building vs ovulation, how to tell?

[hungba]

In a lot of care sheets, I read that you pair until ovulation. Afterwhich whether you pair or not makes no further difference. I read that ovulation is when the bottom third part near the tail swells up a lot, and if you catch it "you will know when you see it".

However, now I see that a lot are confusing building with ovulating in some threads.

So how do I tell the difference?

[Dave Green]

I think most newbies confuse building and ovulation (I know I did) but quickly learn what an ovulation is once they see it. Here are a couple ovulations from last year:

[hungba]

How about building? Any photos of what may be confused for ovulation for comparison?

I have two females which locked a couple times with the male back late last year (oct - nov), but then in december, they stopped getting along with the male. They were fighting. So I stopped pairing them. There was speculation as to whether those females were males because of the fighting, although they were double checked to be female. Now it looks that they have "ovulated", or at least it seems to my untrained eye. I hear that there is sperm retention in pythons of people who have ended up with clutches a year late. Is there any possibility (and what liklihood) that these two females will still lay viable eggs? It doesn't matter, but I just want to know.

[LLLReptile]

Building just looks like the females are bigger than usual. Nothing really "Aha!" about it; they just look larger.

Ovulation looks almost like there's something wrong because the females are suddenly so fat and bloated looking in the bottom 1/3rd of their body. The tail sucks up, and in general they look miserable.

If you're in doubt, it is probably just building.

-Jen

[nimblykimbly]

This is a really good question, because I don't know if my girl is building or has ovulated at this point... lol
She has been off feed for 3-4 weeks, and looks like she's got a belly full and it feels firm to the gentle touch. This pic doesn't even do it justice:
She has been hugging her water bowl on the cool side, and oftentimes even soaking (no mites), though she's slacked on the soaking over the last few days.

This is my first year breeding, so I wonder... Is she building or ovulating? Pics of building behavior would be great...


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[Dave Green]

I don't have pictures of "building"; however, it isn't nearly as extreme as an ovulation. Building is more of a slow and steady growth. You won't see the drastic swelling that you see with ovulation. Also, look at the tails of the snakes above. The tails almost looks thinner then they did prior to the ovulation, hense the term "tail suck". Also, when they ovulate you will see the swelling underneath as well, almost looks like they ate the cat. In addition, my females will still eat when building and then stop a couple/few weeks before ovulation.

It's not really that big of a deal to mix up building with ovulation. If you do and mark the shed date you will then get an ovulation instead of eggs. Then you can mark the correct pre-egg laying shed.

Since I haven't seen your snakes and what they've been doing it's really hard to say if they will lay eggs or not.

[nimblykimbly]

It sounds to me like mine is still building, then.... Above, is our picture of a snake 'building', hungba! lol Her belly growth is gradual, not a sudden big 'WOW'! She also doesn't have tail suck (from what I see) either. just a big ol', miserable belly and no appetite, hanging around on the cool side with her water bowl...

[Meltdown Morphs]

This is a picture of my girl building from last year, its probably the peak of building right before ovulation they start to really swell up it seems. This pic was on 1-10-12, her real ovulation was on 1-17-12, and she laid on 2-29-12. Unfortunately I didn't get pics of the real ovulation as my grandmother had passed on the same day, just wasn't focused on the snakes then.





This same girl ovulated again yesterday, unfortunately I yet again didn't catch it at its peak this time due to uncertainty, but I got to see as the swell gradually went down during the rest of the day. I kind of figured it was the ovulation cause I could see the tail suck people were talking about, not to mention she seemed stuck in one position and her midsection was so swollen it was raised somewhat from the tub floor.Don't know why I didn't take pictures of it anyway, guess I got too bummed out that I missed the full blown ovulation 2nd year in a row.

[SlitherinSisters]

Ovulation is pretty big, and the tail suck is a dead give away. They won't have a tail suck when they are building, their tail will look just as fat as the rest of them.

Building



Before she started building, see how much thinner she was?


Same girl ovulating


Another girl building



Different girl ovulating

[hungba]

Thanks. After ovulation, the swelling subsides in a day or two. Do they just look normal after that? Does the "tail suck" also disappear?