Reptile & Amphibian Forums

this is my first breeding season and i am a little confused in what to look for in breeding females. i started pairing my 2500 gram normal female to 3 males starting in december. Just recently, my males seemed to stop showing a lot of interest towards the females. i mean i see a lock here and there but not as frequently as before. what does that mean?

another thing i'm curious about is my 2500 gram female has shed every month since january(has shed twice since january) and her belly is pink once again going into shed this month. she seems to also be hungry all the time with a feeding response like no other(super aggressive feeding response). just curious to what is going on with her because i know at that size, ball pythons do not shed that often. my small snakes average a shed per month or even evry 2 months and those are constantly growing with a tight feeding schedule.

any insight would help. thanks.

I'm just going on a long shot here. I'm a complete amature I haven't bred anything yet, but I've been reading all over the internet just about everyday for a year now. Sounds to me like your males didn't loose interest. I think your female has lost interest in your males because she may be gravid. I watched a really good video on snake bytes that went into great detail about what happens with the females as they go through certain stages of breeding. You can check it out on youtube I believe it was only last week or the week before last's video. But anyway one of the points that I remember is that when the female develops because gravid she looses interest in breeding, but can still become fertile because on sperm retention. I would say the shed could possibly be a pre-lay shed??? This is all with out knowing if you palpated any follicles or not, but that would explain a lack of lock up and the shed and I believe you mentioned that she's was pounding food at one point, but I never heard of shedding so much during breeding and you didn't mention anything about increase in size/weight, unless you just assumed it was from the increased food intake. I'll be the first to tell you my advice is worth nothing. I'm here for nothing more than to learn, but maybe I could make you think about something you may have over looked.

Mike

thanks for the response. my female is hard to feel for follicles because its a bigger female and i really don't have the experience doing so. i've watched many "how to" videos yet its still kind of hard to do it on your own. my female is pounding rats and that may be the reason for its weight and size gain so i really can't tell whether its ovulating or gravid or just plain gaining weight due to feeding. I do find it weird that she has shed every month for the past 2 months and is already into its next shed cycle this month.