Should I Breed Her?

[Ssssseeing Lavender]

Hello,

This question is aimed towards members who have extensive personal experience breeding ball pythons. I have read multiple books and countless articles(not to mention threads) on breeding BPs but I am interested in hearing what people have learned from 1st hand experience. I have a lavender albino female that hatched around april-may 2012. She is currently 1659g and a tad over 3 ft long. My intial plan was to wait until Dec. 2014 to breed her(she would be about 2.5yrs at that point) but she is a BEAST. If I attempted to breed her this coming December/January she will be roughly 19 months. Is this a bad idea? I have read that breeding a young female will lead to a small clutch and can retard future clutch sizes. Any thoughts on this? I've also read that some people breed females at 18 months. Are these people breeding haphazardly without regard for their animals? I do not want to do anything that will harm her. Am I jumping the gun here? Thanks for your help guys!

Chris

[Lopezxx2]

I had similar questions and from what I was told was to go ahead and try if she had the weight. What most people say is if she is sexually mature, she will breed. If she isn't, nothing will happen haha.

[I-KandyReptiles]

It depends on the person and the snake.

Usually, people suggest 2+ years and 1500g+.

Although if she is up to size, there's no harm in trying. It's more likely that she'll have a bigger clutch if you were to wait and get more weight on her.

[Annarose15]

I started breeding my lemonblast last year at 18 months old and ~1800g. She laid 7 healthy eggs. It's all animal-specific, but I believe that the rhetoric around the first clutch always being small is more urban legend than anything else. Would I have bred a 1200g girl at the same age? No.

[Emilio]

Go for it if she is ready she will go, the whole egg binding problem can happen to any female young or old, the odd's are she will go the following year but it doesn't hurt to try now. Good Luck!!!

[iCandiBallPythons]

I would go for it

[MrLang]

I have limited experience, but I started pairing my ghost at around 18 months and 1200g. By the time she ovulated she was 22 months and 1700g.

She just laid 6 fertile eggs for me over the weekend. She hasn't eaten yet but she looks like she'll be OK.

[Ball Clan]

Go for it if she is ready she will go, the whole egg binding problem can happen to any female young or old, the odd's are she will go the following year but it doesn't hurt to try now. Good Luck!!!

How common is egg binding? I've never seen any posts about it happening on any forum, but I've heard it's a risk. It sounds terrible, so I'd like to know how often it actually occurs, if anyone has any ideas on that.

[PitOnTheProwl]

I would like to say it is not too common BUT I have a friend that has lost 3 snakes in the last 2 seasons.
I don't know why but they were all proven breeders too.

[adamfritzsche]

How common is egg binding? I've never seen any posts about it happening on any forum, but I've heard it's a risk. It sounds terrible, so I'd like to know how often it actually occurs, if anyone has any ideas on that.

I'm not sure how common of an occurrence it is, but I know it does happen on occasion as I see posts about it happening every once in awhile. But like the Emilio said it can happen at any time to any snake, young or old, fat or skinny. I think the belief is that the combination of young and skinny is at the highest risk.