Quote Originally Posted by mason View Post
Over the years we've found themore you mess about with them the more problems you will get.


You seem to just be throwing yourself into this haphazardly, if memeory serves you've not owned this het pied longer than a few weeks and already he's in/out a females tub.


When you make the decision to breed your pythons you have to treat them less like pets, stop hanling them, getting them out and messing with them.Decide on a "schedule" for your breedings and stick to it. We find leaving the male in for 3 days, removing hims for three days, in for three days (etc) until you see the signs you are looking for (ie ovulation and egg-building).

This means you know when you can feed them (when seperate), when to look for locks and removes all this "should I take him out now/put him back in now/open the tub just to have a look at them both" nonsense. The more you interfere with them the less like sucessful breeding/laying/hatching becomes.
For both animals keep on thier normal feeding schedule, both snake will eat as they wish and then let you know when they don't want to eat by refusing.

The WORST thing you can do is over do it. Theres nothing you can do to MAKE them mate or MAKE her produce viable eggs, breeding snakes is not as simple as 1 male+ 1 female = eggs 100% of the time.You'll have pairing not take, females not take, males lose interest, different males 'liking' certain females and refusing others (and visa versa).


Keep your animals well, get the husbandry spot on and learn patience, the rest will come naturally and in it's own time.

If you do plan on getting in to breeding royals in a bigger way then you'll want to think much more about your quarentine procedures or you'll come unstuck, you'll also have to learn a little patience, and realise you're trying to help mother-nature do it's thing, not "switch on" and egg producing machine.
He does have a good point. Quarantining should take 3-6 months. And when you quarantine, you cannot have the new snake in the same room as your established collection. Just in case the snake has parasites (internal/external) or diseases, even if it seems the snake is completely healthy. I made that mistake with the quarantining when I got my 2nd BP, and I discovered he had mites. Now, I fixed the problem. And during that time, I quarantined. Luckily, the mites did not spread throughout my collection which could have easily happened in no time. I recently had to quarantine my King snake from my room because he had RI. It's all about making sure your snakes are healthy, and following with that is the steps you take and the #1 step should be quarantining, always. And when your snake is in perfect health, you can start to do what you want with it such as moving it into the same room as your established collection and/or breeding it.