Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was reading VPI's book the other day and they recommended that you should breed every other year once a female is of size, they said you get larger cluches every other year and it is better in the long run. I know a lot of breeders that breed their females every year unless for some reason the female just doesn't get gravid. I was wondering what your thoughts are on this. Do you larger breeders or smaller breeders breed every other or every year?

Matt

>>I was reading VPI's book the other day and they recommended that you should breed every other year once a female is of size,

Of course they do. That makes that many less that other people would be producing. I read between the lines when it comes to things like that.

I believe this is an assessment that must be made on the merit of the individual snake and what your goals are.

If you have a female that can rapidly regain weight, has excellent overall health, and has shown no previous signs of breeding-stress, then breed her. Conversely, she is a "poor do-er", breed her less often.

Also, if your goal is simply to produce a particular morph, and it is often a race to do so, then you might want to breed your female as soon and as often as you can (without doing her harm). If you are interested in large clutch sizes with maximum output each year, then under VPI's logic, you should have many females and cycle them through bi-yearly.
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1.0 normal ball python
0.1 greyband hybrid kingsnake
0.2 crazy cats
1.0 husband

If you skip a year between each clutch, do get clutch that are at least bigger than the total of both year (if you don't skip) ?

I mean, if a girl is giving you 4 eggs per year

Are you going to get more than 8 eggs if you skip a year ?

Other than the fact that it can be harmful to the female in the long run (shorter her life time or quality), I don't see why it would be good to skip a year if she is regaining weight and more every year.

P.S. : I am still not a breeder, so I am trying to understand more stuff as I can before I decide to.
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love this world, don't hate it.

Say you skip a year and then she doesn't go for you then you would actually be skipping TWO years? Then you will be out a year or two for one female. I think its all up to the breeder and the snake of course, just like recent posts, it all depends on what you are trying to do. I think the breeders who are trying to make a quick buck WILL try to breed EVERY year regardless of their snakes health. But thats my $0.02 cents.

It has been a while since I reviewed the Barkers book, but I wonder if possibly you are confusing a discussion talking about the merits of waiting and extra year before breeding young females for the first time? While I have done it both ways, I agree with them that most of the time you will end up with more total eggs from a given female over a 3 year period by waiting an extra year till the female gets more age and size. When you breed a female young, more often than not she will have a small clutch (3-6 eggs) and then tend to take the next year off. On the other hand if you wait an extra year and allow a female to grow to the 1800 gram range before breeding her, they will tend to give you a larger clutch (6-9 eggs) and more often than not will go two years in a row and more without taking a year off. In this scenario you can end up with more eggs from the second female over a three year period - but whether this makes the most financial sense because the first eggs are delayed a full year is a different matter and depends. I have found that once mature, females tend to replicate clutch size very closely from year to year. Also some females just seem to be programed go pretty much every year and keep pumping out 10-12 egg clutches just like clock work (I haven't been in the game that long, but I have several females that have gone 5 years in a row with very little variation in clutch size from year to year). On the flip side, I have other females that seem to never go two years in a row and almost always take a year off after a clutch.
Cheers
Grant Whitmer

I haven't done a lot of breeding yet, but my plan is to breed a female two years in a row and then give her one off. Of course I will make exceptions to smaller females who don't make it back up to size. From what I've read it seems a lot females will take care of themselves, they will lay a few years in a row and then take a season off.