Where to start with breeding

[RichardBradley]

So I'd really like to start trying to breed snakes within this next year, specifically ball pythons, but I have no clue where to start. Everything seems so complicated! Is there really any sure-fire way to do things or is it mostly "do what works for you"?

[John1982]

Keep it simple. Get a mature male and female. Make sure they're both healthy. Put them together and observe. I personally keep animals together for 1-2 days at a time. Separate and wait a few days then offer food. As long as they maintain healthy weights and/or keep eating for you, there's no reason you can't continue introductions until something notable happens.

Eggs can be maternally or artificially incubated. Your best bet is to have an incubator on standby, even if you did want to let the dam incubate, she might turn out to be terrible at it and toss the eggs around or abandon them altogether. Incubators don't have to be complicated either. Get something insulated(coolers are popular), put a heat source in there(something like heat tape or those undertank heaters work fine), toss a thermostat on it to maintain temperatures and you're good to go. Egg boxes are any container you want really, as long as it fits into the incubator. You'll want to pick a substrate(or lacktherof). I prefer regular old vermiculite. You can find some in pretty much any store that has a plant section. Make sure it's just 100% vermiculite, you don't want any fertilizer or pest control type addons. To prepare the substrate just add about the same weight in water as you do vermiculite. Mix it up with your hands until it's clumpy when you ball it up but water doesn't drip out when you squeeze - sort of like beach sand.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

You can ask 10 different people and get 10 different answers because it really is what work best for you from the initial pairing to the incubation.

One thing I always like to recommend to someone getting started is this http://ballpython.ca/breeding/, it gives you a good idea on what to do and what to expect, then once you have a season or two under your belt start experimenting a little and see what does work for you.

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[RichardBradley]

Thank you both for the informative answers, I'll be sure to keep everything in mind!