Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello Everyone,

Well...I've decided to get my Piebalds and Albinos, but I'll be doing it the hard way! I'll be purchasing some 100% Het Piebalds in the next few days, and I hope to breed them in order to finally get myself a Piebald. (I'll hold off on the Albinos until I get more money.) But I've got two questions...

First, what is the best way to breed females? What I mean is...how many males do I need per female? Can one male breed with two females? What's the ideal ratio?

Secondly, I read a post earlier (a reply to my Ringers v. Piebalds post) where a person was in hopes of breeding Piebalds. The maturity rate was estimated at two (2) years. Can they really start breeding that soon? I was expecting three to four. If two is the average, then what a happy surprise for me! =)

Thanks A Bunch,
Chris

You really only need 1 male. When I get mine up to size, I'm going to breed my male high contrast albino to my 100% het and hopefully get several albinos and hets. I'm also going to breed him to my normal, to get more 100% hets. As for when they're ready? It depends more on their size than on their age, for health reasons.
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1.0 Albino ball python (high contrast)
0.1 100% het Albino ball (high contrast)
0.1 Normal ball
1.0 Candy cane cornsnake
1.0 Golden Retriever pup
1.0 Ferret

One male can take 5-6 females. They can take more but usually 5-6 take more is just a plus. I'd rather concentrate on the 5-6 and make sure they take then putting more females in the mix. Males can breed at 450 grams however this isn't real common. As a yearling they are more then ready! Females take 2 years or 1000 grams as a min. Most won't breed their girls till they are approx 1200 grams which would be safe. Male pied hets have come way down! If you go to the source they are between $250-350. Good luck!
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John Light
Pristine Pythons
ristinePythons@Hotmail.com">Contact Me

New Web Site Comming Soon!

can you email me with what is a "good source" for pied hets? I'd love to get some for my husband who loves pieds.
My Email
Link

I've yet to produce from a 2 year old female (breed at 18 months and hatch when mom is 2). People have done it but it seems to me that you pretty much need to do everything perfect and you can't count on it. It probably helps to have really good genetics animals and optimal cage temp and most importantly an ample supply of just the right sized food. I think most who have done it probably breed their own feeders and offer more than once a week (maybe every 5 days or so).

I rely on meeting my rodent distributor on a once a week schedule and am at the mercy of whatever size rodents she happens to have that week. I've raised up a couple groups of sisters now and it's looking like about half of them are producing at 3 years (breeding at 30 months) and the other half will take 4 and a few stubborn ones even 5 years. Having multiple females just in case one doesn't turn out to be a good eater is a nice way to distribute your risk.

Once every 5 days? Power feeding which I don't see any problems in doing for animals under a year old as they grow the most in that first year is more then once a week. I'm talking 3-5 times a week!
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John Light
Pristine Pythons
ristinePythons@Hotmail.com">Contact Me

New Web Site Comming Soon!

"I'm talking 3-5 times a week!"

That's ever day or every other day! I assume you must be feeding small meals. Will be interesting to see how long they can keep that up and how frequent small meals compare to larger less frequent meals of the same total weight.

I once raised a group of females up to 1,000 grams in less than a year on the 5 day schedule with relatively large meal sizes. Even just 2 days earlier and being able to pick through my own rodent colony for optimal size made a huge difference over my current 7 data random size situation.

Well, I've heard, from some of the best and most successful folks in the biz, that breeding younger, smaller females not only results in a small first clutch, but successive clutches as well. A friend once bred a female at about 1200 grams, and got 3 eggs, only one of which were fertile. The girl's sister, who was about the same age, was not bred that year but bred the following year at about 1900 grams and produced 6 fertile years. The first female produced 3 fertile eggs the 2nd year. I've heard from other folks that girls bred early continue to produce smaller clutches throughout their lives.

I held out my reduced female this past year, and now I've got a 2000 gram version going into the winter...I'm hoping for at least 6 or 7 eggs. We'll see...

they can and do start at 18 months....but do not plan on it.....

.....and the eggs will be smaller and therefore smaller babies....

some are harder to get started and some are not........(yes BIG babies can be and will be a pain too at times).....

I've done it......so I actually recomend wait till they are 30 months old and big enough also.......

,,,,,,,,,,,,.........JY
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.....wow....you people....really.....you are exactly like I thought.........

............right?

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I believe you are talking about me responding to your post. my post read that i "hope" to be producing pieds in 4 yrs. with that said lets start at my collection. my 2 het pied males are 04 babies. they pound rat pups or adult mice every 3-4 days and the larger is already over 200 grams. the smaller that i received from ralph davis is 124 grams ( weighed yesterday ). If the larger can hit the 450 mark by feb i will cycle him along with my adult females to produce poss hets. will raise up all the females from those clutches and breed back to other male het pied to hopefully produce unrelated pieds. on a normal growth rate that should take 3-4 years. now that is the plan and may take 1-3 years longer to happen but what the heck i love working with snakes anyway and won't be a big deal if it takes 10 years before i produce pieds. one piece of advice buy as many females as you can afford to house and feed properly, you can never have too many.
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2.0 het pied
1.1 het albino
1.7 normal
1.0 american pit bull terrior
1.1 damn taco dogs (ankle biters)
1.0 grey cat

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrior as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!