Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So....I was planning to wait until I had a proper setup to brumate my hogs in order to stimulate breeding, but it looks like they've decided to go ahead without!

My male is chasing the female around the tank, smelling her and acting very interested. She ran from him the first day but has now settled down and doesn't seem to mind as he is crawling all on top of her. I have not seen any actual mating take place...the behavior started maybe 4 days ago.

My question is, 1) when I should remove the male, or 2) do I even need to? Will he cease attempting to mate with her after a few successful breedings (i.e. she'll stop emitting phermones). I have never seperated them before, as I had been planning to breed later this year and didn't see the need, as they got on fine together.

Thanks in advance...I'm sure the more experienced ones here are terrible bored with breeding questions

I also wanted to note that when I said I have not seen any mating take place...I'm a out of the house most of the day so it is quite possible actual copulation has already happened....I just don't know for sure. I've never, ever seen them act like this before in the year and a half I have owned them...so I'm pretty sure this is breeding behavior from what I have read/seen. They are constantly curled together it seems, and the male is always "smelling" all up and down the female" and trying to align himself with her.

Breeding takes a lot out of the snakes so I do think you should probably seperate them just to give them a break. Some of the others may have more proven track records and have been doing this longer than I have so they might be able to inform you of the exact procedures they use but consider giving them a scheduled break.

Well they ended up settling back down to normal, it has been about 5 weeks and the female looks like she is about to enter shed! I'm very excited. She *does* look like she's gotten fatter (hopefully it is not me being biased because I'd love eggs). I've tried *very gently* palpating for eggs (a friend who breeds hogs told me you could in late gestation) but couldn't feel anything....guess we will ust wait and see!