Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 5 year old ball python who refuses to eat anything dead and is afraid of anything bigger than a mouse. Consequently he eats LOTS of mice. This is getting quite expensive so I decided to start breeding my own. I set up a ten gallon tank with food, water, two wooden houses, one male, and three females. One of the females was already pretty big when i got her and gave birth about a week after bringing them home. My problem is that the male now doesn't seem interested at all in the other two females. He avoids them, sleeps and plays on the other side of the cage from them, and will only eat and drink when they are sleeping. Is there anything I am doing wrong or something else I can do to encourage him to breed with the two females?

Are the females bigger than the male? You could try a new colony with new mice, with mice of the same age, even from the same litter or with the male older than the females. Or if you have any of the first litter left, raise up new male and females from them.

Give the current ones some time, he'll probably work it out. How long have they been together? It often takes up to 2 months for a new colony to get started producing. I've heard that feeding them a high fat diet sometimes encourages them to start to breed, though I have no idea why or if its true.

Just leave them alone. Just 'cause you haven't seen it yet doesn't mean he hasn't done it. And it can take a couple months for them to decide to settle in. At least the first litter didn't get cannabalized.

BTW Were the mice adults when you got them or just old enough? If they were too old you may be out of luck. I would say get some small to mediums and set up 1.4 or 1.6 and let them be for a couple months.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny