First Breeding Attempt

[DarrinLowe]

Hey,

I have a few questions about breeding and doing it successfully.
First off, I have never bred ball pythons before. Although, I have read the breeding steps on the Markus Jayne website.

We are putting the male in with the female. 3 days on, 3 days off. I slightly lower the temperature at night.

From what I have seen, they avoid eachother. I don't want to be stressing them too much if nothing is going to happen. If they are keeping their distance from eachother does that mean, they're not interested?

There are a few times where they have been balled together. Their tails were together once but it didnt look like they were in the right spot to be successful.

Any suggestions on what to do/look for?

[CoolioTiffany]

Some Ball pythons new to breeding need time to get the hang of it. Seems like they were trying to figure it out. The male will eventually figure out what to do and lock up with the female.

Some signs to look for:

Tail wagging - When the female is interested in breeding she will wave around her tail side to side, hence calling this tail wagging. She will also scent up a little in the enclosure, basically getting the male in the mood to breed.

Following - Something that I have noticed, the male will generally follow her around the enclosure if he is interested in breeding. He will also slither all around/on her. Just something I've noticed when my male was interested in breeding with my female.

Ventral claws - During courtship, males will use their ventral claws to scratch or tickle at the female when he's interested in breeding. Though, this may be a little hard to witness.

By the way.. if they aren't called ventral claws, someone please clear that up LOL. I forget off the top of my head but I think that's what they are called.

[DarrinLowe]

Well thats the thing.

I'm not sure if its the girl but the male has successfully bred before.
For the first part they were together, they moved around a little bit.

Ps.

I'm not sure if I am thinking of the right things, but are they the hemipenes?

[Jay_Bunny]

They are also called spurs.

Where are you located, by the way? For most ball python females, the breeding season is over and will begin again in a few months. I live in Virginia, and my house experiences a natural dip in temperature during the fall and winter. Therefore I do not intentionally drop temperatures in my enclosures. I usuall begin introducing the male to the female in early to late Fall (depending on the female. This season, one female I began breeding in mid-November. The other I began breeding in December. And I had another female breed in March), though I've had females begin breeding as early as October. I've also heard that pressure affects their follicular development and breeding behavior. When the pressure drops outside, ball pythons tend to breed more. This is why when it rains/snows or a storm comes through the area during breeding season, I'll put my breeding pairs together.

You could technically begin breeding them now, but you may not see any action between them until much later in the year. SOME females are on an opposite schedule and breed during the Spring and Summer, but most are Fall through Spring.

[jbean7916]

I tried to pair mine during "breeding season" and got the same results you did, but when I put them together last week they locked up on the first night and again when he was done with his 3 day rest. Just keep trying and one thing I'd recommend is to not keep the females tub spotless. Not saying let her poo overrun the place but spot clean and dont scrub her smell away. It seemed a semi-dirty tub was more romantic to my male.

sent from my EVO