Just a few quick questions

[herpchick]

Ok, I just have a few questions about ball behavior during breeding season. First is it typical for young males to go off feed during this time? I've got an 08 spider male and an 08 het clown male that have both been excellent feeders up until about a month ago when they just stopped eating, show no interest what so ever which is very atypical of both of them. Also about young females, I've got an 08 het clown and 08 pastel pos het ghost that are both just guzzling down mice as often as I will give them, i'm talking 3 or 4 adult mice every 3 or 4 days ( I wanted to see how much they would eat so I tried it). Is this normal? Finally my adult female was put with one of my males but they never locked as far as I can tell, I put them together only about a week ago and separated them after 3 days, she wasn't with him or any other males since, but the last couple days I've caught her laying on her side, not totally flipped over but just enough that her belly is perpendicular to the bottom of the cage, does this mean anything?
I'm sorry about the long post, I've read tons of threads and still can't find answers. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

[nevohraalnavnoj]

--Some males will go off feed, others may not. It's entirely normal and as long as they have good mass (and you aren't breeding them to death) it should be no problem.

--The amount you are feeding those '08s is a lot. I don't know it's necessarily bad for a while, but you may want to back off a little bit when they get in the 600g+ range. Baby balls are pigs, and they have to be since that is when the food is available to them in the wild.

-- Laying inverted is a good sign of an ovulation to come, but I don't think it's a 100% predictor. Check out this guide:

http://www.ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html


--As for the lock, keep putting them together. You can try several things: 1) Put the male in when the female is in shed 2) Increase humidity 3) Put them together when a low pressure front moves in 4) Throw in old sheds from other males / females that ARE breeding. I have one male that really just likes a break sometimes. After a few days rest he's back at it!

Also, have you cooled them?

JonV

[herpchick]

Alright, thank you. I'm not feeding the 08 females that much anymore, I just tried it a couple times to see how much they WOULD eat, now it's more like 2 mice every 7 days. As for cooling them, I really didn't actively cool them, however, where I am and how I have everything setup, there's a natural temp drop at night to about 75-78 degrees in the winter. I've heard of the humidity thing before, maybe I'll give that a shot! thanks