Honestly how many females can a single male reliably breed in one season?

[ScottyDsntKnow]

Just wanting to get a grip on this so I can decide how big I want to go on normal breeding females the first year. I've heard of males breeding a bunch of females but I wouldn't want to overdo it. If this has already been asked I'm sorry. The idea of getting a bee the first year instead of a spider/mojo/bp and breeding him to 4-6 females is appealing but is it too hard on the snake and is that really putting all my hypothetical eggs into one basket which I've also mentioned before when someone suggested to just get a bee?

Sorry for being so noob but I'd rather ask and look dumb than not ask and look dumb/possibly hurt the animal/be out $$$. In my experience the stupidest question is the one not asked.

Thanks again!

[crsaz]

id get 2 males if I were you unless you breeding like less than 5 is more than that the other could pick up the slack if one is lacking

[Adam_Wysocki]

The answer isn't as cut and dry as you'd probably like it to be because it depends.

I've heard of males breeding 14 - 18 girls in a single season ... and I've also heard of males dying from being over bred on 3 girls.

The thing that most people don't realize is that a male ball python exerts an enormous amount of energy while courting and breeding a female ... that exertion can severely compromise the animals immune system and cause him to get sick.

The key is to know your male ... to make sure that he has good weight and is healthy ... to understand how well he is or isn't breeding ... to observe whether he is or isn't eating consistently ... and figure what's best for him as the season goes. If you have no experience physically observing the difference between a worn out male and a male that is doing well, my best advice would be to use a few girls, breed them infrequently, and rest the male often ... that's the safest way to go for your boy. Over time, you'll develop the eye to know when you can ask your breeder males for more and when you need to lay off, but that's not something that happens on day one or year one.

Every male is different ... what works for one, might not work for 10 others in the same collection. So there really is no "one answer". I think generally 4 or 5 girls is the norm for a male in his second winter at or above about 600 grams with the male getting plenty of rest during the breeding season. For the guys that are doing the younger male thing, I think they start with one or maybe two small girls and see how things go.

Hope this helps.

-adam

[ScottyDsntKnow]

That does help, thank you. I'm planning on getting my male/males in late feb or early march so hopefully I can find them from a year round breeder that had a hatching early in the year or late last year. That gives them 11 or 12 months to get up to size for 09.

[mainbutter]

how many times do you try to get a male to lock up with a female you are breeding him to? does one successful lockup do the trick often enough that you call it good? I could see this affecting how many females you try to breed a male with.

[Alice]

how many times do you try to get a male to lock up with a female you are breeding him to? does one successful lockup do the trick often enough that you call it good? I could see this affecting how many females you try to breed a male with.

That also varies. I've hatched clutches from observing just 4 lockups and not hatched after observing 9 or 10. A lot depends on where in the "cycle" each female is, if the male is producing sperm plugs, and whether you're seeing all the lockups.

I would personally not stop after 1; especially if I haven't observed any other signs. Also, knowing your snakes as Adam said is very important.

Good luck!

[Adam_Wysocki]

how many times do you try to get a male to lock up with a female you are breeding him to? does one successful lockup do the trick often enough that you call it good? I could see this affecting how many females you try to breed a male with.

If you've never bred before and you don't know what to look for ... keep putting the male in with the females until you get eggs.

Over time, you'll develop an eye for picking out behaviors and being able to palpate females (some people even ultrasound) to know when you no longer need to put a male in with them.

Hope this helps.

-adam

[mainbutter]

hehe thanks adam, it was just a question of curiosity I'm not anywhere close to start breeding. Give it at least a year or two

[bait4snake]

I've seen a good breeding colony be 2 males and 6-8 females. The division of labor and quantity of eggs produced makes things easy on everyone.

[Luke Martin]

I had one pastel male breed a female probably 10 times (visual lock ups) and as time went and females were ovulating this one female just didn't look like anything was going on. I threw a cinnamon male in with her and 1 lockup later I could tell she took so I thought I'd be seeing pastels but....7 eggs...5 cinnamons. You just have to observe your snakes and their behaviors to really get breeding right. It takes trial and error, the error always sucks but you learn not to do that again!