Dan Wolfe Herpetoculture Newsletter

[MDB]

I recieved this in email and thought that I would share it with the rest of you. Hopefully somebody finds this of good use.


Dan Wolfe Herpetoculture Newsletter

December 2008












Greetings!



Happy holiday salutations to one and all. It’s that time of year… shorter days… snow on the ground… and love is in the air (in the snake building). That last clutch in the incubator looks mighty lonely. Hard to believe it’s already time to start it all over again. We hope your breeding season is off to a great start.





Another Breeding Season Begins




This seems like a good time to discuss some of the finer points of breeding ball pythons. Just as there are many successful ways to keep these snakes, there are many different ways to go about breeding them. During our first years working with ball pythons we tried several different methods, looking for the way to optimal production. For the last five years we’ve used essentially the same routine and had very favorable results. So, with the caveat that this is by no means intended to be THE definitive best way to breed ball pythons, we’d like to share our breeding recipe.



First of all I’d like to say that for reasons I don’t fully understand, our balls seem to be on a timeline that runs later than that of most other breeders. Instead of trying to fight it, we have learned to let them have it their way. Overall, I think ours run a month or two later for mating, egg production, hatching, etc.



While it is possible to successfully reproduce ball pythons without using seasonal temperature variation, it is my belief that seasonal changes synchronize the physiology of males and females, so that breeding occurs when females are most receptive. On the 1st of November we drop the night temps in our breeder racks to 75 degrees (as measured on the substrate surface on the warm end of the boxes). Initially we set the night drop for 12 hours each night, but gradually increase it to 14 hours by the 1st of December. We maintain the 14 hour night time temperature drop until July 1st – at which time we eliminate the night drop completely, maintaining a constant 24/7 temperature of about 93 degrees on the warm end of the boxes.



During the entire year, we keep daytime snake box temperatures the same - approximately 93 degrees on the warm end, and roughly 80 on the cool end.



We begin introducing males to females on the first of December. By breeding first time females, and females that have historically produced early clutches first, we maximize the effectiveness of our breeding males.



Breeding males are allowed to remain in a female’s box until copulation has ended, or 48 hours if copulation is not witnessed. If a male does not copulate with a particular female, he may be placed directly into another female’s box. Males that have copulated are allowed to rest for 2 to 5 days between females.



We offer food to all breeding males at least once per week during the breeding season. Many will feed during the early season, but by February or so most males have stopped, and will not resume feeding until June or July. They begin to look skinny by the end of the breeding season, but I assume the same thing happens with wild males, and we’ve never experienced any problems because of it.



The peak of breeding here happens between February and April. My guess is, that’s when our females are most receptive.



Most of the breedings that are happening right now seem to function mainly as a conditioner for the females, possibly helping them to set their reproductive clocks. Often a female who shows little interest in food will, after mating, begin feeding ravenously – putting on the fat she will need if she is to produce offspring in the upcoming season.



We offer food to adult females twice per week regardless of season. The only exception to that, is during the period between ovulation and egg laying, when no food is offered. In the past I know some breeders have fasted their females during the months of nighttime cooling, thinking that the cooler temperatures might hinder digestion. We have never encountered any problems within the temperature parameters I’ve described. Female ball pythons need adequate body fat reserves to reproduce, and we give them every opportunity to put on additional weight, right up to ovulation.



We begin palpating our females in early January. In fact, ‘How to Palpate’, may be a good topic to discuss in the January newsletter. Palpation is an excellent way to tell where your females are in the whole process. It helps us decide which female should be next on a male’s dance card, and which can wait. We typically palpate females every two weeks from mid January on. Once we determine that a female has mature follicles (follicles of a size that are not likely to be reabsorbed – roughly ping pong ball size), we stop palpating her, so as not to add additional unnecessary stress.



That’s pretty much the highlights in a nutshell. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need clarification, or if we can be helpful to your ball python breeding adventures in any way.





Around the Shop




The big excitement here is that we got our Albino Pied wishes granted in a big way! We now have FOUR big, beautiful babies!!! Proof that the odds can mean very little in the short run. We would have considered ourselves lucky to produce one or two this year. We're very thankful. It’s been a long haul, and now this project has finally become REAL. As all of us that work with recessives know, hets and double hets may be exciting, but they look like normals. It’s great to see what they can do!

[jkobylka]

That's good information.