what % never breed

[Hilltop]

I have tried to look around for the answer, nothing so ill ask the pros. What kind of precentage of balls never breed. Like when i buy 5 hatchlings and grown then up to breedin age, how many will do their thing and how many never do a thing. Or is infertile or "queer" or whatever pretty rare almost a just unlucky thing to come across.

[OhhWatALoser]

i would assume your answer is going to be less than 1%. I've never herd of a ball python not breeding, some just take a while.

you might be better off asking BHB or someone who has a huge stock

[Hilltop]

well i hope that turns out right, cause I only got the 1 male coming into my first breeding season

[Freakie_frog]

We bred 25 females this season out of those 25
20 locked at least 3 times.
5 of those that locked produced
1 of that five slugged out totally

Bred 8 different males
of those only
4 Produced viable clutches

Our Year sucked big ole you know what's..

Here Tim Keeps like OCD records..check out these stats
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...stics-Part-III

[mykee]

On average, I witness 95-100% of my (ready to breed) females lock up.
Of those, roughly 60-80% of my (ready to breed) females will go on to ovulate.
Of those, roughly 5% of the eggs laid will be slugs.
The key to all of this is: ready to breed.
If the female isn't ready to breed, she won't breed and she won't ovulate. If she did happen by some weird twist of fate to do those, she will most likely give you all slugs.

[Hilltop]

that is quite dishearting 50% on males and 25% on females thats brutal and sounds like i should pick up a backup male to even give me a decent shot of producing a viable eggs or gamble this season and put all my faith in Odin

[muddoc]

To answer your original question, I have probably about 12 females out of about 200 that at 5 years of age have not laid eggs. Now, of that 12, roughly 7 of them are less than 1000 grams. So, about 5 of them are 5 years old, and over 1500 grams, and still not laid eggs. With that said, and these numbers used, 2.5% have not laid eggs. Now, I have been toying around this year with breeding those girls in the "off season". I say that because I have a breeding season at our facility, and maybe these girls develop when I am not breeding. So, I will begin introducing males to those girls in the next 1 to 2 weeks, to see if they will go. I know there are plenty of the big boys out there that are breeding year around. I have not tried that, as most of mine go at the same time, and working a full time job doesn't allow me to attempt hatching year around. I think that would be too disorganized for me.

With all of that said, I think anyone attempting to answer this question would be fathoming a guess. And, my guess would be <1%.

p.s. I also meant to say that the females that I discussed above that haven't laid, they do breed, just haven't given eggs yet. So, I would say that I have been able to successfully "breed" every female that I have attempted, but that doesn't mean you will get eggs from a breeding.

Hope that helps,

[Cokacola]

This is an interesting thread. How about males? What % of males just consistently fail to lock up for multiple seasons?

[PassionsPythons]

This year was slow for me only being my second year breeding. I did however have a great year.

I bred my spider male to 3 different normal females. Each female ovulated and laid eggs. First clutch 7 eggs, 0 slugs. Second clutch 7 eggs, 0 slugs. Third clutch 8 eggs, 0 slugs.

The only other breeding I did was with a 1.1 pair of '05 het albinos. They locked several times, but the female never ovulated or laid. The female was only in the 1200 gram range to start the season. I think that had something to do with the lack of production. I am really hoping for more out of them this upcoming season.

So out of 4 females, I used 2 males, and I got 22 eggs, 0 slugs, and I had one female not go at all. I'm 75% on the year for viable clutches and 80% overall (the past 2 years combined).

I'm sure my percentages are going to change this year as I have quite a few more breedable females. In my experience I have yet to see a slug, but I have no doubts that will change before to long. You can't be lucky forever.

[Hilltop]

First off thank you all for your input here, and it gives me a very good idea of what a guy is looking at as far as females go. In a nut shell if we do our job right, picking a virgin female that is of breeding age, size, health and cycle and get a viable male to breed her most, by a landslide will eventually produce eggs. But I have at least 2 females ready to rock so I am pretty sure I am good on that end.

So lets talk males for a min, how many males get the trade to a pet owner for not passing on his genes with G2G females