Breeding Noob!

[Hotwire]

Good morning / afternoon.. what ever it is there.

We have ventured into breeding, after many years of keeping our collection, and admiring all the morphs. We want to try our hand at pairing some of our favorite morphs up to produce MORE beautiful animals. Were not a puppy mill, we have 9 animals, and were only breeding 1 pair, this is an "Educated Experiment" for us. We are very VERY interested in learning the process and ways of breeding these wonderful creatures and can not WAIT to get started on this adventure.

Our results to this point..

We have put our male and female together. (The Female is hovering around 2000g, and the male about 1200g). When they are separated, everything is normal. When we put them together, the female roams around the tub, leaving little streaks around the tub on the paper towels. It seems that she is scenting? Perhaps she is trying to entice our male? He seems confused by the whole station, they are NOT afraid of each other, they get close, and lay together and on top of eachother, just no locks going on. They are both virgins, so its a learning process for them too.

Any insight or help is greatly appreciated, Ill be back after going threw MORE of this part of the forums.

thank you!

[Maddumpling]

Even if you don't see a lock, the time you put them together, you don't know if they locked during the time you leave them alone. They could have possibly locked or they could have not but don't always rely on the visible lock. I know breeders who have gotten clutches who have never seen a lock from their males.

To help with breeding, you can put in another male's or female's shed into the tub that you have ball pythons breeding. Wipe another male's sperm onto the female to entice the male. I've also heard people not cleaning their cages as often to keep that female scent in there.

I do a three day in and rest off. I put my males in with my females on Friday and I keep them paired until I see a lock. I keep them till Sunday, but if I see a lock lets say Friday and they stop on Saturday, I take out the male off and give him a break till the next friday. I feed everyone on Tuesday, males and females. Some do one lock per month. I've had success with my method and people have success with their method. I don't pair when the snakes are in shed so that gives the males 1 to 2 weeks of break time.

I feed the snakes good meals to maintain or increase the weight at a steady pace. These snakes lose a lot of weight when they lay clutches and you want the snakes to have a good amount of fat reserves for the potential eggs that they could get. For example, I've heard breeders breeding their females at 1200 grams. I have done this too , but the snake wasn't skinny. It had good body weight and was still feeding very well during the breeding season till the snake laid. The female will lose around 500 to 700 grams depending on the size of the clutch. Males still need food once a week due to males can go off food when they breed and you don't want them to lose too much weight during the duration that they go off food.

When the females ovulate after breeding will all depend on the size of the follicles in the beginning of the pairing. Some females will ovulate quicker than expected and some will take longer. When I first started breeding, I had a female pastel that ovulated and laid eggs after 3 months. Maybe I paired at the right time maybe I got lucky. Thats why a lot of breeders use ultrasound to check the size of the follicles and if there are good sized follicles breeders will than put males in with those females. People palpate to feel follicles but its sometimes too difficult to tell the size of the follicles. Caped fear constrictors has a post here with graphs of different females follicle growth.

[Hotwire]

Thank you,

Were doing this for the experience, education, and the chance to apply a lot of the information and knowledge we have gained through reading these forums, books, and videos. We're lucky to have some friends who also breed or have bred ball pythons, so we get some insight and input from them. But as we all know, 2nd and 3rd opinions are always good. Especially if you wish to validate those opinions or your own ideas.

The Feed it Dirty Breed it Dirty mantra is fairly popular. We are employing it our selves.. Perhaps just by chance. lol.

[Maddumpling]

What is the feed it dirty breed it dirty mantra?