Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay guys I've a breeding size question for you. I just recently received my male red bull back from breeder loan and have a yearling (CB02) female that is about 4.5' long. To me this seems to be a little on the small size for breeding next year and I'm thinking about giving her another year prior to breeding her.

My experience with other colubrids has been that many females of good condition and similar size (almost big enough to breed) throw eggs regardless of being bred. It is also my experience that passing these is harder than passing fertile eggs. So here is my question, do bulls also tend to throw eggs regardless of being bred? Aside from the fact that I'd hate not to produce reds next year, I'm trying to make a balanced decision on breeding this female. If there is a good chance she'll throw anyway and possibly have trouble passing infertile eggs, it might be wise to just go ahead and breed her. If not, the benefit of giving her time surely outweighs my desire to produce next year. Thanks in advance.

The pic is of when the female was much younger and smaller. Thanks.

I've never had my pits produce eggs unless they were bred, though that is only in my expierence. As far as waiting another year, I definately would. Most pit breeders swear by the rule not to breed a female until her third spring. That means a snake born last summer ('02) should be bred no sooner than spring '05. She will be less than three years old. As is true with boas, pits grow long very fast but seem to need time to thicken up after their adult size is reached to ease egg doposition. This makes sense because most pits lay very large eggs. Corn snake females can sometimes be bred in their second spring because the eggs are not very big and are eaiser to pass. Most pit breeders would probably agree to wait and I do because I learned the hard way. Great luck to your breeding, she's an utterly gorgous sayi...

Greg Knoell

I've had a couple of female bulls drop infertile eggs. One was with a male, and the other was not. I've even seen a clutch of infertile eggs that was dropped by a wild caught female a week or so after capture. Possible reasons include she was too small and there was no male around.

I'd prefer to keep her unmated until '05. Not brumating her this winter may prevent her from ovulating. Good luck.

Paul Hollander

np