Looking for helpful tips for first time breeding!

[SmokeyMcDabs]

Hello I have aquired a decent collection of Ball pythons within my first year of keeping. Ever since I bought my first few balls I have been borderline obsessed and for a few months only lived and breathed Pythons and knowledge of keeping, breeding, natural habitiat and genetics. I have my breeding plans in order as well as long term space to keep my hatchlings in a few FB Racks I have aquired within my time of keeping FB 1030-70, FB 1040-40, FB 1680-10. I am looking for any helpfull tips on Introducing as well as Inducing Ovulaton & Sperm Plug Delevopment specifically.

Also my final concerns are a couple of females that are growing just rapidly on 15% weekly feedings. I have a 13 month old female sitting at 1600g, I have heard of such cases with sucessfull outcomes but I am too concerned with her becoming egg bound due to age to even attempt. What are your thoughts on this females readiness?

Any responsed are greatly appreciated!!









Ball Pythons
1.0 Super Pastel Leopard Spider Het Clown Het VPI Axanthic
1.0 Super Pastel Het Clown Het VPI Axanthic 50% Het Hypo/Ghost
1.0 Albino Pied
1.0 Banana Pied
1.0 Fire Confusion
1.0 Orange Dream Yellowbelly Pastel Enchi Het Desert Ghost 66% Het Pied


0.1 Enchi Het Clown Het VPI Axanthic
0.1 Pastel Het Clown Het VPI Axanthic
0.1 Emperor Pinstripe Het Clown Het Axanthic VPI
0.1 Orange Dream Enchi Het Desert Ghost 66% Het Pied
0.1 Pastel VPI Axanthic
0.1 Bee Clown
0.1 Albino Calico
0.1 Albino Het Pied
0.1 Pastel Pied
0.1 White Wedding
0.1 Black Pastel Scaleless Head Het Pied
0.1 Pastel Enchi Het Pied
0.1 Disco Butter Leapard
0.1 Lesser Enchi Yellowbelly Spinner 50% Het pied
0.1 Fire Het VPI Axanthic
0.1 Mojave


Reticulated Pythons


0.1 Albino Tiger
1.0 Blonde Phantom P Platinum


Boas


1.0 Super Hypo Het Anery (Type 1) Het Albino (Sharp)
0.1 Hypo Harlequin Het Albino (Kahl) 50% Het Anery (Type 1)
0.1 Motley P Jungle Het Akbino (Kahl) Het Anery (Type 1)

[Gio]

Am I seeing this correctly?

You are in your first year of snake keeping and you have 27 animals and are looking into breeding?

I don't want to be particularly negative here but I think you should step back and slow way down.

These animals have the ability to live for 20-40 years if cared for properly.

A personal obsession usually comes at the expense of the animals you are keeping.

Breeders are a dime a dozen these days and the pet market is over saturated with various reptiles.

On top of the 27 animals you already own, you are looking at doubling or tripling that number by breeding.

Again, this is your first year as a keeper.

Having been a member of this board, and many others over the last decade, I have seen posts like this and it raises red flags.

Every one of your 27 snakes needs special attention and care and there are complications that come up that a first year keeper can't fathom.

Consider the expense of a reptile vet for one animal, then think about that with multiple animals.

I know the board encourages a positive and friendly environment. I certainly don't want to diminish your love and enthusiasm for keeping reptiles.

That said, there are a great many members here that care deeply about our hobby and seeing an intro post like this causes concern.

[plateOfFlan]

I have a 13 month old female sitting at 1600g, I have heard of such cases with sucessfull outcomes but I am too concerned with her becoming egg bound due to age to even attempt. What are your thoughts on this females readiness?

I didn't know it was even possible to get a ball python this obese in one year, I'm sad for this snake now

[SS snakes]

Something just to add: I fully agree with Gio, I think its great to have a passion for the hobby, but pace yourself. It's so easy to get burnt out if you don't have a lot of experience and you dive in like that.

another thing I would advise being careful about is 15% weekly feedings. This works great for hatchlings, but should not in my opinion be carried over to adults. Following that ideaology, that would insinuate that you're feeding the 1600g female (way too large at 13 months, definitely should be no where near that size) a 240g food item... which is a large/X-Large rat. Just be careful, as this is not good to be feeding animals that large of meals, as they'll likely end up obese and have some severe health problems because of it.

[SmokeyMcDabs]

I appreciate your concern though I have kept Boas and Retics for 3 years now, I always thought of Ball Pythons as the weenie snakes until I got my very first one a little over a year ago. It made me realize little potato snakes werent that bad compared to big monster snakes that come out striking thinking theyre getting fed then pooping anytime they make a bowel movement. After my first ball I was facinated and immediately jumped on board. I spent weeks and months studying how to care for them as pets as well as for breeding. I have an excess amount of time as well as disposable income

Each are kept in proper sized tubs with herpstat 2s on each pimped out FB rack
25% ventialation
Guages to monitor ambient temp and humidity
Weekly water changes and waste cleaning
Lightly misting twice a week
Monthly substrate changes

I scale food and never handle within 72 hours of feeding.

As for flooding the market, I try to only purchase powerhouse combos/Visuals. Anyting produed aside form powerhouse combos i told myself i would let go for just under market value in order to compete in the reptile market. I also have the PROPER space, food and thermostats to hold plenty of more, like im talking i can easily produce 60 yearlings and house them ALL for well over a couple years if needed.

THE ONE THING you can call me out on is 15% weekly feedings which I max out at around 150g-200g prep items for the bigger females otherwise it can trigger a fast.

As for my 1600g (with meal) 13 month old, I had purchased her at 800g at 6 months old on MM. How she managed to put on 100g a month I have no clue since she was fed extremely similar to an entire group of females in my collection, same age and feeding response. I wasnt sure if she was by chance a Volta locality or if she just kept hitting major growth spurts simply because my yearlings averaged 800g by the time they're first birthdays came along.

And as for the unexpected complications such as vet bills, I have dealt with long before my journey with Balls. My largest reticulated python had gotten a small cut on her lip from water bowl (only item in her enclosure) she ended up getting an infection that led to a moderate case of mouth rot. Her emergancy vet bill ended up being almost 3 times her worth so i can indeed say I am aware of the unexpected complications that may arise.

Like I said I appreciate the concern though this amount of concern is nowhere near what i was looking for, this sounds like you're actively looking for red flags and just plain looking for a reason to talk negative.

[nikkubus]

If you are sticking to standard breeding season, starting conditioning in late Oct/early Nov, pairing starting in late Dec/Jan, realistically she would be around the 2 year mark when she actually lays. It's not common to breed them this early, but it's certainly not unheard of if she is in prime condition. You cannot just go by raw weight though. She has to lean, not overweight, and has to have the bone structure to support it. Even if she is in great condition, it's not advisable for a first time breeder. I'd give her one more year. The growth she will put on in that one year will more than make up for losing one season over the next couple years because she will be laying more eggs at a time. If you breed her this year, she has to invest next fall and winter into regaining her weight and won't grow that much more and will continue to have smaller clutches for some years.

1600g at 13 months is not unheard of, but it's pretty big pretty fast. Once you hit weaned-small rats, their metabolism changes and you are mostly putting on fat reserves instead of real gain if you continue 15%. She may just be extremely obese. I almost never feed medium+ rats to BPs except my largest females during conditioning in the height of their eating season. Fat/obese females have a hard time breeding and laying, and what may just seem like cutting minor corners to get results faster can actually be a huge setback.

Not sure if you ever bred any of the other species you have kept, but what BPs will sell and how fast is drastically different from some other species so make sure you have a backup plan if you can't sell as easy as you think. If you haven't bred at all, keep in mind that when clutches start hatching out and you get their first sheds, there is a strong increase in the amount of time required to keep up with them. Getting hatchlings stable on eating, especially BPs can be hard work. The amount of work I do in June-Aug is 10x more than the rest of the year. I can feed 30-40 adults in less than an hour. It can take 2 hrs to feed a single clutch of hatchlings sometimes and they need fed more often. I would caution you to do no more than 2-3 clutches your first season so you can get a feel for it and so that it's not as devastating if something goes wrong like an incubator failure or some minor error on setting up the clutches where you lose them all.

Now that that's all out of the way...

Other than proper husbandry, their isn't really a way to induce sperm plugs. When a male is mature, they just start producing sperm. If you meant how do you find sperm plugs, it's easy to see on their sheds, or you can gently pop them almost like pop sexing, and sperm plugs will come out.

Not sure quite what you meant by inducing ovulation. Ovulation is specifically the part of the breeding cycle where the female takes sperm reserves she is holding from breeding and actually fertilizes the follicles and they become eggs. As far as steps to getting this to happen, having the female in the best possible condition while pairing her and then pairing at good intervals for the correct amount of time and hoping for some good locks is about the best you can do. I try to get one good lock per month from Jan till ovulation. If I don't see a lock after 48 hrs, I pull the male and try again in a week or two.

If you meant how to induce her building follicles then the method I use is to condition them with seasonal temperature change, increased frequency of food, and pairing with the male with the schedule listed above.

I don't think anyone is specifically looking for problems to attack you, but we just see stuff like this go haywire for people and some red flags are present. We are only trying to check what's going on because we don't want you to go through the heartache many others have, and some of us have experienced personally. I've been doing this decades and things still go wrong sometimes because I make a mistake or some unfortunate coincidence happens.

Some people can acquire a huge amount of animals in a short period because of their circumstances and amount of research (Like Miguel from AEP) and it works out great but this is not the norm.

[Gio]

I appreciate your concern though I have kept Boas and Retics for 3 years now, I always thought of Ball Pythons as the weenie snakes until I got my very first one a little over a year ago. It made me realize little potato snakes werent that bad compared to big monster snakes that come out striking thinking theyre getting fed then pooping anytime they make a bowel movement. After my first ball I was facinated and immediately jumped on board. I spent weeks and months studying how to care for them as pets as well as for breeding. I have an excess amount of time as well as disposable income

Each are kept in proper sized tubs with herpstat 2s on each pimped out FB rack
25% ventialation
Guages to monitor ambient temp and humidity
Weekly water changes and waste cleaning
Lightly misting twice a week
Monthly substrate changes

I scale food and never handle within 72 hours of feeding.

As for flooding the market, I try to only purchase powerhouse combos/Visuals. Anyting produed aside form powerhouse combos i told myself i would let go for just under market value in order to compete in the reptile market. I also have the PROPER space, food and thermostats to hold plenty of more, like im talking i can easily produce 60 yearlings and house them ALL for well over a couple years if needed.

THE ONE THING you can call me out on is 15% weekly feedings which I max out at around 150g-200g prep items for the bigger females otherwise it can trigger a fast.

As for my 1600g (with meal) 13 month old, I had purchased her at 800g at 6 months old on MM. How she managed to put on 100g a month I have no clue since she was fed extremely similar to an entire group of females in my collection, same age and feeding response. I wasnt sure if she was by chance a Volta locality or if she just kept hitting major growth spurts simply because my yearlings averaged 800g by the time they're first birthdays came along.

And as for the unexpected complications such as vet bills, I have dealt with long before my journey with Balls. My largest reticulated python had gotten a small cut on her lip from water bowl (only item in her enclosure) she ended up getting an infection that led to a moderate case of mouth rot. Her emergancy vet bill ended up being almost 3 times her worth so i can indeed say I am aware of the unexpected complications that may arise.

Like I said I appreciate the concern though this amount of conern is nowhere near what i was looking for, this sounds like you're actively looking for red flags and just plain looking for a reason to talk negative.

Actively looking for red flags?

Nope, you presented them and I'm willing to bet I'm not the first person to notice, just maybe the first to comment. I had no intention of making you defensive.

I stand corrected on the "first year" part of my response. It appears you have 3 years in the hobby.

There is no reason for anybody to talk "BS" or whatever your quote implied. You have 4 posts and appear to have very little experience in the hobby. Your collection list is large. Keepers that have 30 plus years in the hobby often don't have that many animals in a lifetime. People that have been at this a while get concerned when somebody comes in full steam ahead with very little experience. This is a chat board and you will get advice that you may or may not like.


"I spent weeks and months studying how to care for them as pets as well as for breeding"

Keeping and breeding is not something learned in "weeks and months", while it is admirable that you did some research, it appears the intent here is to get the animals up to breeding size as quickly as possible for profit whether you have disposable income or not. Maybe a more practical approach is to see how it goes by breeding one pair at a healthy age and going from there slowly. Its possible I misunderstood your post.

"I try to only purchase powerhouse combos/Visuals."

Just based on the words you are using would lead one to believe the actual interest and fascination with the animals and their intricate biology is taking a backseat to breeding and turning a profit.

If I were going to recommend a breeder, I would point folks in the direction of people like Gus Rentfro, Vincent Russo, Nick Mutton and Justin Julander. They have spent years and years researching and studying the various species they keep.

There are others specific to royal pythons but those particular breeders, in general, go above and beyond and see reptiles as something other than a profit.

To each their own though, hopefully things work out for you and the animals.

Apologies if your feelings were hurt.

[Homebody]

Like I said I appreciate the concern though this amount of concern is nowhere near what i was looking for, this sounds like you're actively looking for red flags and just plain looking for a reason to talk negative.

You must admit investing (what?), ten thousand in racks and ten thousand (or more?), in breeding stock, all before you've hatched your first egg constitutes diving in head first; and diving in head first, into what you admit are unfamiliar waters, is dangerous.

[GoingPostal]

I'm trying to imagine yearling ball pythons eating rats weekly bigger than I feed my fully mature short tails once a month. My ball pythons get smalls every few weeks. Obese snakes aren't going to produce well for you and they certainly won't live their full lifespan. You'd be far better off to slow down everything, let your animals grow up at a healthy reasonable pace instead of stuffing them with fat. Get them to 2-3 years old and judged based on the individual animal. I'd highly recommend you change their water more than weekly, I don't go more than 2-3 days max, snakes really appreciate fresh water. If you read around on here, you'll notice brand new owners wanting to be brand new breeders and jumping in huge is a big trend and most of those are out and dumping collections within a few years. It's not about you, it's about the animals and where these all end up.