To cycle retics, the main process is getting the female ready- fat happy and relaxed. you should feed her as long as she wants to feed as long as you aren't using a prolonged cooling period (I don't). I always leave an undertank heat area on in one area just for her comfort/safety, but she seems to stay clear of thjis area early on and likes a room in the upper 70s to just hang.
When she starts to mature follicles in the ovaries, she will start spewing pheremones. your males will at times go off feed or will be spending all night trying to get out of their separate cages in the same room and mate. I put the males in ovvernight and take them out in the AM once a week or so during this period.
Retics are at times a bit shorter in copulation than some other python species- chondros for instance will stay locked up for 8-12 hours repeatedly.
if you want to catch them in the act you need to sneak back a few hours after lights out every time you put them together. If your girl is tail wagging and cloaca gaping and spuing urates, take the male out, she is saying not into it right now.
If your girl goes off feed and or starts looking different- side scales seem pulled apart and she stays coooler for a month or so, keep intoducing the boys. interestingly, when you check her temp with infrared gun type thermometer, she will usually be a few degrees warmer than ambient cage floor temps. If you catch the ovulation- no mistaking it, but you have to look in on her a few times a day to catch it consistently- then she will start to bask and go into a shed about 4 weeks later. My females (Kayiaudi island smaller subspecies) tend to go through 2 sheds before they lay.
I did breed and wrote an article for my senior project in college at Penn on breeding retics for a bio class back in 1981/2? but i didn't keep the paper- turned it in after typing on old typewriter so cannot state "mainland" retic cylces etc.
hope that others have made similar observations
please note contradictions, i am no expert just a lucky observant hobbyist with a few too many decades experience.
I hope to have a huge clutch sometime in february 2007 from my present Kayuadi female BTW.
Breeding snakes is all about knowing your animals giving them respect and listening to what they are telling you and anticipating their biological needs as the process unfolds.
Hope this is helpful
Winslow
