Actual mechanics of breeding....

[frankykeno]

Okay I can bet I'm not the only one who doesn't know, I'm just the only one doofus enough to actually ask outright....

I do not know how snakes actually mate. The mechanics of it, what their reproductive organs are called and how they actually....ummmm...."connect". Rather embarrassing to have to ask, but if I ever intend to breed ball pythons I best know what they are actually up to and how all the bits and pieces work...right?

All this has come to mind as Baby our 6 month old suddenly everted (hopefully I'm using this term correctly) at me tonight while I was handling her. No reason I could see....just suddenly....out her stuff popped, then went right back in. What I saw as two sort of little pinkish, wet looking bumps. Well more than bumps I guess but not much more than that. Very confusing!


~~Jo~~

P.S. Adam if you start your response with...."first the boy snake asks the girl snake out for a drink..." LMAO

[Adam_Wysocki]

Gosh Jo, all those kids and you guys can't figure this one out!!

Skipping all of the cooling and courting and stuff like that, here's my quick 1:25 am tired as all heck explanation ....

Males basically lay on top of the girls (who raise their tails up when they're ready) and curl their tails under the female until the cloaca line up ... Then, the male will insert one of his 2 hemipenes into the female at which point they will be "locked up" .... I've had pairs "locked up" for as little as 20 minutes and as long as 2 days!!

Females will then retain the males sperm until they ovulate at which point her ovaries will be fertilized and booo ya!!!

I can probably do better later, but that's the best I can muster at the moment.

-adam

[ddbjdealer]

Okay... since we're asking beginner type questions without any embarassment... I have one too

Do females become gravid once they meet sexual maturity regardless of fertilization?
I know that someone is going to say "snakes aren't chickens!" but this is a serious question that I was just curious about.

One of the reasons I ask this is in the Ball Python Manual there's a symptom/cause/cure grid in the back... and one of the symptoms is something like "Distended Midsection" one of the causes is something like "If Female, probably gravid"

I only thought this weird because wouldn't you know if one of your females was gravid without having to consult a "beginner" book like this?

[Adam_Wysocki]

Do females become gravid once they meet sexual maturity regardless of fertilization?

As far as I know, copulation with a male is required at some point.

There's a guy out there claiming parthenogenesis in his adult female ball python, but who knows what's real or not over the net. He could turn out to be a scammer looking to market a "Jesus Morph".

-adam

[frankykeno]

Gawd I feel like I'm back in "hygiene class" (that's what us old folks used to get in school before Sex Ed was invented!).

Okay so the male has these hemipenes things. They have 2 of these correct? But they only use one of them at a time? So why in heck did nature give them 2? Is the other one sorted "on deck" for another immediate breeding to a 2nd female?

So do females have 2 of whatever in heck you call what girl snakes have or just 1? What I saw pop out of Baby was definitely 2 things. If males pop out their hemipenes in order to breed, do females also do this?

I know this stuff is all completely basic but it's just not explained all that well anywhere I looked.

2 days! Well color me impressed!

Oh and Adam, if it worked the way it works with us humanoids we'd have to get our snakes drunk and into the backseat of a....well....nevermind that!!!


~~Jo~~

[Adam_Wysocki]

2 hemipenes ... They need two so that they can "line up" on either side of the females tail and not have to twist around to "get er done"!! (can I say that here?? )

Females have 2 "scent glands" that are sometimes mistaken for hemipenes, but they are not involved in the actual act of copulation. Hemipenes are long and very unmistakable if you know what your looking for. Also, it's important to know that a male can evert and hold his hemipenes inside and appear to be a female ... it usually takes and extra "push" to get the hemipenes out if it's a male.

FWIW, I think I was almost 30 before I actually got lucky without booze being involved .... and by then I was married for 8 years!! ... LOL .... I'm so horrid that for my dates, heavy drinking is a must!!

-adam

[frankykeno]

Thanks for explaining snake "birds and bees" Adam LOL (You did well bud...not even one reference to a cabbage leaf or the stork ). My always enquiring mind always wants to know every detail, thanks for providing them.

This morning I did find a rather good page on the VPI site as well so between your explanations and that page, I think I'm starting to understand snake reproduction a wee bit better.


~~Jo~~

[xdeus]

Hmm... not sure why my post on this thread got deleted. Probably due to my warped sense of humor or perhaps the lack of any pertinent information in my message. Or maybe "Hoo Hoo" is one of the banned words.

In any case, I was wondering about the cooling process. If females can store sperm for years, is the cooling process used to initiate copulation or to initiate ovulation?

[Adam_Wysocki]

If females can store sperm for years, is the cooling process used to initiate copulation or to initiate ovulation?

It is very rare for a female that is properly cycles to store sperm for more than a breeding season. Post warm up temps should be warm enough to destroy any sperm that the female is retaining. If they aren't, you're doing it wrong.

The cooling process is used to help get males and females "in the mood" ... ie. males producing viable sperm and females receptive to the males advances. More importantly, we cool in order to have a "warm up". Because ball pythons may breed all year round without being cycled, but females need the "warm up" as their cue to ovulate.

-adam

[rabernet]

Females will then retain the males sperm until they ovulate at which point her ovaries will be fertilized and booo ya!!!

-adam

I'm confused, Adam...can you please define booo ya!!!! for me?