Contrary to popular belief, snakes dont cuddle and will only tolerate each other for just long enough to get it on. Once done, the male is best removed to avoid stressing both snakes. The little guy I "rescued" at the start is still eating and will get another shot at this big female next month.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls in all honesty I took your advice. I am using a much smaller male in comparison to my female, I've took him out at first signs of rejection... and he's continued to eat just fine. Its the little things that you either learn to take notice of, or take note of the solid advice offered.
Hi Samantha. In this context, snake mating is about dominance. Most females, even if receptive, do not appreciate the intrusion of a male and "tolerate" it for just long enough to get what they need from the liaison. When we breed snakes we have a specific pairing in mind, so unlike the wild, where the biggest, fittest, strongest will always outcompete, I needed this specific male to pair with that specific female. She is huge, well over 2.5kg's and a seasoned breeder. He is tiny, a first time male and only 700gms, so there is a bit of a mismatch right there and I was fully prepared to rescue him if things didn't work out. You can generally tell by the way a male goes into a females tub when you first introduce them if there is some chemistry between them. If we let them go in under their own steam, you'll notice some males are quite hesitant to go in with the female. Other males can't wait to get in the tub with their new girlfriends. So you'll generally get a good read on what's likely to happen even before they have been "introduced". This male was understandably timid. She obviously isn't going to let just any male mate with her. She needs to know he's fit and strong and worthy of her acceptance, so she will test his resolve and in this case, our little male was not sufficiently dominant to impress her. Most males have to fight for it with a big female like this. So she fairly roughly requested that he leave or suffer some domestic violence. He is a snake and knows what she is telling him. He cannot misinterpret what she is doing to him, but we ourselves as keepers often do. We see "cuddling" and "foreplay" instead of combat and we end up leaving a male in with a female for too long and he takes the snake equivalent of a severe beating. This can cause issues in the long run, with males going off food or refusing to lock when paired again and may even stress out a female as well. I could replace the male with a larger more aggressive male and almost certainly get a lock, but this is not the pairing I want and I gave up using back-up males a long time ago. The solution is not sheds from another male, rubbing sperm plugs from another male onto the female and all those age old tricks that never seem to work when I try them. My solution is always patience and persistence. By removing the male early, he is still eating and relatively unscathed from his experience. I'll just feed him for a month and try again when he's a bit bigger. Sooner or later they will lock. It might not be in time for her this season and I might need to wait until next season, but they will lock. Incidentally, even after a successful pairing, when the male has dominated the female and got the job done, there will always be a role reversal when the female has had enough and she wants the male gone. So we need to watch out for this switch, even if our snakes did lock, and rescue the male from her territory. So in reality, she doesn't have to like him, she just needs to mate with him. He needs to be large enough and aggressive enough to subdue her for long enough to make that happen. The end result will be the exactly the same. She will pin him down and force him to leave. The only difference is that they will have paired before this happens.
Hey Rob, Mark over here in the US again with an update (can’t remember which video) on the 10 egg clutch with the single egg that started collapsing 30 days before hatching. That egg hatched out fine and got a healthy super pastel banana clown boy out of it!! Now I have another question and like all my others I can not find an answer or anything on the topic anywhere. I have a gravid pastel clown female that was due to lay 4 days. I know they can go longer then 30 days as well as going earlier. I’m not concerned about her being late at the moment. Now she has been acting like every other gravid female close to laying but today was feeding day. Some of my collection will only eat live and the majority are on frozen. This female will eat anything and never misses a meal. So I brought the live rodents in the room and waited about 30mins to start feeding as you know it stimulates their feeding responses and they are ready to eat and waiting. Just before I started feeding I checked on the late girl to see if she finally laid her clutch and she wanted to eat. She absolutely would have taken a rat if I offered one. She is 4 days late and visibly looks like she gonna pop so I didn’t let her feed. So the question is, should I have given her a small rat? Did I make the right choice to not offer her food. I’m concerned that she don’t have any room to hold a meal down or if she starts to lay the food in her squished belly would be regurgitated or just the act of laying her clutch would cause a regurgitation or a complication. I also wonder if she did eat would that stimulate her to lay due to lack of room? What I do know for a fact is she would have 100% absolutely taken if offered. If she would have swallowed is another question. Sorry for the long message but very curious about this situation as I have never come across this before.
Hi Mark. You made the right choice. She doesn't need to eat and in fact feeding now, this close to laying could possibly harm her. Not feeding is the safest option and she will come to no harm going a few days more without food. For snakes, feeding is instinctive, so given scent, movement and heat signature, they often cannot help themselves. Even a gravid female is driven by instinct and its not uncommon when they first start going off food as the follicles grow for them to kill, but not eat. Some females will continue to try and eat but their digestive system is already constricted and food can remain in their guts for a considerable time as they have trouble passing it. When they lay, the poo comes out all over the eggs and makes a real mess, so I prefer not to feed as they get bigger during their builds and certainly not after ovulation. Most females regulate themselves and start to refuse food, but there are always exceptions. I doubt your female would have eaten the rat, although instinct drives her to kill. She simply doesn't have any room inside her to get it down her digestive tract. If she had managed, the food would be undigested and when she lays in a few days there is a good chance that the muscular contractions associated with laying would have forced her to regurgitate and this is never good as it can damage the GI tract. Or it causes her issues as she tries to lay, squeezing eggs down the oviduct past a food item in the gut. You will be glad of her feeding instincts after she lays. Sounds like she'll be back on food in no time. Time from ovulation to egg laying varies and is temperature dependent. My first female this year took 17 days to pre lay shed and then another 37 days to lay, 54 days in total after ovulation. The eggs are actually already undergoing cell division and develop all the membranes that line the egg before it's laid plus the blood vein network that allows oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange through the shell. They also absorb a lot of water and are still expanding inside the oviduct. Oxygen exchange takes place with the eggs while they are still inside the female from the walls of the oviduct which develops a strong blood vein network, although the eggs are not supplied with any further nutrients from the mother and are completely unattached to her in the oviduct after ovulation. The embryo already has a beating heart when the eggs are laid.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Thanks again Rob! Thanks for confirming I made the right choice. It’s been a day or two since I messaged and she still hasn’t laid. She is a first time mom and she does have a 90* hot spot she has been sitting on. So hopefully soon!
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Hey she finally laid! Day 42! I was starting to worry not gonna lie! Lol! 7 healthy eggs no slugs. Another girl laid today one day early. 11 eggs no slugs. It’s crazy how different they can be
Great short video demonstrating the body language and dominance shown. 👍
Thanks Ed. Short, but important.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls absolutely mate! Definitely no “cuddling” going on in the first pair.
🧐 Thanks for the sneak peek , Sir ,, cheers
4 beautiful snakes Rob sorry about the pairing that’s not working out 🔥🔥🔥 keep the content coming
Thanks Patrick. He just needs a bit more time. By pulling him early we give him a chance to have a other crack later without stressing him out.
Awesome little video this mate, my female squashes my male as soon as she's done, I like to get in there and get him out!
Contrary to popular belief, snakes dont cuddle and will only tolerate each other for just long enough to get it on. Once done, the male is best removed to avoid stressing both snakes. The little guy I "rescued" at the start is still eating and will get another shot at this big female next month.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls in all honesty I took your advice.
I am using a much smaller male in comparison to my female, I've took him out at first signs of rejection... and he's continued to eat just fine.
Its the little things that you either learn to take notice of, or take note of the solid advice offered.
Good video
Short but important.
Great to know. Is there anyway to get her to like him?
Hi Samantha. In this context, snake mating is about dominance. Most females, even if receptive, do not appreciate the intrusion of a male and "tolerate" it for just long enough to get what they need from the liaison.
When we breed snakes we have a specific pairing in mind, so unlike the wild, where the biggest, fittest, strongest will always outcompete, I needed this specific male to pair with that specific female. She is huge, well over 2.5kg's and a seasoned breeder. He is tiny, a first time male and only 700gms, so there is a bit of a mismatch right there and I was fully prepared to rescue him if things didn't work out.
You can generally tell by the way a male goes into a females tub when you first introduce them if there is some chemistry between them. If we let them go in under their own steam, you'll notice some males are quite hesitant to go in with the female. Other males can't wait to get in the tub with their new girlfriends. So you'll generally get a good read on what's likely to happen even before they have been "introduced". This male was understandably timid.
She obviously isn't going to let just any male mate with her. She needs to know he's fit and strong and worthy of her acceptance, so she will test his resolve and in this case, our little male was not sufficiently dominant to impress her. Most males have to fight for it with a big female like this. So she fairly roughly requested that he leave or suffer some domestic violence.
He is a snake and knows what she is telling him. He cannot misinterpret what she is doing to him, but we ourselves as keepers often do. We see "cuddling" and "foreplay" instead of combat and we end up leaving a male in with a female for too long and he takes the snake equivalent of a severe beating. This can cause issues in the long run, with males going off food or refusing to lock when paired again and may even stress out a female as well.
I could replace the male with a larger more aggressive male and almost certainly get a lock, but this is not the pairing I want and I gave up using back-up males a long time ago. The solution is not sheds from another male, rubbing sperm plugs from another male onto the female and all those age old tricks that never seem to work when I try them. My solution is always patience and persistence. By removing the male early, he is still eating and relatively unscathed from his experience. I'll just feed him for a month and try again when he's a bit bigger. Sooner or later they will lock. It might not be in time for her this season and I might need to wait until next season, but they will lock.
Incidentally, even after a successful pairing, when the male has dominated the female and got the job done, there will always be a role reversal when the female has had enough and she wants the male gone. So we need to watch out for this switch, even if our snakes did lock, and rescue the male from her territory.
So in reality, she doesn't have to like him, she just needs to mate with him. He needs to be large enough and aggressive enough to subdue her for long enough to make that happen. The end result will be the exactly the same. She will pin him down and force him to leave. The only difference is that they will have paired before this happens.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Thank you. That answered a lot of my questions. I am trying to not have multiple males on a female for my project plans.
Hey Rob, Mark over here in the US again with an update (can’t remember which video) on the 10 egg clutch with the single egg that started collapsing 30 days before hatching. That egg hatched out fine and got a healthy super pastel banana clown boy out of it!!
Now I have another question and like all my others I can not find an answer or anything on the topic anywhere.
I have a gravid pastel clown female that was due to lay 4 days. I know they can go longer then 30 days as well as going earlier. I’m not concerned about her being late at the moment.
Now she has been acting like every other gravid female close to laying but today was feeding day. Some of my collection will only eat live and the majority are on frozen. This female will eat anything and never misses a meal. So I brought the live rodents in the room and waited about 30mins to start feeding as you know it stimulates their feeding responses and they are ready to eat and waiting. Just before I started feeding I checked on the late girl to see if she finally laid her clutch and she wanted to eat. She absolutely would have taken a rat if I offered one. She is 4 days late and visibly looks like she gonna pop so I didn’t let her feed.
So the question is, should I have given her a small rat? Did I make the right choice to not offer her food. I’m concerned that she don’t have any room to hold a meal down or if she starts to lay the food in her squished belly would be regurgitated or just the act of laying her clutch would cause a regurgitation or a complication. I also wonder if she did eat would that stimulate her to lay due to lack of room? What I do know for a fact is she would have 100% absolutely taken if offered. If she would have swallowed is another question.
Sorry for the long message but very curious about this situation as I have never come across this before.
Hi Mark. You made the right choice. She doesn't need to eat and in fact feeding now, this close to laying could possibly harm her. Not feeding is the safest option and she will come to no harm going a few days more without food.
For snakes, feeding is instinctive, so given scent, movement and heat signature, they often cannot help themselves. Even a gravid female is driven by instinct and its not uncommon when they first start going off food as the follicles grow for them to kill, but not eat. Some females will continue to try and eat but their digestive system is already constricted and food can remain in their guts for a considerable time as they have trouble passing it. When they lay, the poo comes out all over the eggs and makes a real mess, so I prefer not to feed as they get bigger during their builds and certainly not after ovulation. Most females regulate themselves and start to refuse food, but there are always exceptions.
I doubt your female would have eaten the rat, although instinct drives her to kill. She simply doesn't have any room inside her to get it down her digestive tract. If she had managed, the food would be undigested and when she lays in a few days there is a good chance that the muscular contractions associated with laying would have forced her to regurgitate and this is never good as it can damage the GI tract. Or it causes her issues as she tries to lay, squeezing eggs down the oviduct past a food item in the gut.
You will be glad of her feeding instincts after she lays. Sounds like she'll be back on food in no time.
Time from ovulation to egg laying varies and is temperature dependent. My first female this year took 17 days to pre lay shed and then another 37 days to lay, 54 days in total after ovulation. The eggs are actually already undergoing cell division and develop all the membranes that line the egg before it's laid plus the blood vein network that allows oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange through the shell. They also absorb a lot of water and are still expanding inside the oviduct. Oxygen exchange takes place with the eggs while they are still inside the female from the walls of the oviduct which develops a strong blood vein network, although the eggs are not supplied with any further nutrients from the mother and are completely unattached to her in the oviduct after ovulation. The embryo already has a beating heart when the eggs are laid.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Thanks again Rob! Thanks for confirming I made the right choice. It’s been a day or two since I messaged and she still hasn’t laid. She is a first time mom and she does have a 90* hot spot she has been sitting on. So hopefully soon!
@@markhutchins3643 fingers crossed. She will lay when she is ready. They always do.
@@RobertBarracloughRoyalBalls Hey she finally laid! Day 42! I was starting to worry not gonna lie! Lol! 7 healthy eggs no slugs. Another girl laid today one day early. 11 eggs no slugs. It’s crazy how different they can be
@@markhutchins3643 fantastic news!! Yes they can take their own sweet time sometimes.