Thanks Richard. I think because I keep my snakes differently to most keepers, this only serves to highlight the similarity in behaviour of these snakes regardless of how and where you keep them. They all do the same thing for the same reasons, but the expression of the behaviour is expressed in different ways depending on their environment. The message is a favourite one - observation is key!
Thanks Kirk. Hope it helps in some small way. I wish you well in your breeding. Don't be afraid to ask questions if you hit something unexpected or you are not sure. This community is awesome for answering questions. And let us know how it goes!
Awesome. Pleased to share. Part 2 I'll try to make shorter. Once I get going, there's so much I want to include, they always end up too long! Hope it helps with seeing your breeder females through the first part of the season. The second part will cover from them going off food to laying eggs and some of the very different behaviours females exhibit as they get closer to laying eggs.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls I don't think that is a long vídeo. Great vídeo and once again you have teacher skills. Eheheh. Just a question, in this fase you prefer to give the correct sized rat or do you prefer to offer more smaller rats? Thank you
@@bernardoferreira9255 I offer what I have. My snakes don't seem to care. If they get a big rat, they'll get just one and I watch to see when they appear hungry again. If it's a medium, I might feed another small on the same day or another small rat midweek. All depends on the snake. Usually I don't sweat it too much, just make sure they're gaining weight. If they are fat, once a week is still fine. If they are still a bit thin, feed extra. Don't wait for them to poo to feed again. That might take 2 weeks. They will eat when they need to. I also don't usually bother too much about presentation, holding the rat by the scruff of the neck and offering the head end. My snakes don't care! As long as it's warm they'll take it. Or my hand instead if I'm not careful.
Glad you liked it. Feeding footage can sometimes be a bit controversial, but it's an integral part of snake keeping and in this case, the behavioural change in your females is noticeable and I wanted to illustrate what I mean when I talk about an "aggressive" feeding response during this part of the breeding season. It can be shocking to those who have not seen this behaviour before. An hour or two after feeding when the scent has gone, my snakes are back to their normal "innocent" selves again.
Thanks! I enjoyed doing this one and showing my snakes behaviour. Already started on part 2 although all my breeder females are still eating, at least for now.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls ya was a lot of great info, beautiful snakes as well. Super helpful as well. Thank you for the time spent creating the video's
Hi Shane. Hope you and family are having a great Christmas and New Year. Loved making this video. Just remember I'm using natural monsoon cycles and ambient temps, so your snakes will go through the same phases, but they may express the visual cues in slightly different ways. Fascinating animals. very rewarding. Feeding females that are "on it" at this time of year is always an experience!
Hi mate. Hope you find this series useful. There is a ton of information related to breeding in our climate on my channel. You can always DM on instagram if you have questions, or just drop a comment on any of my videos. I try to answer them all.
Hi mate, wow, that really is a compliment! Thank you for taking the time to comment. All I actually did was film my snakes doing their thing and putting a few words to it so that we can begin to understand and interpret what we are seeing. Snake behaviour can be very subtle. I'm glad you found it useful and hope it adds to your enjoyment and success in keeping and breeding these awesome animals.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thank you. I have several I'm excited about. The incubator is tuned in to perfection. Now it's all up to the girls. I hope the 2 years and thousands of hours of research pay off.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls yes it does TY sir! Do you have email or IG or FB? I would love to have you as a contact if possible because I run ambient as well and think i can learn alot from u if you dont mind
So do you feed yours full sized rats and not just smalls? I was told to only feed size small rats, and never anything bigger, but mine I feed small to medium sized, except for a really huge make I have, I feed him medium sized, but when one of my male breeder rats died, I assume a heart attack while breeding, still very warm, I fed this jumbo boy to my biggest male snake, and he ate it with no problem. What size rats do you suggest?
I have no issue feeding my big breeder females even jumbo rats, but only every two weeks or even longer so they can digest it properly. Size isn't really an issue for them as they are designed to eat what they can when they can. But in captivity we tend to overfeed our snakes, feeding them large prey too often. So if you feed a big meal, don't feed them again for a few weeks. If you feed every week, then you must feed smaller sized prey in order for them to digest it, other wise they are continually digesting and they poo way more than they need to just to keep things moving internally. And they get fat, which is bad. When it comes to breeding, as a female starts to build follicles, the developing follicles take up internal space and start to restrict her digestive system. There is no room for food any more and they will eventually stop eating before they go on to lay eggs. The objective of feeding smaller but more frequently at this time is to allow for easy digestion in a restricted digestive tract, allow them to build the necessary body reserves to go on and lay eggs when they cannot eat any more and to simulate an abundance of prey in the breeding season. Hope this helps.
How do you get a good hotspot and a cool end with no heat mats because if you heat or cool the room everything goes to the same temperature or can you get away with a base temp for an overall happy medium
Hi Jimi. Yes the water bowls provide a means of cooling, but generally a stable temperature of around 86-88F seems to suit these animals just fine, which the tropics dishes up on a daily basis. The main thing to watch is digestion. At normal ambient temperatures, they digest just fine, but because they don't have a hot spot, if the temperature drops for any reason during the year, this slows down digestion. Normally this is not an issue, but if, for instance, we cool the room for breeding purposes, their digestion slows and we compensate by feeding smaller rodents. The consistency and "content" of their poo tells you if digestion is efficient. These animals have a way of letting you know they are healthy and functioning as nature intended. The other thing to watch for is with imported snakes from Europe or the USA, particularly subadults and adults. These snakes have been kept in tubs with heat mats and it takes them a while to learn how to thermoregulate and get acclimated to no heat mats set-ups we have here. Juveniles adapt immediately. Adults take a bit longer and again, we compensate by feeding smaller meals once they do actually start to eat that is!
Hi mate. No I don't. All my content is completely free. I also try to answer any comments and questions on any of my videos. If you have not already subscribed, it would be appreciated.
I answered your question anyway because its a great question and illustrates some of the differences in how we keep our snakes out here. I added some extra detail because it may actually be useful for anyone who keeps Ball Pythons.
Thats the great thing about royals they tell you what is wrong if you know and watch your animals and go on the fact they are all different in their own little way sheds and tub behaviour
Do you think the female goes off of food after two months three months four months five months how many months do you think it takes for them to go off food? Because I don’t have a way to tell how big her follicles are and I’m sure that’s the case with most of us.
Hi mate. I also don't have ultrasound, so I have no way of measuring follicle size either. However, the ball python breeding cycle is pretty straightforward, well understood and quite predictable. What I'm saying is not "at 25mm follicles our female will go off food", I'm saying that "our female will go off food at around 25mm follicles". We cannot measure follicle size without an ultrasound, but we can observe when our female stops eating. They roughly correlate so this is an easily observed break point that tells us where our female is at in her breeding cycle. All mature females have follicles. They are not yet developed and will be at around 5-10mm. We won't know this, but we'll start our season whenever the climate dictates in our region. Usually the cooler months are the prime breeding months and females lay eggs as the season warms up. We start to pair our snakes and our female should respond by starting to slam food and build size and weight. Their behaviour is again our cue that she's building. They eat more. They cool seek because their metabolism is accelerated. It might take 2 months of aggressive feeding. They may take 6 months of aggressive feeding, but sooner or later they will stop eating. Some of them suddenly stop. Some of them sort of fizzle out. They do this because the growing follicles restrict their digestive tract. They have no room to pass food down the GI tract because the follicles are now at around 25mm, or about half way to their full size. We won't be able to measure this, but those that can measure it will observe this follicle size is around when they stop eating. We don't actually need to know. We just observe when they go off food. From now on, our female is running on her stored reserves. She will not eat again until after eggs are laid. This varies but as a general rule they must continue to grow follicles from about 25mm to about 40mm when they ovulate. We will not know this except by observing behaviour. It takes about 4 to 6 weeks from when they stop eating until they ovulate. Larger females have more room and will eat for longer and go off food for a shorter time than a smaller female because they have a bit more room inside them, so it does vary a bit, but it's usually around 4 to 6 weeks of not eating before you see ovulation. During this period - from when they start to eat aggressively, through the period of not eating, right up until you see ovulation - it's important to keep pairing with the male at roughly monthly intervals is what I do. This is a slow process from first introduction to ovulation that can take many months with apparently nothing happening. Our visual marker that it's going to plan is when the female stops eating. So don't worry about follicle size. That takes care of itself. Observe the female through her cycle. Ravenous eating followed by going off food followed by ovulation. Keep pairing throughout this period.
So all you use is ambient? What degree Fahrenheit?? I was taught to use belly/back heat? I have 7 ball pythons. You mean to tell Me I can stop using heat???
Hi mate. I live in SE Asia, about 3 degrees north of the equator, so my climate is humid tropical, exactly like the climate in West Africa where Ball Pythons come from. My snake room is at 29/30C (85/86F) all year round and my humidity at this temperature is around 60-80%. I do not need to add any heat or humidity to the room or to individual tubs and in fact in the dry season when my snake room gets to 31C (88F), I might have to use a touch of air conditioning to keep things cool. My snake room will feel like a sauna if you are not accustomed to the tropics. So no, if you are from a more temperate region, I'm afraid you will still need to add some form of heat to maintain correct parameters for your snakes. The usual way to do this is to maintain a microclimate in individual tubs using belly heat or back heat, but more and more people are turning a room into a dedicated reptile facility and with proper climate control for the whole room, snakes will thrive in ambient conditions provided the whole room is both heated and humidified (is that a word?). Here in the tropics, nature takes care of all that and I don't need to worry about heat or humidity. Hope that clears up the confusion. Don't go throwing your heat mats away just yet!
Hi Rob, when you said it was absolute mayhem with snakes flying everywhere during feeding, i didn’t expect it to be literally just that! Looks like i’ll need to get a snake hook too in future! Thank you for making this detailed video. I have always wondered about the technique on conditioning females for breeding especially with the many different ways that work for different people. Would increasing the number of prey item or feeding frequency during the building phase when they are feeding more aggressively be considered power feeding, although only during that phase? Pity about your Pastel Enchi Clown not being ready but you made a very good point on not pushing her. For me health and safety of the snakes are of utmost importance and it would always be better to wait than risking their health and set you back a couple of years down the road as consequence. Looking forward to part 2! 👍
Power feeding to me means feeding your baby snakes as much as they will eat to get them up to breeding size sooner than they otherwise would be. This is "unnatural". When your snakes are up to size and you decide to breed them, feeding extra is a requirement. This isn't power feeding, this is a must! If you don't feed them enough in this phase, they will either not go on to lay or they will be in such poor condition after laying it's almost unbearable to see. Your females will tell you how much food they need. Don't give them more than they can digest, but by all means "power feed" your breeder females for these few months they want to eat extra. Your females are conditioning themselves for a 6 month fast AND laying a clutch of eggs weighing 100gms each. I don't think you can feed "too much" at this stage.
@@thescalesartist7087 ah yes......we'll cover this in part 2. Females have two rows of follicles, only one of which develops at a time. They can decide they don't like the first row or environmental conditions are not right and they switch to the second row and grow those instead, or they skip altogether. The follicles are not yet fertile since ovulation has not occurred when this happens. I wish I had a single answer for you as to why a snake reabsorbs, but I think a number of things contribute. At this early stage in the season, reabsorbtion either doesn't happen yet, or you can't notice any behaviour that tells you they're doing it. Later in the season, as the follicles get bigger, after they stop eating, it's easier to see when they reabsorb.
Robert Barraclough Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. Looks like it is one of those things that is entirely up to the female, provided we do everything else correctly.
@@thescalesartist7087 have confidence in your process or procedure. Sometimes when your other snakes go on to lay and everything is perfect, a particular female will "decide" not to go. If you only have a couple of females this can be devastating and you end up second guessing yourself wondering if you did something wrong. You start changing things that didn't need changing. It really does help to have a few pairings and if most of them go, you'll know it was nothing you did wrong.
Would July be to late for a female to lay? In the united states Been pairing mine up now for 3 months she has been off food for like almost two months or little over I have yet to see any ovulation
Hope you found what you needed - there is another series as well following this years season - no July is not too late. My latest clutch came on October last year.
Thanks. Hope you found it useful. I'll do part 2 as we move through the breeding season. I know what I want to say and I have some material from last year but not enough to put together the full video yet. Stay tuned!
Robert Barraclough Another quick question. You mentioned feeding your females multiple times per week if they are interested. Meaning at the front of the tub etc. Would this also hold true for young juvenile females as well? For instance, mine are roughly 250 g and I feed them every seven days. However usually around a five or six they’re out at the front of their tub looking for food. Would you go ahead and feed them? Or keep them on the same seven day schedule. Thanks
@@CCReptiles what a great question! I should have covered that. My objective with breeder females is to get them into condition for laying eggs. They need the extra nutrition to grow follicles and sustain them through the period they will not eat. I give them extra if they look a bit on the thin side, but if they are gaining weight nicely, I tend not to worry too much. Each snake is different, so you have to tailor your feeding to their individual needs. With young snakes, all their food intake is going towards growth, so the only real gain to extra feeding is a faster growth rate which can carry it's own health issues. Also they mature with age as well as with weight, so it's not just a food intake issue to reach maturity. Roughly 1000 gms in the first year is a good growth rate, but this does vary a lot. From your description, your baby snakes are active again within a short period of being fed. Without knowing how old they are, or the prey size you are giving them, I would suggest upping their meal size but still only feeding once a week. The bigger the meal, the longer the digestion. Your 250 gm snakes should have no trouble at all taking weaned rats or small rats once a week, after which they should curl up on the hot spot and you don't see them move for a few days. That's how my grow-ons behave, except there's no hot spot. They should have a slight bulge after eating, so when you look at them, you can see they just ate. If you are unsure, try giving them a bigger meal one week and then monitor their behaviour. You can always go back to a smaller size if you are concerned. You want a good feed response from your snakes, so hungry on feeding day is a good thing!
Robert Barraclough Thank you. I currently have them both on the upper end of rat pups say 25 to 29 g. I got them both roughly 3 months ago and they were right at 100 g of a piece so they put on some nice sweet since I’ve had them. One is six months and one is four months. The six-month is 250 g the four-month is more like 230 g. I was thinking about upping to weaned rats. They just seem rather large comparatively to the size of my snakes. They do stay coiled up on their hotspot for a few days. It just seems like around a five or six they’re definitely active looking for another meal, it seems.
@@CCReptiles sounds like you are on track and they're gaining weight. I just weighed the biggest of my 20 September hatched babies, so just over 3 months, at 260gms. She is taking 35gm rat pups (eyes open and weaned) once a week and would eat more if I offered. Hope this helps as a reference.
They do! Right here. Glad you found the channel. Feel free to drop a comment and ask questions on any of my videos or drop me a DM or Message me on Facebook or Instagram. I have added links to these in my more recent stuff. I try to answer all the comments I get. I have added playlists to my stuff and there is actually a second newer series called "so you want to breed ball pythons" on the playlist. Feel free to review and drop a comment or question. ruclips.net/p/PLi6jXpAD14C94v07MrGZDF1D2sR1IBCb4 ruclips.net/p/PLi6jXpAD14C-Sz5RZXs-m3WHELfV8bDSX
Dear Robert, I am in Malaysia so I do believe that we are more or less sharing the same weather. I presently own a male (8 months old) and I am looking forward buying a female to pair with. I have a few quick questions and I would be very happy if you could help me with that. 1. How old do you suggest is better to buy? 2. which is the average weight the female should reach to be fit for mating? And the male? Looking forward for your reply, cheers Valter
Hi Valter. I can give you guidelines but there are no fixed rules here. Ultimately the snakes themselves decide. At 8 months old, your male may already be mature and ready for the ladies right now or very close to it. 800gms and 8 to 10 months is usually ok to start pairing a male provided you dont push him too hard. Females need to be older and bigger. 18 months and 1500gms as a bare minimum before you start pairing. 2 years and approaching 2000gms is even better. Normally you would try to get females first and grow them up. I always recommend buying hatchlings and growing them up so you gain experience with your snakes before attempting breeding. If you do decide to try and get a mature female, they can take a while to settle into a new home, so allow time for that before starting to pair. ARP has a selection of mature breeder females if you want to try breeding as quickly as possible and he can advise you on which females might be best suited to you. You will have to pay a lttle more for a mature female. Alternatively you can pick up a female hatchling this season and grow her on. Hope this helps. Please do contact me again if you need more help or want to select a mature female from ARP. I can help with that.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls ARP in Malaysia? I am actually buying my snake food from them. They are going to have new hatches starting from next months. Their balls are pretty nice, maybe a bit pricey but good quality indeed...
@@poterealpopolomalaysia3540 yes, one and the same. If you see me there please introduce yourself. You get what you pay for I guess and considering what goes into growing up a Ball Python from a hatchling in terms of cost of food and your own time, the difference in purchase price from bargain basement to top shelf is negligeable. Paying a little more for quality animals always pays in the long run, and if you are breeding recessives or multigene co-doms and need assurance over what genes you are buying, you'll get it at ARP, but only you can decide what price is right for you. Arawin does have very good after sales service and knows more about breeding Ball Pythons than I will ever know. He is letting go a range of proven breeder females this year as our collections are constantly evolving and upgrading. Have a chat to him and see if he doesn't have anything of interest. Alternatively, yes it's getting on to hatching season and he will have some stunning snakes this year if you want something special. Tell him I sent you!
Mine is around 8 years old.i adopted her about three years ago.is she ok to breed still? I don't have a male and do t know anyone with one but I really want her to get to experience a somewhat normal snake life
Hi Ronald. Yes, 8 years old is still relatively young for a Ball Python. She will live and breed for 20 years or more. Plenty of time left for her yet.
My season ran from March (first eggs) to October (last eggs) this year and each season seems to get longer. I have no doubt if I continued to pair snakes year round, they would lay year round. Dari mana di Indonesia? Saya sebelum pindah ke Malaysia tinggal di Jakarta. Pasti anda sudah kenal David Suarez kan? Welcome to the channel.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls if i may, i have another question. Its my first time breeding, I have a female at 1000g and I'm not sure when I should start pairing. Should I start when she reaches 1500? Or wait till October like most breeders? If I had an ultrasound or experience with palpating I could probably pinpoint the perfect time to start pairing but I dont. How would you approach this to maximize success? She is 1y 7montha old. Cant wait to get my first clutch!
@@dc-pv3qh saya senang kenal. Saya masih punya rumah di jl fatmawati. Mudah2han habis pandemic say bisa ke Jakarta lagi. Makan rendang di restaurant Padang. Ayam goreng di Nonya Suhatti. Welcome to the channel. Hope you find it useful. Please do continue to comment.
Hi mate, usually in October. Males stay in for 3 days depending on what happens. I have done a few videos on cycling your males. ruclips.net/video/sjPyKzcS6rc/видео.html ruclips.net/video/ScGSESAd5rI/видео.html ruclips.net/video/fIXR9W3py3E/видео.html ruclips.net/video/QPxVFyJabME/видео.html
Have a female that is showing signs of building and locking but no distinct cooling behaviors or bowl wrapping 🤷🏼♂️ maybe just cooling at night. Havent seen that before…. I guess each animal is just different.
Hi Jarrett. When females are building follicles, their metabolic rate is higher and they tend to want to try and stay cool. They are not necessarily trying to get cooler, just trying to stop overheating so it depends on your individual setup and local conditions as to how your female behaviour is modified. She's gone off food which is a good sign. Keep pairing on schedule until she ovulates. Good luck!
5 signs that a ball python female is in the building phase and ready to mate: 1) Cool seeking 2) Ravenously eating 3) Hanging out to the front of the tub 4) Lock willingly with the males 5) Noticeable increase in the girth/thickness of the body/weight
None of these are really definitive by themselves. What you are looking for is an overall pattern of behaviour that taken together is a sign your female is building. In the early stages of a build, these five are all good signs.... 1) Cool seeking 2) Ravenously eating 3) Hanging out to the front of the tub 4) Lock willingly with the males 5) Noticeable increase in the girth/thickness of the body/weight In the later stages of a build, your female will stop eating altogether for perhaps 4 to 6 weeeks before ovulation and she may become quite listless and inactive, while still cool seeking. Locking with the males can also be hit and miss at this stage. The signs now are more subtle and difficult to interpret, especially if you have not seen these behaviours before. You can sometimes think nothing is happening because your females are not doing much. 1) Cool seeking 2) Off food 3) Listless and inactive 4) Sometime reluctant to lock with the males 5) Noticeable increase in the girth/thickness of the body/weight 6) Lying in weird positions, like on their side or completely upside down, looking uncomfortable. 7) An increase in brightness or colour associated with the hormonal change as your female gets close to ovulation.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Robert for now I just have a wild type female 2 months of age ;) but I like her immensely and would really love to breed her or maybe some other more mature animals, so I want to learn what this is really about. Your videos are really a wonderfully insightful resource on the topic, I am starting to feel I am now grasping what is the breeding process about. Thank you so much for that!
Very interesting, my 25 year old ball python has laid eggs this year and last year without being with a male ever. I donno how rare it is and why it's only just started happening the last 2 years. There's no other snakes here, so no pheromones from any males
Parthenogenesis in Ball Pythons is unusual, but not unheard of. Not sure how unusual it is to happen 2 years in a row and at that age too but must be quite rare. The babies will all be exact genetic copies of the mum and they will be all females.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Last year there were no viable eggs, but today I just took her off the eggs (I gave her 24 hours alone to make sure they came out) and 4 eggs had veins in. 2 others had a couple of veins in, but are 95% yellow under the light. Gonna let her incubate the 4 eggs for a couple of days till I can set up an incubator. Will she feed if she incubates them herself? I need to get her to put her weight back on really.
No, she will not eat while she incubates. If you are worried about her condition, remove her from the eggs when you get an incubator set up. Be very careful about not jiggling the eggs or changing their orientation when you do this. After about 24 hours from being laid, the embryos inside the eggs are set in position and reorienting them can tear vessels and membranes and kill them. Candle only to make sure they are viable - do not reorient from the position they were in, even if the embryo is not at the top. Do the usual for the female - wash her off in water with a single drop of liquid soap in it - get her into a new tub with new substrate and fresh water bowl. Hopefully she will resume eating after a few days. Good luck mate. A very unusual situation.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thanks very much, I decided not to incubate the eggs at all, from cases I've seen of parthenogenesis, either the eggs didn't make it or the snakes died or had defects and I don't wanna put any potential hatchlings through that. I'm sure some make it successfully though. My problem now is that my ball python hasn't settled down and won't just stay in her hide box, but either roams around or crawls around the heater guard. I bathed her twice and cleaned the vivarium twice, but it's made no difference. I donno if its stress, she doesn't look stressed, more inquisitive. I've covered the front of the vivarium with card so it's dark in there, and Ill try a F/T rat in a few days. Last year after the eggs, she was fine, and just stayed in her box as normal, but not this year. I don't really know what else I can do, I heard sometimes they can be maternal for another 60 days as that's how long they would have eggs for. If you have any thoughts please let me know, thanks
Hi mate. I think you have done all you can, now fingers crossed she eats. If she is "maternal" generally they stay still as if they are still coiled around eggs. The fact she is moving around I would read to be good sign she will eat. Try offering food if she's out and about.
It is. The risk is succeeding. The snakes are in charge and will do their own thing. Survival and the urge to breed are strong instincts. Our role as keepers is to ensure they have all they need to succeed.
Hi Amanda. Great to see these videos still being watched! I just did a video this week ruclips.net/video/GWweFrgPRz0/видео.html showing breeder females that have just laid over the last few months and making the comparison between skinny, ideal and fat and discussing what their feeding schedules need to be like to get them back in shape for the next season. Give it a watch and ask any questions you like. I will do my best to answer to the best of my experience.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thank you for your response! I totally wasn't expecting that. I've had snakes of all sorts for as long as I can remember as my mother was the one who started my love for them catching wild rat and corn snakes in the yard of our Florida home. I also had BP's and red-tail boas. Within the past 2 years I restarted my BP collection and am interested in breeding. My female is 1.5 years (got her as a hatchling) but quickly outgrew the champagne pinstripe I purchased last year as a subadult. They've locked many many times and im jusy trying to look out for all the signs (gravid, lumps, behavior) as she just started turning down food when normally she is always ravenous! I will check out that video and ask questions on that video after watching. Thanks again!
Welcome to the channel. I try to answer all comments as best I can. 1.5 years is still a little young for your female. Some females will lay eggs this early, some will need a little extra time, but she should certainly be ready to breed this fall and possibly lay eggs next spring. Good luck with your breeding plans. I wish you success. Please do feel free to ask questions.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thank you! I certainly will! I foind my female laying almost on her back last night and thr day before found her coiled like I've seen females cliled around a clutch so I checked to see if she was laying. None yet! I've fed her every week since I got her and breed my own mice so I always have food on hand. She usually eats two jumbo adult mice, but I probably switch her and the male she's breeding with to rats.
@@772amanda237 Sounds promising Amanda. Yes, I would recommend switching to rats as soon as you can. Breeding is quite taxing for a female. As they develop follicles, the growing "eggs" restrict the digestive system and they will stop eating several weeks before they ovulate. During this time they will exhibit cool seeking behaviour as the follicles develop best at a slightly lower temperature than normal. You'll see them bowl wrapping and lying in funny positions during this time. After Ovulation, it's another 2 weeks to Pre Lay Shed and then another 4 weeks from that to laying eggs. And your female would normally have to incubate the eggs for a further 8 weeks (we incubate for them in our incubators, so they can eat sooner, but her instincts tell her to prepare) and they don't eat during all of this, so you need to condition your female to go without food for 100-150 days. She will loose approximately 1000gms in weight when she lays her eggs if it's an average sized clutch. Some good sized meals of rats will go a long way to helping her do this. As a guide, my breeder females would be 2 to 2.5 years old and 1500 to 2000gms before I would attempt to breed them, but some will certainly breed earlier. Ultimately the female herself will decide. My females would get 1 good sized (medium to large) rat about every 14 days or so in the off season and then I would feed more often but smaller meals during the breeding season (a small to medium rat every week). Hope this helps. Good luck.
Hi there. I find mine grow to around 800 -1000gms in the first year if I feed them well and then they slow down. Some grow faster than others, even on the exact same feeding regime. Be prepared for a slow down or the dreaded "1000gm wall", where a snake will slow its metabolism for a while after being in overdrive for the first year or so. I did a video on this; ruclips.net/video/cjh85WEbiQI/видео.html This is quite natural, especially in captive snakes which are fed more than their wild counterparts would be eating. Not all of them do this hunger strike thing and some are just great eaters.
Excellent video Rob with some fantastic learnings to take away.
Thanks Richard. I think because I keep my snakes differently to most keepers, this only serves to highlight the similarity in behaviour of these snakes regardless of how and where you keep them. They all do the same thing for the same reasons, but the expression of the behaviour is expressed in different ways depending on their environment. The message is a favourite one - observation is key!
Great content Rob, I look forward to all your videos! This is my first year for pairing, so your info is worth gold to me, thank you!
Thanks Kirk. Hope it helps in some small way. I wish you well in your breeding. Don't be afraid to ask questions if you hit something unexpected or you are not sure. This community is awesome for answering questions. And let us know how it goes!
This video is saved. Once again great vídeo Rob. Thank you very much.
Awesome. Pleased to share. Part 2 I'll try to make shorter. Once I get going, there's so much I want to include, they always end up too long! Hope it helps with seeing your breeder females through the first part of the season. The second part will cover from them going off food to laying eggs and some of the very different behaviours females exhibit as they get closer to laying eggs.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls I don't think that is a long vídeo. Great vídeo and once again you have teacher skills. Eheheh. Just a question, in this fase you prefer to give the correct sized rat or do you prefer to offer more smaller rats? Thank you
@@bernardoferreira9255 I offer what I have. My snakes don't seem to care. If they get a big rat, they'll get just one and I watch to see when they appear hungry again. If it's a medium, I might feed another small on the same day or another small rat midweek. All depends on the snake. Usually I don't sweat it too much, just make sure they're gaining weight. If they are fat, once a week is still fine. If they are still a bit thin, feed extra. Don't wait for them to poo to feed again. That might take 2 weeks. They will eat when they need to. I also don't usually bother too much about presentation, holding the rat by the scruff of the neck and offering the head end. My snakes don't care! As long as it's warm they'll take it. Or my hand instead if I'm not careful.
Great video Rob. The bonus feeding footage was awesome. I am looking forward to part deux!!
Glad you liked it. Feeding footage can sometimes be a bit controversial, but it's an integral part of snake keeping and in this case, the behavioural change in your females is noticeable and I wanted to illustrate what I mean when I talk about an "aggressive" feeding response during this part of the breeding season. It can be shocking to those who have not seen this behaviour before. An hour or two after feeding when the scent has gone, my snakes are back to their normal "innocent" selves again.
Awesomely Helpful Rob! Great Job on this video! Well Done!
Thanks! I enjoyed doing this one and showing my snakes behaviour. Already started on part 2 although all my breeder females are still eating, at least for now.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls ya was a lot of great info, beautiful snakes as well. Super helpful as well. Thank you for the time spent creating the video's
Great video and information Rob. I saved this to use it as reference later.
The feeding shots were great! Very enthusiastic feeding response 😂
Hi Shane. Hope you and family are having a great Christmas and New Year. Loved making this video. Just remember I'm using natural monsoon cycles and ambient temps, so your snakes will go through the same phases, but they may express the visual cues in slightly different ways. Fascinating animals. very rewarding. Feeding females that are "on it" at this time of year is always an experience!
Lovely, calm, detailed instruction video. Very well done!
Thank you.
Valuable tips!! This will be my first season breeding. I’m in Malaysia too and the tropical climate really helps!
Hi mate. Hope you find this series useful. There is a ton of information related to breeding in our climate on my channel. You can always DM on instagram if you have questions, or just drop a comment on any of my videos. I try to answer them all.
Best educational breeding vid 👌 👏 I learned more now than last 3 months watching 50 other
Hi mate, wow, that really is a compliment! Thank you for taking the time to comment. All I actually did was film my snakes doing their thing and putting a few words to it so that we can begin to understand and interpret what we are seeing. Snake behaviour can be very subtle. I'm glad you found it useful and hope it adds to your enjoyment and success in keeping and breeding these awesome animals.
Good stuff. This is my first season and yes I have been paying very close attention to your videos. Thank you sir.
Hope you have a great first season. Nothing like that first clutch of eggs, the first pippers and then baby snakes.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thank you. I have several I'm excited about. The incubator is tuned in to perfection. Now it's all up to the girls. I hope the 2 years and thousands of hours of research pay off.
Looking forward to part 2. This is valuable information for those without an ultrasound.
Looking forward to making part 2. The first of my breeder females has just gone off food so my season is moving along and we'll shoot more footage.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls 5 of the 6 breeder females have just gone off food for me also. Awesome man!
Hello, I too run ambient, is there any respiratory issues when dropping temps to 28 C? They r ok to stay there for a bit? Thanks mate 😊
My snakes live at between 28c to 30c full time. No issues at all. My humidity here in the tropics runs at 70-80% as well. Hope that helps.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls yes it does TY sir! Do you have email or IG or FB? I would love to have you as a contact if possible because I run ambient as well and think i can learn alot from u if you dont mind
Getting started with breeding for us this year! Thanks for vvery informative video! All the best!
Exciting times ahead! That first ever clutch.......you can't beat the feeling!
Very nice snake
is that @DavidSuarezReptiles tshirt?
Yes!
So do you feed yours full sized rats and not just smalls? I was told to only feed size small rats, and never anything bigger, but mine I feed small to medium sized, except for a really huge make I have, I feed him medium sized, but when one of my male breeder rats died, I assume a heart attack while breeding, still very warm, I fed this jumbo boy to my biggest male snake, and he ate it with no problem. What size rats do you suggest?
I have no issue feeding my big breeder females even jumbo rats, but only every two weeks or even longer so they can digest it properly. Size isn't really an issue for them as they are designed to eat what they can when they can. But in captivity we tend to overfeed our snakes, feeding them large prey too often. So if you feed a big meal, don't feed them again for a few weeks. If you feed every week, then you must feed smaller sized prey in order for them to digest it, other wise they are continually digesting and they poo way more than they need to just to keep things moving internally. And they get fat, which is bad.
When it comes to breeding, as a female starts to build follicles, the developing follicles take up internal space and start to restrict her digestive system. There is no room for food any more and they will eventually stop eating before they go on to lay eggs. The objective of feeding smaller but more frequently at this time is to allow for easy digestion in a restricted digestive tract, allow them to build the necessary body reserves to go on and lay eggs when they cannot eat any more and to simulate an abundance of prey in the breeding season.
Hope this helps.
How do you get a good hotspot and a cool end with no heat mats because if you heat or cool the room everything goes to the same temperature or can you get away with a base temp for an overall happy medium
Hi Jimi. Yes the water bowls provide a means of cooling, but generally a stable temperature of around 86-88F seems to suit these animals just fine, which the tropics dishes up on a daily basis. The main thing to watch is digestion. At normal ambient temperatures, they digest just fine, but because they don't have a hot spot, if the temperature drops for any reason during the year, this slows down digestion.
Normally this is not an issue, but if, for instance, we cool the room for breeding purposes, their digestion slows and we compensate by feeding smaller rodents. The consistency and "content" of their poo tells you if digestion is efficient.
These animals have a way of letting you know they are healthy and functioning as nature intended.
The other thing to watch for is with imported snakes from Europe or the USA, particularly subadults and adults. These snakes have been kept in tubs with heat mats and it takes them a while to learn how to thermoregulate and get acclimated to no heat mats set-ups we have here. Juveniles adapt immediately. Adults take a bit longer and again, we compensate by feeding smaller meals once they do actually start to eat that is!
Amazing video! Do you have a patreon?
Hi mate. No I don't. All my content is completely free. I also try to answer any comments and questions on any of my videos. If you have not already subscribed, it would be appreciated.
You just answered that question i should watch it all before i ask but if you don't ask you don't learn
I answered your question anyway because its a great question and illustrates some of the differences in how we keep our snakes out here. I added some extra detail because it may actually be useful for anyone who keeps Ball Pythons.
Thats the great thing about royals they tell you what is wrong if you know and watch your animals and go on the fact they are all different in their own little way sheds and tub behaviour
Do you think the female goes off of food after two months three months four months five months how many months do you think it takes for them to go off food? Because I don’t have a way to tell how big her follicles are and I’m sure that’s the case with most of us.
Hi mate. I also don't have ultrasound, so I have no way of measuring follicle size either. However, the ball python breeding cycle is pretty straightforward, well understood and quite predictable.
What I'm saying is not "at 25mm follicles our female will go off food", I'm saying that "our female will go off food at around 25mm follicles". We cannot measure follicle size without an ultrasound, but we can observe when our female stops eating. They roughly correlate so this is an easily observed break point that tells us where our female is at in her breeding cycle.
All mature females have follicles. They are not yet developed and will be at around 5-10mm. We won't know this, but we'll start our season whenever the climate dictates in our region. Usually the cooler months are the prime breeding months and females lay eggs as the season warms up. We start to pair our snakes and our female should respond by starting to slam food and build size and weight. Their behaviour is again our cue that she's building. They eat more. They cool seek because their metabolism is accelerated. It might take 2 months of aggressive feeding. They may take 6 months of aggressive feeding, but sooner or later they will stop eating. Some of them suddenly stop. Some of them sort of fizzle out. They do this because the growing follicles restrict their digestive tract. They have no room to pass food down the GI tract because the follicles are now at around 25mm, or about half way to their full size. We won't be able to measure this, but those that can measure it will observe this follicle size is around when they stop eating. We don't actually need to know. We just observe when they go off food.
From now on, our female is running on her stored reserves. She will not eat again until after eggs are laid. This varies but as a general rule they must continue to grow follicles from about 25mm to about 40mm when they ovulate. We will not know this except by observing behaviour. It takes about 4 to 6 weeks from when they stop eating until they ovulate. Larger females have more room and will eat for longer and go off food for a shorter time than a smaller female because they have a bit more room inside them, so it does vary a bit, but it's usually around 4 to 6 weeks of not eating before you see ovulation.
During this period - from when they start to eat aggressively, through the period of not eating, right up until you see ovulation - it's important to keep pairing with the male at roughly monthly intervals is what I do. This is a slow process from first introduction to ovulation that can take many months with apparently nothing happening. Our visual marker that it's going to plan is when the female stops eating.
So don't worry about follicle size. That takes care of itself. Observe the female through her cycle. Ravenous eating followed by going off food followed by ovulation. Keep pairing throughout this period.
So all you use is ambient? What degree Fahrenheit?? I was taught to use belly/back heat? I have 7 ball pythons. You mean to tell
Me I can stop using heat???
Hi mate. I live in SE Asia, about 3 degrees north of the equator, so my climate is humid tropical, exactly like the climate in West Africa where Ball Pythons come from. My snake room is at 29/30C (85/86F) all year round and my humidity at this temperature is around 60-80%. I do not need to add any heat or humidity to the room or to individual tubs and in fact in the dry season when my snake room gets to 31C (88F), I might have to use a touch of air conditioning to keep things cool. My snake room will feel like a sauna if you are not accustomed to the tropics.
So no, if you are from a more temperate region, I'm afraid you will still need to add some form of heat to maintain correct parameters for your snakes. The usual way to do this is to maintain a microclimate in individual tubs using belly heat or back heat, but more and more people are turning a room into a dedicated reptile facility and with proper climate control for the whole room, snakes will thrive in ambient conditions provided the whole room is both heated and humidified (is that a word?).
Here in the tropics, nature takes care of all that and I don't need to worry about heat or humidity.
Hope that clears up the confusion. Don't go throwing your heat mats away just yet!
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls it definitely does my friend! Thanks a lot
Hi Rob, when you said it was absolute mayhem with snakes flying everywhere during feeding, i didn’t expect it to be literally just that! Looks like i’ll need to get a snake hook too in future!
Thank you for making this detailed video. I have always wondered about the technique on conditioning females for breeding especially with the many different ways that work for different people. Would increasing the number of prey item or feeding frequency during the building phase when they are feeding more aggressively be considered power feeding, although only during that phase?
Pity about your Pastel Enchi Clown not being ready but you made a very good point on not pushing her. For me health and safety of the snakes are of utmost importance and it would always be better to wait than risking their health and set you back a couple of years down the road as consequence. Looking forward to part 2! 👍
Power feeding to me means feeding your baby snakes as much as they will eat to get them up to breeding size sooner than they otherwise would be. This is "unnatural". When your snakes are up to size and you decide to breed them, feeding extra is a requirement. This isn't power feeding, this is a must! If you don't feed them enough in this phase, they will either not go on to lay or they will be in such poor condition after laying it's almost unbearable to see. Your females will tell you how much food they need. Don't give them more than they can digest, but by all means "power feed" your breeder females for these few months they want to eat extra. Your females are conditioning themselves for a 6 month fast AND laying a clutch of eggs weighing 100gms each. I don't think you can feed "too much" at this stage.
Robert Barraclough got it! And forgot to ask this earlier, what usually contributes to them reabsorbing?
@@thescalesartist7087 ah yes......we'll cover this in part 2. Females have two rows of follicles, only one of which develops at a time. They can decide they don't like the first row or environmental conditions are not right and they switch to the second row and grow those instead, or they skip altogether. The follicles are not yet fertile since ovulation has not occurred when this happens. I wish I had a single answer for you as to why a snake reabsorbs, but I think a number of things contribute. At this early stage in the season, reabsorbtion either doesn't happen yet, or you can't notice any behaviour that tells you they're doing it. Later in the season, as the follicles get bigger, after they stop eating, it's easier to see when they reabsorb.
Robert Barraclough Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. Looks like it is one of those things that is entirely up to the female, provided we do everything else correctly.
@@thescalesartist7087 have confidence in your process or procedure. Sometimes when your other snakes go on to lay and everything is perfect, a particular female will "decide" not to go. If you only have a couple of females this can be devastating and you end up second guessing yourself wondering if you did something wrong. You start changing things that didn't need changing. It really does help to have a few pairings and if most of them go, you'll know it was nothing you did wrong.
Would July be to late for a female to lay? In the united states Been pairing mine up now for 3 months she has been off food for like almost two months or little over I have yet to see any ovulation
Hope you found what you needed - there is another series as well following this years season - no July is not too late. My latest clutch came on October last year.
I like your T shirt🥳
Great info! Thank you!
Glad you found it useful.
Fantastic video! Great info. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks. Hope you found it useful. I'll do part 2 as we move through the breeding season. I know what I want to say and I have some material from last year but not enough to put together the full video yet. Stay tuned!
Robert Barraclough Another quick question. You mentioned feeding your females multiple times per week if they are interested. Meaning at the front of the tub etc. Would this also hold true for young juvenile females as well? For instance, mine are roughly 250 g and I feed them every seven days. However usually around a five or six they’re out at the front of their tub looking for food. Would you go ahead and feed them? Or keep them on the same seven day schedule. Thanks
@@CCReptiles what a great question! I should have covered that. My objective with breeder females is to get them into condition for laying eggs. They need the extra nutrition to grow follicles and sustain them through the period they will not eat. I give them extra if they look a bit on the thin side, but if they are gaining weight nicely, I tend not to worry too much. Each snake is different, so you have to tailor your feeding to their individual needs. With young snakes, all their food intake is going towards growth, so the only real gain to extra feeding is a faster growth rate which can carry it's own health issues. Also they mature with age as well as with weight, so it's not just a food intake issue to reach maturity. Roughly 1000 gms in the first year is a good growth rate, but this does vary a lot. From your description, your baby snakes are active again within a short period of being fed. Without knowing how old they are, or the prey size you are giving them, I would suggest upping their meal size but still only feeding once a week. The bigger the meal, the longer the digestion. Your 250 gm snakes should have no trouble at all taking weaned rats or small rats once a week, after which they should curl up on the hot spot and you don't see them move for a few days. That's how my grow-ons behave, except there's no hot spot. They should have a slight bulge after eating, so when you look at them, you can see they just ate. If you are unsure, try giving them a bigger meal one week and then monitor their behaviour. You can always go back to a smaller size if you are concerned. You want a good feed response from your snakes, so hungry on feeding day is a good thing!
Robert Barraclough Thank you. I currently have them both on the upper end of rat pups say 25 to 29 g. I got them both roughly 3 months ago and they were right at 100 g of a piece so they put on some nice sweet since I’ve had them. One is six months and one is four months. The six-month is 250 g the four-month is more like 230 g. I was thinking about upping to weaned rats. They just seem rather large comparatively to the size of my snakes. They do stay coiled up on their hotspot for a few days. It just seems like around a five or six they’re definitely active looking for another meal, it seems.
@@CCReptiles sounds like you are on track and they're gaining weight. I just weighed the biggest of my 20 September hatched babies, so just over 3 months, at 260gms. She is taking 35gm rat pups (eyes open and weaned) once a week and would eat more if I offered. Hope this helps as a reference.
Great video! Where can I find those red tubs?
These are locally made and available on Shoppe delivered to your door!
twinsdolphin.com/
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Thank you!!
Twin dolphins 2417,2418,2419. Great tubs!
When do they of food I know you said 25mm folliculs but we all don’t have a way to tell how big her follicles are?
Hi mate. Let me answer this at the same time I answer your comment above.
Thank you a lot brother!
I need a breeding coach for the year :) wish they had some!
They do! Right here. Glad you found the channel. Feel free to drop a comment and ask questions on any of my videos or drop me a DM or Message me on Facebook or Instagram. I have added links to these in my more recent stuff. I try to answer all the comments I get.
I have added playlists to my stuff and there is actually a second newer series called "so you want to breed ball pythons" on the playlist. Feel free to review and drop a comment or question.
ruclips.net/p/PLi6jXpAD14C94v07MrGZDF1D2sR1IBCb4
ruclips.net/p/PLi6jXpAD14C-Sz5RZXs-m3WHELfV8bDSX
Dear Robert, I am in Malaysia so I do believe that we are more or less sharing the same weather. I presently own a male (8 months old) and I am looking forward buying a female to pair with. I have a few quick questions and I would be very happy if you could help me with that. 1. How old do you suggest is better to buy? 2. which is the average weight the female should reach to be fit for mating? And the male? Looking forward for your reply, cheers Valter
Hi Valter. I can give you guidelines but there are no fixed rules here. Ultimately the snakes themselves decide. At 8 months old, your male may already be mature and ready for the ladies right now or very close to it. 800gms and 8 to 10 months is usually ok to start pairing a male provided you dont push him too hard.
Females need to be older and bigger. 18 months and 1500gms as a bare minimum before you start pairing. 2 years and approaching 2000gms is even better. Normally you would try to get females first and grow them up. I always recommend buying hatchlings and growing them up so you gain experience with your snakes before attempting breeding. If you do decide to try and get a mature female, they can take a while to settle into a new home, so allow time for that before starting to pair.
ARP has a selection of mature breeder females if you want to try breeding as quickly as possible and he can advise you on which females might be best suited to you. You will have to pay a lttle more for a mature female.
Alternatively you can pick up a female hatchling this season and grow her on.
Hope this helps. Please do contact me again if you need more help or want to select a mature female from ARP. I can help with that.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Thank you very much Robert! You have been of very great help. Cheers Valter
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls ARP in Malaysia? I am actually buying my snake food from them. They are going to have new hatches starting from next months. Their balls are pretty nice, maybe a bit pricey but good quality indeed...
@@poterealpopolomalaysia3540 yes, one and the same. If you see me there please introduce yourself. You get what you pay for I guess and considering what goes into growing up a Ball Python from a hatchling in terms of cost of food and your own time, the difference in purchase price from bargain basement to top shelf is negligeable. Paying a little more for quality animals always pays in the long run, and if you are breeding recessives or multigene co-doms and need assurance over what genes you are buying, you'll get it at ARP, but only you can decide what price is right for you. Arawin does have very good after sales service and knows more about breeding Ball Pythons than I will ever know. He is letting go a range of proven breeder females this year as our collections are constantly evolving and upgrading. Have a chat to him and see if he doesn't have anything of interest. Alternatively, yes it's getting on to hatching season and he will have some stunning snakes this year if you want something special. Tell him I sent you!
GREAT INFO, THANKS!!!
Mine is around 8 years old.i adopted her about three years ago.is she ok to breed still? I don't have a male and do t know anyone with one but I really want her to get to experience a somewhat normal snake life
Hi Ronald. Yes, 8 years old is still relatively young for a Ball Python. She will live and breed for 20 years or more. Plenty of time left for her yet.
great video! very concise and well explained. i have a question, have u ever done year round breeding? greetings from indonesia
My season ran from March (first eggs) to October (last eggs) this year and each season seems to get longer. I have no doubt if I continued to pair snakes year round, they would lay year round.
Dari mana di Indonesia? Saya sebelum pindah ke Malaysia tinggal di Jakarta. Pasti anda sudah kenal David Suarez kan?
Welcome to the channel.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls born and raised in jakarta haha. yes i know him thats how i found your channel
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls if i may, i have another question. Its my first time breeding, I have a female at 1000g and I'm not sure when I should start pairing. Should I start when she reaches 1500? Or wait till October like most breeders? If I had an ultrasound or experience with palpating I could probably pinpoint the perfect time to start pairing but I dont. How would you approach this to maximize success? She is 1y 7montha old. Cant wait to get my first clutch!
*I meant June like most breeders here in Indonesia
@@dc-pv3qh saya senang kenal. Saya masih punya rumah di jl fatmawati. Mudah2han habis pandemic say bisa ke Jakarta lagi. Makan rendang di restaurant Padang. Ayam goreng di Nonya Suhatti. Welcome to the channel. Hope you find it useful. Please do continue to comment.
Great video dude
Thanks mate. Glad you enjoyed it. Hope your studies are going well. I watched your "bad news" video. Sorry to hear.
What month do you start to pair? And how long do you leave the males in at a time?
Hi mate, usually in October. Males stay in for 3 days depending on what happens. I have done a few videos on cycling your males.
ruclips.net/video/sjPyKzcS6rc/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/ScGSESAd5rI/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/fIXR9W3py3E/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/QPxVFyJabME/видео.html
Tshirt's and stickers!!!!
Oh yeah.....you're on the list buddy!
Have a female that is showing signs of building and locking but no distinct cooling behaviors or bowl wrapping 🤷🏼♂️ maybe just cooling at night. Havent seen that before…. I guess each animal is just different.
She also went off food as of this week. Fingers crossed
Hi Jarrett. When females are building follicles, their metabolic rate is higher and they tend to want to try and stay cool. They are not necessarily trying to get cooler, just trying to stop overheating so it depends on your individual setup and local conditions as to how your female behaviour is modified. She's gone off food which is a good sign. Keep pairing on schedule until she ovulates. Good luck!
5 signs that a ball python female is in the building phase and ready to mate:
1) Cool seeking
2) Ravenously eating
3) Hanging out to the front of the tub
4) Lock willingly with the males
5) Noticeable increase in the girth/thickness of the body/weight
None of these are really definitive by themselves. What you are looking for is an overall pattern of behaviour that taken together is a sign your female is building.
In the early stages of a build, these five are all good signs....
1) Cool seeking
2) Ravenously eating
3) Hanging out to the front of the tub
4) Lock willingly with the males
5) Noticeable increase in the girth/thickness of the body/weight
In the later stages of a build, your female will stop eating altogether for perhaps 4 to 6 weeeks before ovulation and she may become quite listless and inactive, while still cool seeking. Locking with the males can also be hit and miss at this stage. The signs now are more subtle and difficult to interpret, especially if you have not seen these behaviours before. You can sometimes think nothing is happening because your females are not doing much.
1) Cool seeking
2) Off food
3) Listless and inactive
4) Sometime reluctant to lock with the males
5) Noticeable increase in the girth/thickness of the body/weight
6) Lying in weird positions, like on their side or completely upside down, looking uncomfortable.
7) An increase in brightness or colour associated with the hormonal change as your female gets close to ovulation.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Awesome thank you!
You really are doing your research! Are you starting out breeding or do you already breed?
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Robert for now I just have a wild type female 2 months of age ;) but I like her immensely and would really love to breed her or maybe some other more mature animals, so I want to learn what this is really about. Your videos are really a wonderfully insightful resource on the topic, I am starting to feel I am now grasping what is the breeding process about. Thank you so much for that!
Very interesting, my 25 year old ball python has laid eggs this year and last year without being with a male ever.
I donno how rare it is and why it's only just started happening the last 2 years.
There's no other snakes here, so no pheromones from any males
Parthenogenesis in Ball Pythons is unusual, but not unheard of. Not sure how unusual it is to happen 2 years in a row and at that age too but must be quite rare. The babies will all be exact genetic copies of the mum and they will be all females.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Last year there were no viable eggs, but today I just took her off the eggs (I gave her 24 hours alone to make sure they came out) and 4 eggs had veins in. 2 others had a couple of veins in, but are 95% yellow under the light.
Gonna let her incubate the 4 eggs for a couple of days till I can set up an incubator.
Will she feed if she incubates them herself?
I need to get her to put her weight back on really.
No, she will not eat while she incubates. If you are worried about her condition, remove her from the eggs when you get an incubator set up. Be very careful about not jiggling the eggs or changing their orientation when you do this. After about 24 hours from being laid, the embryos inside the eggs are set in position and reorienting them can tear vessels and membranes and kill them. Candle only to make sure they are viable - do not reorient from the position they were in, even if the embryo is not at the top.
Do the usual for the female - wash her off in water with a single drop of liquid soap in it - get her into a new tub with new substrate and fresh water bowl. Hopefully she will resume eating after a few days.
Good luck mate. A very unusual situation.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thanks very much, I decided not to incubate the eggs at all, from cases I've seen of parthenogenesis, either the eggs didn't make it or the snakes died or had defects and I don't wanna put any potential hatchlings through that. I'm sure some make it successfully though.
My problem now is that my ball python hasn't settled down and won't just stay in her hide box, but either roams around or crawls around the heater guard.
I bathed her twice and cleaned the vivarium twice, but it's made no difference.
I donno if its stress, she doesn't look stressed, more inquisitive. I've covered the front of the vivarium with card so it's dark in there, and Ill try a F/T rat in a few days.
Last year after the eggs, she was fine, and just stayed in her box as normal, but not this year.
I don't really know what else I can do, I heard sometimes they can be maternal for another 60 days as that's how long they would have eggs for.
If you have any thoughts please let me know, thanks
Hi mate. I think you have done all you can, now fingers crossed she eats. If she is "maternal" generally they stay still as if they are still coiled around eggs. The fact she is moving around I would read to be good sign she will eat. Try offering food if she's out and about.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I feel like the MAIN risk of breeding a female too small is that by succeeding, you may be endangering or significantly shortening her life.
It is. The risk is succeeding. The snakes are in charge and will do their own thing. Survival and the urge to breed are strong instincts. Our role as keepers is to ensure they have all they need to succeed.
I wish I could see the thick and ready females vs the skinny females that are not quite ready in a side by side comparison.
Hi Amanda. Great to see these videos still being watched! I just did a video this week
ruclips.net/video/GWweFrgPRz0/видео.html
showing breeder females that have just laid over the last few months and making the comparison between skinny, ideal and fat and discussing what their feeding schedules need to be like to get them back in shape for the next season. Give it a watch and ask any questions you like. I will do my best to answer to the best of my experience.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thank you for your response! I totally wasn't expecting that. I've had snakes of all sorts for as long as I can remember as my mother was the one who started my love for them catching wild rat and corn snakes in the yard of our Florida home. I also had BP's and red-tail boas.
Within the past 2 years I restarted my BP collection and am interested in breeding. My female is 1.5 years (got her as a hatchling) but quickly outgrew the champagne pinstripe I purchased last year as a subadult. They've locked many many times and im jusy trying to look out for all the signs (gravid, lumps, behavior) as she just started turning down food when normally she is always ravenous! I will check out that video and ask questions on that video after watching. Thanks again!
Welcome to the channel. I try to answer all comments as best I can. 1.5 years is still a little young for your female. Some females will lay eggs this early, some will need a little extra time, but she should certainly be ready to breed this fall and possibly lay eggs next spring. Good luck with your breeding plans. I wish you success. Please do feel free to ask questions.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls thank you! I certainly will! I foind my female laying almost on her back last night and thr day before found her coiled like I've seen females cliled around a clutch so I checked to see if she was laying. None yet! I've fed her every week since I got her and breed my own mice so I always have food on hand. She usually eats two jumbo adult mice, but I probably switch her and the male she's breeding with to rats.
@@772amanda237 Sounds promising Amanda. Yes, I would recommend switching to rats as soon as you can. Breeding is quite taxing for a female. As they develop follicles, the growing "eggs" restrict the digestive system and they will stop eating several weeks before they ovulate. During this time they will exhibit cool seeking behaviour as the follicles develop best at a slightly lower temperature than normal. You'll see them bowl wrapping and lying in funny positions during this time. After Ovulation, it's another 2 weeks to Pre Lay Shed and then another 4 weeks from that to laying eggs. And your female would normally have to incubate the eggs for a further 8 weeks (we incubate for them in our incubators, so they can eat sooner, but her instincts tell her to prepare) and they don't eat during all of this, so you need to condition your female to go without food for 100-150 days. She will loose approximately 1000gms in weight when she lays her eggs if it's an average sized clutch. Some good sized meals of rats will go a long way to helping her do this.
As a guide, my breeder females would be 2 to 2.5 years old and 1500 to 2000gms before I would attempt to breed them, but some will certainly breed earlier. Ultimately the female herself will decide. My females would get 1 good sized (medium to large) rat about every 14 days or so in the off season and then I would feed more often but smaller meals during the breeding season (a small to medium rat every week).
Hope this helps. Good luck.
My female isnt a year old yet n shes near 600g she eats like crazy and would prolly eat 4 rats if i gave them to her lol (i dont).
Hi there. I find mine grow to around 800 -1000gms in the first year if I feed them well and then they slow down. Some grow faster than others, even on the exact same feeding regime. Be prepared for a slow down or the dreaded "1000gm wall", where a snake will slow its metabolism for a while after being in overdrive for the first year or so. I did a video on this;
ruclips.net/video/cjh85WEbiQI/видео.html
This is quite natural, especially in captive snakes which are fed more than their wild counterparts would be eating. Not all of them do this hunger strike thing and some are just great eaters.