Our first year breeding and a few questions

[uzualsuspect5]

I'm new here and am very excited about our first year breeding. We bred beardies once before and we had 19 eggs and 18 hatched and boy werethey some lively little guys! And oh sooo cute. I'll try to keep the typos to a minimum but it's hard when you have a snake trying to assist. She's very demanding, what can I say?

Anyway, we started cooling them in November and in late November/early December began pairing them every 3 days; 3 days on 3 days off. If we saw them copulating than they were separated sooner and given their 3 day break. We have a total of 4 females breeding (all normals).

We bred one of our normal girls to two different snakes. First she was bred to our Spider. This was maybe two or three times in early December before the Lesser would mate. Once he began breeding, we had bought a proven male bee (figured he would produce the Spiders and he doesn't have wobble) we began breeding her to the Lesser. I have heard the female can retain sperm, but how often does that happen? Also, is it really a chance she would produce, normals, Lesser Platinum's, & Spiders since she bred to both? I've heard of this happening but never knew if there was any truth behind it. Finally, since the only male we own that's proven, should we cover the females with each of our virgin snakes a few times than follow it up with the Bee? They are all swelling up, but I'm not seeing definition between bumps so I'm not 100% sure they're ovulating.

I'm just hoping to produce some Cinnamons/Black Pastels (not sure which he is, was sold to us as a Cinnamon but I've heard they're the same thing, if someone would be ever so kind to clarify that for me I would be very appreciative), Lesser Platinum's, Bumble Bee (HAH! I know), and Spiders/Pastels. I love my Pastels and Bumble Bees! Next year I have my fingers crossed for a Lesser Bee/Pastel, Piebald, & a Humble Bee. =) My boyfriend doesn't want to even think about next year but I feel it requires lots of meticulous planning. I just wanted to share as I don't really have any snake people that I talk to regularly and am very excited! Any advice or comments are very helpful! Thanks for reading and sorry for there being so much!

[SlitherinSisters]

Very exciting. I have 4 normal females breeding this year as well! It's very true that a clutch can be sired by more than one male, just like with dogs and cats (really any animal that has 'litters'). Just his last season someone had a three sired clutch, and there were tons of people with double sired clutches. This year I'm breeding all the girls to both my boys, a spider and a pastel (the mojo got taken out of the running this year since he's being a jerk about eating). If you are confident in the male you are breeding now and you want babies from him, just keep breeding him. If you aren't sure if he's viable, throw in the other male as a back up. Either way you'll get babies from one of them!

I'm not quite sure what you are asking about the retained sperm, usually that term is used for when a female holds sperm from the previous years breeding. If you are wondering if she'll retain sperm from the first male you bred her to this season, that's certainly possible.

As for cinny/black pastel, once you have an eye for them they are easy to pick out from one another. Black pastels have a funky black outline(ish) in the floating spots that outline the center O. You should be able to see what I mean in this http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...-Black-Pastels

Oh, and welcome to the site!

[uzualsuspect5]

I had a feeling it was. I had heard it before but I had never actually saw it or heard of it actually happening to someone. It was usually "oh you know this can happen", so I always wondered.

Yeah, I was curious about her keeping the Spiders. She's a "proven breeder" (which I actually don't doubt) so if they can retain previous years who knows what you could be ending up with! We ended up with another proven breeder when we got the male Bee and boy did I have a hard time getting her to breed anyone! She just last night or today ended up copulated with the Bee. Needless to say I was quite excited. We had bred the Bee to another female no problems but she was another story. The Lesser wanted nothing to do with her either. Is it possible she wasn't ovulating until now and that's why there was no interest? I've heard of that as well.

Thank you so much for the article! It was VERY helpful. Now I know what to look for. That was just great.

And thank you for the welcome Thanks again for your help!

[SlitherinSisters]

Last season was crazy with all the double sired clutches! It would be really cool if I got a double sired clutch, but the chances are really low, I'm just doing it because I couldn't decide which male should get which female.

As for your ovulation question, that shouldn't be it. Most people started breeding in October/November and ovulation pics are just starting to pop up now. The females should be locking up long before ovulation. I'm not very experienced with breeding so I can't tell you when exactly they start refusing the male. I know my girl last year started refusing the male the second week of February and a month later was her prelay shed. Her ovulation would have been roughly the week after she started refusing the male -going by the average days girls ovulate and shed. I believe it's normal for girls to start refusing the male once they ovulate.

Here is my favorite site for info on breeding bps http://ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html