How I breed ball pythons!! Long post.

[StickyTongues]

I will feed them a sm-med rat/rats say on Mon. Then again on Wed then again on Fri Sat.
One female that laid 13 eggs for me ate 2 small rats and 1 large and one jumbo in the span of 6 days.If I feed her small rats she will eat 7-10 in one week. They are usually swollen up nice and good after feeding like this. They usually eat like this till they get ready to shed. It makes for more cage cleaning but it is worth it in the end.

No offense but isn't that a little excessive? How big was the girl? If I fed my 3000+ gram girl a jumbo she would let out a huge poop vs smaller size rats where she would have a much smaller poop. I wouldn't want to clean up this girls mess.

Maybe I'm doing it all wrong. I've only bred ball pythons for a few years and never fed any of my girls more than twice a week and even then only small - medium rats. All my girls grow up fine and breed well. Lucky for me I've never had to cool and my ball pythons breed all year round if I let them.

Then again I'm sure I have a much smaller collection than yours. Anyway, great advice on the cooling and prepping for breeding but I just don't agree with that heavy of a feeding. Anyone else care to chime in on this? I'm curious to see if anyone else follows this feeding schedule.

[Thomas Jones]

What you have to remember is this is not a year around feeding schedule. It usually only lasts a few months say from may -Oct/Nov. When they are in shed I do not offer food. So they get breaks. This schedule is only on the girls I feel have a real good chance at breeding the up coming season.

People are use to hearing to feed once a week. That is fine if you are happy fewer females going and having more slugs in the clutches. You can not over feed them. That is as long as you plan to breed them. If you have a pet ball python then one small -med rat a week is perfect for a pet snake.

Good luck this season.

P.S. No offense taking

[bigballs]

What you have to remember is this is not a year around feeding schedule. It usually only lasts a few months say from may -Oct/Nov. When they are in shed I do not offer food. So they get breaks. This schedule is only on the girls I feel have a real good chance at breeding the up coming season.

People are use to hearing to feed once a week. That is fine if you are happy fewer females going and having more slugs in the clutches. You can not over feed them. That is as long as you plan to breed them. If you have a pet ball python then one small -med rat a week is perfect for a pet snake.

Good luck this season.

P.S. No offense taking

i dont know how it can be said that feeding fewer meals to breeding females will result in smaller clutches. personally i think power feeding breeding, or any female 3 times a week is much too excesive especially during breeding season when the temps are cooler and the stress of breeding and such is present. a female during breeding season should already have enough size to endure the breeding cycle and should not have too power feed to try to "catch up". personally i dont think power feeding during the breeding cycle will result in bigger clutches and i actually feel it may hinder breeding results. if the female doesnt have what it takes by the start of breeding then she wont have what it takes a few weeks later with or without power feeding.

like yours thomas, this is just my opinion. i may not agree with things youve said but im not knocking your methods. like you said its not the only way to do it.

[anendeloflorien]

I was also under the impression that "power feeding" can not only cause smaller clutches, albeit with less slugs, but also lowers the life expectancy of the snake by years . I'm really not trying to bash your methods at all lol since I have not tried one way or another as of yet and I'm still raising up my BPs to hopefully have a couple ready to go next fall or winter.

I say this as someone who is just trying to learn because I only have one breeding size female as of right now and she will be on loan this winter to a friend.

But, I will say thanks so much Thomas ! Its great information and I am printing it out to add to my ball python notebook if you don't mind . I can't imagine ever finding a single method that everyone can agree upon and I'm sure if you follow this and it works for you that it's the best way for you while other people have their ways that work also lol thanks again !