Many people who have been breeding ball pythons alot longer than I have developed different "recipies" that they use very successfully in breeding ball pythons and my comments are offerred as informational and are not meant to denegrate the successful techniques of others.
I do not cycle lighting or cool the ambient temps in the snake room or hot spots. I use ultrasound to identify females that have begun to develop follicles. "Most of the time" I breed females when they are ready and over the last three years, have had clutces in every month of the year. Using this method males normally breed females within hours of being introduced and I average right at 2 copulations per clutch of eggs laid (about 25% lay a clutch with only one copulation). Also, almost all of the females bred this way (>95%) go on to lay a clutch. For me this method results in a much higher yield of clutches per male (I have gotten as many as 16 clutches from a single male and 10-12 clutches is average.
Young and/or small first time breeder females can be a little different. When you are trying to push a young female you really want to go, I think there are some "teasing" techniques that can be used to try and push them into developing follicles. Cooling does play role here but, but I believe that other factors at techniques play a bigger role.
Grant Whitmer

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