Quote Originally Posted by Galaxygirl View Post
I've heard of other breeders doing this, and I tried it once. Neither the breeding male nor the breeding female seemed to acknowledge the nonbreeding male. Everytime I introduced the breeding male with the nonbreeding male, it didn't seem like the breeding male cared about the other at all. The last thing I tried was popping the nonbreeding male to make sure sperm plugs were exposed (I tried to pop the big breeding male as well, but he was too large), and then put the nonbreeding male with the breeding male. To my surprise, the breeding male started combating for the first time with the nonbreeding male after he had ignored him so many times before. The nonbreeding male did not combat, he only tried to flee. I was concerned it would be detrimental to the nonbreeding male so I removed him after 5 minutes. The next day the nonbreeding male was locked for the first time. I tried putting the nonbreeding male with different females after he locked with the first one, and he didn't seem interested in either of the two other females I put him with, then I noticed he was going into shed.

Possible Outcomes:

  1. Popping the males and introducing them helped the nonbreeding male begin breeding.
  2. Introducing males had no effect, just coincidental timing.
  3. The male bred because he only liked that female and never liked the others.
  4. He wouldn't breed with the other females because he was going into shed.


I'll know more when he's done shedding and I reintroduce him to females he had no interest in in the past. Hope this experience helps a little.
Thank you for the response. It helps to hear other's experiences. I will be curious to see what your boy does after shedding.

Quote Originally Posted by Deborah View Post
It can be done but the issue is if you already have a shy / not ready / not experienced male putting a mature well established male could actually have the opposite effect of what you are trying to accomplish making it worse for that male same goes for male combat.

I prefer using sperm plugs and shed, I do 1.2 ratio along with a few other tricks, and if the male is still a no go than he was just not ready for that season, I have a male with this problem right now too which given his age and weight surprises me but it is what it is.

Sent from my SM-T320 using Tapatalk
I understand what you're saying Deborah and I appreciate the advice. I think I hear BELs in my future. See what I did there? Since it will be a Lesser het Ghost to a Pastave, any BEL may have the added bonus of being Pastel and het ghost. It won't do anything for me but for someone else, should I be fortunate enough to produce more than one, they may end up with a nice surprise, like getting two secret decoder rings in a box of Cracker Jack's.

- - - Updated - - -

Quote Originally Posted by HannahLou View Post
No personal experience but I did see somewhere (think a YouTube video forever ago) that they suggested sticking an experienced male in with the 2 non-working couple for just 10 minutes and then removing and it supposedly is enough to get the other 2 motivated. Good luck!
I'll see if I can find that. Thanks