Cycling for Males?

[Dark_Angel_25]

A Friend of mine has a female that he is cycling for breeding (bistrobo) and he is wanting to use my male, but I have some concerns..

1) he is 990 grams just at or over 1 year old is this ok?

2) how long will he have to be with the female for successful copulation? (as I believe he should be put with her)

3) what do I need to do (if anything) to 'get him ready'

I am pretty nervous about all this as this wil be the first time I cycle any of my pets.. and I dont want to do anything wrong that would risk his health and well being..

Any and all suggestions and advice would be welcome.
Thanks!
Tracy

[Vengeance]

Cycleing a Ball python is not as extreme as cycleing a coulbrid. Ball pythons do not need to be cooled to the point of hibernation. During the winter months you just let the ambiant temps dip down in to the Low 70's and provide a hot spot of 85, and then during the day the ambiant should only get to high 70's low 80's, with a hot spot of 95. That is all that is needed for cycling a ball python. You don't need to cool it so that it hibernates.

You'll know if you Ball python is ready to breed if he is producing sperm plugs. If he isn't producing sperm plugs then chances are he isn't ready for breeding yet.

I think it is standard if the female is put in the males cage. You should usually leave them for 24 hours and then seperate them and then try again in a few days.

[Corey Woods]

Vengeance - how many balls have you produced?

Corey

[MouseKilla]

Who cares what he's done, we all know you can turn them out so where's your advice?

[Corey Woods]

My point was that if he hasn't bred them he shouldn't be giving out breeding advice. You don't see me giving out breeding advice on animals I haven't produced.

Corey

[Vengeance]

None yet, just giving out the advice I've read, came from the Ball python breeding video, never claimed to be an expert and feel free to correct me if I'm worng. But I'm pretty sure I'm right about the fact that Ball pythons don't need to be cooled to such extremes. Breeding tips from Ralph Davis on his site says he doesn't do it, and the sutherlands don't do it that way either, so I figured it was a safe assumption that it was the correct way of doing things, but pleae feel free to correct my mistakes, I'm nothing but an egar learner.

[MouseKilla]

Yeah, maybe people who aren't very experienced should let the experts field the questions... still waiting on the experts to share the correct answer to the original question here though. Maybe it's a trade secret. lol!

How many eggs do I have to hatch out before I'm qualified to answer breeding questions I wonder... how many more until my advice is simply too valuable to be given away online? I hope someone can answer those questions for me because when I reach that number, I'm gonna write a book. lol!

[Corey Woods]

Here is the way I do it. Multiple people do it multiple ways and one person isn't right over the other. If the end result is fertile eggs then you are doing something right.

From Oct 1st to April 1st I start "Cooling". All I do is lower the night time temps from their summer temps of a hot spot of 93F 24/7 to 70F during the night. During the day their hot spot goes back upto 93F. So, from 7am to 5pm they have a hot spot of 93F and from 5pm-7am their hot spot is reduced to 70F. It takes their rubbermaids and the room quiet a few hours to drop in temp. I have 2 rooms to my breeding snake room and I leave one door open at night letting the ambiant temp at the door drop to 63F. It is only this low for a couple hours as the ambiant room temp during the day sits in the high 70's.

Males are placed in the females cage. I find it easier to bounce males from cage to cage rather than females. I believe that it also helps if the male is in the females cage as her scent will be all over the place. Females are also bulkier and you don't want to mess around moving females with large follicles in them.

I leave males in with females for a couple days. If they don't breed I remove them and if they do breed I leave them in until they are done. Cooling starts Oct 1st and I usually start moving the males around Nov 1st. Some males need to be in with a female for over 5 days before they will breed (shy animals). Once you get to know your animals you will get a feel for what they need. You may have a male that you think is gay start breeding after 5-7 days of being in with a female.

Feeding of the animals continues until Feb. Most animals will go off food from Oct to Feb but if they are still eating I take them off food in Feb. I feed both males and females weekly (if they'll eat).

The more times a female breeds the better. You can have 100% fertility from one breeding........but multiple breedings work better.

I don't believe in "sperm plugs". Snakes shed their skin as they grow. This includes shedding their hemipenes. However, most times the shed skin breaks off at the vent leaving the shed skin to get lodged in the animal. This shed skin over time becomes hard and gets lodged in and around the hemipene's. The only good reason for removing the fictional "sperm plugs" is to remove the blockage to allow the males to use their hemipenes for breeding. Most males can function with the "sperm plugs" and most times they don't present a problem. However, sometimes slow breeder males will become strong breeders once this blockage is removed.

As for answering your specific questions:

1) - Your male is big enough to breed. Most males will breed at 600-800 grams, however, 1000-1200 grams makes for a stronger breeder. Young males aren't as confident as older males, however, I've never had a CB male not breed. So, their is a good chance your male will be able to handle one female (although shy breeders can be picky on which females they will breed).

2) Once your male breeds the female, which will last anywhere from 1-5 days, you'll want to separate them for a week or so. Feed them in this time and then place them back together once they've digested their meals. As I said above you can get 100% fertility from 1 breeding, however, 5-10 breedings is ideal.

3) See above.

You won't really risk his health breeding him. If he is healthy and parasite free you shouldn't have a problem. Breeding season is stressful on an animal and if he good off food and is compromised in any way (very thin, internal/external parasites....etc) you could end up killing him.....but death is very rare (although not unheard of). Sometimes if the animal is compromised they'll also get a respiratory infection. These are also rare but again not unheard of. If any animal gets an RI warm them back up and treat them with meds if necessary.

Good luck,
Corey

[Corey Woods]

Mousekilla,

I guess technically after 1 clutch you are a "breeder". However, I don't know about you or anyone else but if I went to a doctor who had only performed a specific surgery on 1 other person I'd want to go to another doctor. You'd also want to have a doctor who passed medical school with something above a 65% (99% being ideal).

Corey

[MouseKilla]

Corey,

All I was saying is getting help from Dr.65 is better than getting nothing from Dr.99.

I wasn't joking about the book either, there is a serious lack of reliable and up to date literature on breeding snakes. There is some really good info out there if you want to breed corns but for boids it seems it's either harder to come by or doesn't exist.

I'm sure that contained within the brains of the most successful breeders on this site is enough knowledge to write a book so big it would crowd those skinny little pet store manuals right off the shelf.

For now though I think moving good, detailed posts like that one into the FAQ thread in this forum is a good idea because when answers to even basic questions are hard to find those questions tend to appear over and over in the forums. I can understand why people who know the answers might get sick of repeating themselves so I think it serves everyone for the pros to compile and share their knowledge to close the big gap between beginners and veterans.

[munchy]

Originally posted by MouseKilla

For now though I think moving good, detailed posts like that one into the FAQ thread in this forum is a good idea :thumbsup:

[Vengeance]

Thanks for that Cory, it's great having a bunch of different ideas on how people do things so people just starting out can get a broader idea of what we should be doing.

Once thing I have been curious about is, do you cycle your Ball pythons even when not breeding? Right now what I'm doing is I have a small Rubbermaid rack setup, with a thermostat hooked up. During the day the hot spot is 95, during the night the hot spot is 85. The ambient fluctuates from low 80's to low 70's. But none of these Ball pythons are going to be used in a breeding project for the next 1 - 2 years. So should I continue to cycle them or is it better to keep them at a standard temperature until they are going to be used to breeding?

[Dark_Angel_25]

thanks for the information guys.. I really appreciate it. So basically at night I should turn off the heat pad to lower the temps to 70 or so, and I'll turn it back on when I leave inthe morning. This should be ok right? And let me get this straightr, I should start introducing the male to female Nov. 1? Did I get that right?

Just want to make sure...