Opinions on breeding young / small females

[WingedWolfPsion]

Pretty dark view of reality to think all the breeders are recommending folks wait until females are larger just because they want to breed all the small ones themselves, sooner. It couldn't have anything to do with breeding smaller females being detrimental to their production in the long term. Nope. Has to be because they're money-grubbing.

Seriously?

[Wh00h0069]

How long did you give the females to get the eggs out on their own?

I'm sorry, I just saw this post. I waited about two months each. I did not realize that they were egg-bound until they were constipated. They were both eating well. This could have been prevented by feeling them to make sure that all of the eggs were out, which I will do from now on.

[Kuba]

Why take a risk anyway, i would rather KNOW that she's ready rather than hope

[Big Gunns]

Aint it a shame most of the guys that have the experience to edumacate us on the odds of breeding young females and the rate of fatal or injurious mishaps is severely lacking in online forums?

That was then...this is now. As long as Big Gunns is here, BP.net will never have a problem again.

Big Gunns is expecting to be paid soon though.

[dr del]

Get in line like the rest of us.

[BPHERP]

In the wild, they will lock and produce clutches when ready, so trying them at marginally reasonable sizes is not a bad thing; if they are ready, they will, if not, then they wont.

BrandonsBalls

[WingedWolfPsion]

This is not the wild.

We want our girls to be as healthy as possible, and most of us want them to produce large, healthy clutches each year.
In the wild, a female will breed as soon as she is physically able to do so--this may not be ideal for her body, and it will probably result in a tiny clutch. She will run into a male sooner in areas where ball pythons are very common--that means competition. By having a smaller clutch, her offspring may not compete with each other as much over available resources--obviously the area supports many ball pythons well, so they also may not have as much outside pressure from predation.

It's a winning strategy, in the wild. If a female is much larger and older when she encounters a male, she'll lay a big clutch, because ball pythons are rare in that area, and there may be less competition for food, but more predators around.

Or perhaps not. But because it makes sense, and roughly matches the experiences of breeders, I'll be waiting until my girls are larger to breed them for the first time. I'd rather have 10 eggs per year for 20 years after waiting an extra year or so than have 4 eggs per year for 20 years, but get them started one year earlier.

What you prefer is, of course, up to you, and your mileage may vary. I'm sure that genetics and development play some role in clutch size as well. But it's only logical that environment is an influence.

[lance]

I think its too risky to breed a female that is less then 1200 grams, its better to wait and get a healthy clutch and to protect your female

lance

[Bruceweb]

Just an assumption on my part but if a female is tail lifting when she comes in contact with a male I'm assuming that she is wanting to breed..come to the conclusion that many more breeders breed at slightly smaller sizes than the recognized 1500g with decent results, many simply dont advertise the fact on forums..spoke to a few that have given honest information, seems much more of a common practice than popular opinion leads you to believe

[WingedWolfPsion]

I'm sure people do things behind closed doors that they don't want to admit to in public. I'm also sure that there's a reason they haven't come barreling out to announce that there's nothing wrong with doing this, and it never causes any problems.