Reptile & Amphibian Forums

the male in question will only be bred to 3 girls, 4 max this season, he is around 750 grams. He has been with female #1 for about 50 hours (he locked up a 2nd time and has been for sooo long so i havent had a chance to pull him out yet).
so do you all wait some time period before introducing to another female? or all consecutively? do you offer him food in between? how many times do you like to breed the male to each female (optimal).
and...one last question, how long do you wait after cooling a female and witnessing a lock-up before you raise night temps back to normal?
sorry so many ?s but this is my first year breeding balls and i dont want to overdue the male ect. thanks!

well here's a few questions for you. How long have you been cooling your animals? How long after intial cooling did you introduce the male to the female? Have you tried to palpate follicles in the female? Have you popped sperm from the male? Have you checked to see if it's viable sperm (most don't do this but a cheap microscope can be invaluable for young males)?

Now for answers. We usually wait at least a month into the cooling before we introduce a male to a female unless we can palpate good sized follicles before that time. There has been an occasion or two that we popped sperm from males but after checking under a microscope it was not viable sperm. Usually after about 2 weeks into the cooling process the viablility of the sperm increases big time. After all things are a go we usually rotate male to female #1 for 3 days. We then remove the male unless they are actually hooked up for 4 days. We then rotate to female #2 and so on using the same schedule. After the 5th female, the male get's 2 weeks off and then he goes back through the females again until he refuses to lock up with any given female or he stops breeding or we witness an ovulation.

This is just how we do it over here and each breeder does it differently. Those with access to an ultrasound machine are able to pinpoint when they need to introduce a male and thus can breed a male to more females with less risk to the male.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

the females ability to retain sperm, that the more lockups the better, even if it was before they showed sings of folicle development. i hadnt considered the sperm being more viable further into the cooling process, and in retrospect my male has not been cooled as long as the females. thx for the advice.

I was wondering how do you witness folicle developement? what are the signs? Or is there something to look for? Thank you in advanced..

you have to either palpate the female to feel the eggs or have an ultrasound to actually see the follicles develop. As the follicles mature you can see a building up to ovulation but I feel that at this point it is too late to introduce a male, but that's just me.
-----
Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!