Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What size/age do you guys like your males to be when they breed? My pastel pied is about a year and pushing 500 grams and I'm just itching to get him in with some laddies...
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You might be a ball python fanatic if you subconsciously convert the price of virtually everything in to units of piebald ball pythons

He's plenty big enough, but you you better pair him up w/a lady and not an Irish laddie!

whenever they produce plugs they are ready to go, got several under a year that bred like crazy, 1 of which fathered 6 clutches this year
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www.bamreptiles.webs.com
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N/P

sperm plugs, ie: the male is sexually mature and producing sperm. you'll see the plugs if you pop them and they are old/mature enough
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www.bamreptiles.webs.com
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Ball Pythons do not have sperm plugs.Actually no species of pythons do.

Sperm Plugs are utilized in species such as Garter Snakes. It is a waxy deposit left by a male after breeding that stops any other males from fertilizing that female.

We know this is not the case with BP's as many, many people have had multiple sires in the same clutch.

A better term for what many call "sperm plugs" in BP's would be hemipenial sheds, because thats exactly what it is. Shed skin from the hemipenes.

Food for thought, Happy Herping
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If you plan for 1 year, plant rice.
If you plan for 10 years, plant trees.
If you plan for 100 years, educate mankind.

trust me, you aren't seeing hemipenal sheds when you pop a male and white stuff is attached to the hemipenes, its sperm, sperm plugs, w/e. i've always heard people calling them sperm plugs, i'm sure you use the term co-dominant? guess what, that's an incorrect term too >_
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www.bamreptiles.webs.com
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the term sperm plug is incorrect but accepted in the hobby.
same with co-dominant.
these terms arise from people like myself that are not scholars of genetics. we use a term that makes sense at the time and gets accepted by the majority. the other poster was correct in that garters have actual "sperm plugs" that prevent another male from impregnating the female thus allowing his genes to survive.
if they are hemi penal sheds or actual sperm i am not sure. always looks like shed for me but happens every time i pop an adult male. them things don't grow that much to have to shed so often....
adam jeffery
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" a.k.a. farfrumugen "
When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.

you are all correct.......they are not actually sperm plugs as a true plug is....they are not always shed skin either...what we usually see is just what could be something like...""Hemipenal Gunk""....sperm,skin,crud, that builds up inside the penes of matable males.....

what would we call the plugs/ gunk in females?...they have it also......pocket lint?....

....anyways....

hobby words....sperm plugs....we know what thay are in the hobby's mind....

.....and who actually has to pop a male to see if it wants to breed?...would you want to breed if someone just got done squeezing the living crap out of your package?....really...next time at a bar....kick your buddy in the crotch to check and see if he is looking for a lady friend,....he'll really enjoy the crap out of it///????>>>>>....

.....yep...I just throw them together....if he's over a year old or two...he's big enough....same as palpating....if she's on a pile of white eggs....she was gravid....

......Gunk......
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........JY

that analogy cracked me up lol
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www.bamreptiles.webs.com
www.facebook.com/bamreptiles

I was bustin' a shed hemipene over that stuff!

"pocket lint"...

~Doug

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Even if what you are seeing is sperm, which certainly makes sense, they wouldn't be sperm plugs. Sperm plugs don't contain sperm, they are just a thick waxy deposit to prevent breeding by other males.

If we want to call them sperm plugs, fine. But I am curious, has anyone actually looked for *sperm* in these "sperm plugs"?
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Lincoln, NE
Ball Pythons - 0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.1 Normals
Kingsnakes - 1.0 L. m. thayeri, 0.1 L. m. thayeri X L. alterna, 1.0 L. g. californiae
Other - 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 1.0 H. nascicus, ?.? Chrysemys picta, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

never taken a microscope to em, but i have rubbed them on females to stimulate a different male to breed her. of course that could be just because it smells like the other male
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www.bamreptiles.webs.com
www.facebook.com/bamreptiles

breeding USUALLY starts in winter...so you can throw him in with a girl anytime YOU like...this week a cold snap of 100 degrees is hitting Lancaster County ,PA.......good luck......he knows the rest...

...have fun...he'll do fine....

....
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........JY