Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a female het pied that currently weighs in at 1300 grams =/- 50 grams or so. Should I wait until next year to breed her, or give her a couple more months to put weight on. I'd love to get a pied this year. Opinions please. It's been 8 years since I bred balls, and large adults are no brainers.

thanks
Brandon Osborne

Brandon,
I have a few in that size range that I am cooling, but I am still feeding them heavy in hopes of them gaining enough weight to go ahead and breed. The way mine are eating, I see no reason why they would not be big enough to produce in just a couple of months.
Jason
Circle City Serpents

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Certainly there are differences of opinion on this but in my limited experience balls will either breed or they will not and it doesn't hurt to try.

If she is still feeding well I’d keep feeding her for two months and figure the increased chance of producing at the bigger weight offsets and decrease due to running late (I’m not going to start trying to breed any of mine for another month or so anyway).

I had one lay at 1340 grams this year (all others that small have failed to lay for me) and she is now up over 1,800 grams for next year. Her clutch sucked, only 4 eggs and two where 2/3 size and went bad. I also suppose she might have been bigger by now if I hadn't bred her (but then again maybe she wouldn't have eaten as well). Had one of her two babies been an albino I would say for sure I did the right thing but as it is I can say I'm glad that one of her two 2003 offspring was a female possible double het snow that I have started growing a year earlier than if I had waited.

So, if it where me, for what it may or may not be worth, I would keep feeding her for a bit and then go for it.

Personally, I prefer at least 1500 grams and they look good. 1500 grams on a 5' BP might not be large enough to breed. Not enough fat reserves. But I do have one that is a touch over 1300 grams that I would really like to breed - hypo project so I may just go with it. Especially since it does not cool her in central Florida until mid December.
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Jay A. Martin

Because we haven't seen the animal. I have seen 2,500g females that I wouldn't breed because they looked emaciated. But I bred a 1200g female last year and got 6 HUGE eggs. But she was less than 4 feet long and STOCKY. Weight means jack. Its a good guideline for beginners raising a baby snake to breeding size, but I never weigh any animals anymore. If they are fat enough, they breed and lay eggs, if they aren't, I wait until the next season.

Point is, snakes, like humans, come in all shapes and sizes. Look at the body-weight of your animal and determine if it will breed, or post a relevant picture here (to scale) and get our opinion. But saying you have a 1300g animal doesn't tell me a whole lot.

And the lightest I've ever bred a female was 1150g and she gave 5 biggie-sized eggs. All fertile.
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