Successful breeding is about much more than pairing up and getting eggs.

Assuming you have a viable male, with breeding tendencies and viable sperm...

The female will be resistant to copulation until she is in the window of productivity.

We had females copulate from December to June last season. Each female is going to enter her "window" at a different point. 80% will see that window (for us) from January to March, and that is still a big window.

When the female's follicles are too small, she won't want to be bothered, and it won't be productive anyway. Once her follicles pass about 8mm, you are starting to enter the viability window.

10-15mm is prime time, she is receptive, ready to go, hot and heavy for a male. If you don't offer a male during this time, she may shrink back up (invisible to your eye) and you have missed your shot.

If you continually pair her up and stress her out while she is still underdeveloped, you may blow your shot as well.

We use an ultrasound to spot each female for prime time, and pair her up only when she is ready. In that case, breeding often takes just a day. Then the male is on to other work, other females.

A primed female will get paired (with cops) 4-6 times on average.

A female may take 2 months or more to go from 4-6mm to 12mm, there is lots of time in there to goof it up, stress her out, annoy her, and ruin your shot.

Breeders that don't use ultrasounds usually palpate the females for follicles. RDR does this. It is not nearly as precise, but you can certainly feel when the follicles have matured to viability. Palpating is a learned technique, it can be very subtle.

In the Ball Python breeding video by Doc Seward and The Snake Keeper, they show you their cycling, and palpating. That DVD can be a big step in starting to understand what you are doing.

When you pair up balls for 6 months straight, 99.9% of that time is wasted and not productive, or even counter productive. Without understanding the fundamental basics of the cycling of the female, you really limit chances of success.

Pairing up females in October, and worrying about success or cops before November even hits, is REALLY a waste of time. It simply doesn't work like that.

Learn to palpate (get the DVD) and pair up only when your female is viable.

Or even better (and yet another reason to develop a friendly working relationship with a vet) take your female to a vet once a month and ultrasound for follicular development, then you can REALLY learn about cycling, timing, patience, and what is going on inside the female.

Your specific female may not be ready to breed until late April. It is VERY likely your female won't be ready until the first of the year. In that case, worrrying about it in October is silly.

Best of luck with your balls.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

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