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This is my first season attempting to breed ball pythons and I need some help. I have some adult proven breeder males as wells as some adult females. I started cooling them in late November because I didn't have the room setup until then. I gave them a month to cool and started putting them together in mid-December. I have continued to offer food and most of them are either refusing or only eating sporadically since I started cooling them. So far I have only witnessed copulation between one pair on once occasion.

The snakes are currently being housed in a Freedom Breeder rack. I have the hot spots during the day at 95 and at night it goes down to 85 via a photoelectric cell I have attached to the Helix control. The ambient temps during the day are about 84 which I achieve through the use of an oil filled heater hooked up to a thermostat. The heater goes off at about 3:30pm each day so the ambient temps at night can get down to about 72. I live in Arizona which is VERY dry so in addition to misting the cypress mulch every few days I also use a warm mist humidifier in the room that runs constantly. The humidity ranges from 55% to about 75% depending on if the heater is on or not. The snakes have all been sexed and appear healthy. I have also tried male to male combat but they didn't seem to combat.

Am I doing something wrong or am I just being impatient? Or worse yet, did I just wait to long to cool them?

In my opinion, your temps are a little to warm for the "cooling" period. In fact, your temps may be a little high for the "warm" season (again, my opinion, and I'll qualify by saying that I've kept and bred snakes for more than 15 years, and have been working with Balls for ten).

During the spring/summer/fall, I keep my temps in the mid to high 80s on the warm end, high 70s on the cool end (with room temps in the high 70s most of the time).

During the winter, the room cools down into the mid 60s to high. I keep the warm end of the cage in the mid 80s, with a night drop down to the ambient room temps for about 8 hours.

We've had this debate here before, but balls simply do not require temps in the mid 90s, even if just a "hot spot". Remember that ball are nocturnal animals, that spend the entire warm part of the day under gound or other suitable shelter. I cant see how a wild ball python would normally encounter temps of 95 degrees or more.

Again, in more than 10 years with BPs, I've never maintained a hot spot greater than 88-90 degrees. I've never had an RI, and have not even had a single death by natural causes. Also, I don't worry about humidity at all, other than during shed cycles and a nightly misting during breeding. My humidty routinely stays in the 40% range. The idea that BPs need high humidity is another popular myth, IMO.

Like JP said, your hot side temps seem too warm even if you weren't cooling them. During the summer I actually didn't heat my snakes - ambient temperatures in my house were 90 degrees!
You might want to lower your daytime temps to 85 or so, and let nighttime drop to the 70's at least.
Note: This was my first season too, so I could be wrong, but I did get babies

Other than that, just give it some time. Cooling your snakes even more will probably have the effect you're looking for.

Good luck!

~jenny
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1.2 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, and Periscope)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)
0.0.1 Mountain Horned Lizard
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 mice (Cute Girl Mousy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
1.1 betta fishes (Vicious and Killer)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
3.0 horses (Buddy, Sam, and Scout)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
0.0.1 chupacabra (it ate our chickens)

jenny.thegreenes.org

I agree with the others so I won't repeat what they said. If the main issue is you haven't seen them copulate, it is possible they are doing it while you are not there. Unless you sit for 24 hours.

I have watched mine for about a week now and the poor little male just chases her around and she just wants to cruise the tank. It's like watching a 12 year old boy flirt with a 17 year old girl. It's funny and sad at the same time.
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That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.

We had a warm spell here in Ohio and it went from REAL cool in my shop at night to pretty warm. All breeding activity ceased as soon as it warmed up. Now it has gotten real cold outside(my building is separate from my house) and i struggle to keep it 72. 2 of my males have kicked back into breeding. See the little stud below:


Unfortunately, my Genetice Stripe male and my Yellow Belly male haven't been getting the job done that I can tell. They may be mating at night or when I am not looking, but the little cinny above will stay locked up with her for days. I say all that to say that cool temps seem to do the trick.

John

That's Genetic stripe...

Cool you temps down. In the past I have cooled traditionally as other have discribed above. However through the use of ultrasound I have been able to observe females building follicles throughout the year. This year I tried something different. Throughout the summer and early fall the ambient temps in the snake room hovered around 85 most of the time. In October I dropped the ambient temps in my snake room to 80 degrees and turned off the hot spot heat to all breeders (males and females). I kept the hotspots on in the hatchlings and yearling yearling racks and they have continued to eat all winter so far. There is about a 1 degree drop at night that occurs naturally as a result of dropping temps outside. I have three clutches in the incubator, 8 more that have ovulated, and about another 20 females with follicles over 2cm which have been bred 1-2 time each, and another dozen or so females with building follicles between 1.0 -1.5 cm which I will soon start to place males with.
I will tell you that I had several females that had begun developing follicles which were approaching 2cm before I ever turned the temps down. I know this goes against conventional wisdom, but I think the "temperature gradient" thing is not nearly as important as many think it is. I think it is important to lower the temps to about 80 degrees to get the males turned on, but I believe (from my experience over the last couple years)a gradient from day to night is not really necessary. I will go further and say that a hot spot prior to ovulation is actually detrimental to cycling. There are MANY others with much more experience that me and many people successfully breed balls using many different techniques. But this year is turning out very well for me with the temps at a constant 79-80 degrees. Anyone else had similar experiences?
Grant Whitmer

I introduce my male to a female. If they lock up I wait untill they are finished (up to 2 days) then remove him. Give him at least 3 days off. If they don't lock up I remove him after 3 days. Then he gets 3 days off anyway. I have 2 big girls that ran laps around there tub. My male Albino was doing his best. Now a month after my other girls started breeding. They were laying inverted and coiling around there water bowls. I put my Albino in and the next morning.(Love) Give them some time and don't wear out your male. Good luck. Claude

How does the male know what to do? I ask because of your statement about the two females running laps around the enclosure. I have a female that the male is interested in. She paces and cruises the tank and he starts wrapping "S" curves around her at about mid-way down her back. No tail to tail. She just ignores him and keeps going. Maybe it just happens while I'm not there.
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That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.

It sounds like your male is trying to get things going but the female isn't ready yet. Give it a day or so and if nothing happens separate them and give it another try in a couple weeks. It can happen, but it is usually hard to miss copulation if you are checking a couple times a day. Usually they will stay locked up for 8-36 hours.

Wow. I certainly wasn't expecting so many responses. Thanks again everyone. This is exactly what I was looking for. Now my next question is do you think it is too late for copulation if I adjust my temperatures now? Also, when do you guys start heating things back up?

Hi
this is our 4th year breeding balls and we don't cool them down at all like we do our colubirds and we have had babies each year but still waiting on them to lay eggs now.
good luck and biggest thing is patince and trust me its so hard to wait cus you just can't wait to see those lil babies as they are soo cute
Good Luck