Hello all....
We are currently attempting our first breeding and have a few newbie questions.
First off... We originally were planning on waiting until around late October, early November to pair up our Dh Ghost male to our normal Colombian female. But he had other ideas, and was developing a nose rub from constantly trying to get out of his cage and into hers. So we decided to pair them up in hopes of curtailing his doing any more damage to himself, hoping that she would be receptive.
Immediately he went to work on her, and has been almost non-stop for about a 1 1/2months now(except fro a short seperation explained later). It has been awesome watching him do his thing, and amazing to us how he just seems to "know what to do" LOL.
Everything has seemed to happen the way it should have, except for one "bump in the road", a mistake on my part. He had been courting her heavily for the first two weeks, when we decided to split them up and feed them, because any time he would take a rest she would come to the front of the cage as if to be fed. He had no interest in food whatsoever, but she nailed hers, and gobbled it up just as she always does. We put him back in with her three days later, fearing too long of a separation would mess up the mojo they had going. But two days after that she regurged her almost fully digested rat.
We separated them immediately, and basically gave up on breeding at all. But she seemed(I know this is not possible) to show signs of missing him, also had begun to show some mid-body swelling. And he went back to constantly trying to get out of his cage, and back to her, causing his nose rub to quickly return. A week later we put them back together with very close, concerned observation.
Within the next couple of days their first definate copulation(that we know of) was witnessed, and was observed several more times over the next couple of days. Our female's mid-body swelling continued.
Our males method then changed from constantly trying to "slip it in" to a constant messaging of her mid section. After about a week her mass, now the size of a small football, began to move south(ovulation?). He continued to work the swelling for about another week before going back into copulation mode, which has now been observed several more times...
She is now having another mid-body swelling.
Any and all opinions on anything I've shared are wanted and very much welcome.
Our main questions are..... Should you/Do you feed during breeding? And if so, How long do you keep them seperated afterward?
Like before, at any point when our male is resting, our female comes to the front of the cage like she's starving and wants to be fed. We would like to feed her, but are just afraid of messing up the mojo they have going, or, worst case scenario, another regurge.
Thanks everyone in advance for any and all responces.
Jesse Van Atta
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"Continuing to cling to the patterns you know, inhibits your ability to discover what you don't know." - Eric Allenbaugh
