Up to size???

[nevohraalnavnoj]

Hey all,

With everyone now talking about this year's breeding season being upon us, I thought I would try to figure out when my pastel girl would be ready. She was born July 7 of this past summer. She currently weighs 250grams. I was just trying to run some quick calculations to see if she would possibly be up to size by next breeding season...

She's growing at a minimum rate of 90grams per month. And if I decide to attempt to breed her when she weighs 1500grams, that gives me almost 14months from now to get her up to size with my current progression. I'm not power feeding her at all... I give her one adult mouse every 5 days... I'm guessing that as she gets bigger, she will put on some weight a little more quickly mainly because she will be fed bigger mice. So maybe in about 12-13 months she will be up to size. Now this is all hypothetical if everything works out as I have projected. If she's not up to size, then I'm not going to breed her next season...

But my main question is:

Is it possible for a female to get up to size in about a year a half?

Keep in mind that growth is not linear. Depending on the prey size and where they are in their life cycle their growth rate will differ. You could approximate it by saying they grow really fast right away and then slow down (exponential growth, and then logarithmic). Some breeders try to avoid this and make the growth linear by making sure they are not over feeding.

Yes, it is possible to get females to breed in their second winter. I had one experienced breeder tell me that his success rate with females in their 2nd winter was 10% and his success rate with 3rd winter or older females was 90%. So even if she is "big" she's more like a fat teenager than an adult, and I know I'm stretching with that analogy. The point is, even if she's big it's still going to be difficult.

Consider things in the long term. The Barkers in their book repeatedly stress how much better it is to wait at least until the 3rd (or 4th) winter for females to ensure big clutch sizes throughout the life of the animal. I don't recall if it's in their book, but I recall hearing that breeding a female too soon can stunt their long term production.

Finally, she may slow down when she hits about 1000 grams. My used to be best eater is now finicky, whereas another one has really taken off once she hit 1000 grams. I think it's hard to say. So even if she looks like she's going to hit the mark, it's hard to say what she'll do next spring/summer.

In short, I wouldn't really worry about it right now. Just enjoy your ball python!

JonV