

As far as feeding I would advise again medium to large rats for a male, especially one that is already not eating.

Feeding large preys will not allow you to have an animal feeding with consistency.

Adult go off feed and are more prone to do so when they change environment, the size of the enclosure probably does not help either.

Downsize the enclosure make sure everything is optimum and for the rest is a waiting game.

[Larz979]

I know this is a really old thread but I wanted to chime in with something we just learned with one of our males.

We only have 5 ball pythons. 1 mature male and 2 mature females. Our adult male used to be a crazy good eater. Would take whatever you put in front of him. All of a sudden he totally went off feed. Husbandry was on spot. temps humidity, etc.

He went months of us offering every 2 weeks. He would take a look at the rat then quickly proceed to head out of his terrarium toward the females. He started loosing weight and we started worrying about him. We decided to try moving him to another room away from the females. he is back to eating like a champ again. Pretty much as soon as you open the cage and start the rat down toward him he hits it.

So maybe it is rare but it does happen.