Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First I want to mention that I have rescued Ball Pythons. I have had them for 4 years. Yes, I did house them (male and female) together after some time. Yes, I know it is not recommended but I did it anyway since while working at a zoo there were never issues. I have not experienced any typical behavioral problems with my two Balls. They are both really healthy and eat well. Even the male, does not fast as long now as he did when he was housed alone. I had no intention of breeding them.(There are plenty of snakes suffering out there because of human selfishness). No offense to anyone.
I just thought that they may or may not mate but would at least have the experience of each others company as would occur in the wild.
Since they reporduce so infrequently in the wild and it seems that captive breeders try so hard to produce the right breeding conditions.....I assumed that they would not mate unless I changed their environmental conditions (light, temp, stop feeding etc.) Well, this past winter they mated. My female laid eggs (4 good, 1 slug)in May that hatched in July. I now have 4 beautiful babies that were unplanned. I thought the stress was over... UNTIL to my surprise when I went to clean out thier enclosure 2 days ago and they were mating!!!!!!!!! I was not happy about this for many reasons. Yes, I know I probably should not still house them together. But can anyone tell me if a second copulation within a year is ok? Meaning is this harmful to the female who just regained all her body weight from the previous and very recent reproduction????????? Was she receptive because I took her first clutch away to incubate??????

Please comment.
-AS

It's funny how some people try so hard while others have no intentions but they are the ones who get what those other people wished for?

Hmmm,

I'm going to try and stay civil here. First of all what you "experienced" while working at a zoo or whatever doesn't mean crap. You should NEVER house two snakes together unless you are trying to breed them. Accidents can and have had happened many times.

As far as the two breedings within the year are concerned, as long as the female has good body weight it should be ok.

And the fact that you took her first set of eggs away has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with her being receptive. (These are not birds here) Guess you must have had your birds and snakes mixed together at the zoo too.

You know you sit there and try to preach about "us" breeding snakes and producing unwanted babies into the world yet it is ok for you to continue to house your snakes together knowing full well that they are going to breed. A little self righteous aren't we?
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Jeff West

Like I said, no offense to anyone in particular.
I TRY to take more of a naturalist approach with my animals. If they were going to mate fine, if not fine. As long as they got a chance to be exposed to each other.

From a biology perspective I have a lot of questions about life history, particularly both captive behavior and "In the wild behaior" that this forum and other resources has not been able to answer. In this case these are breeding questions since it came about. Do you actually think that a wild female that just invested a lot of energy in reproduction would be ready to produce a new clutch in less than 4 months after incubating her own eggs which caused losing even more body mass?????? Most captive breds are saved of this reroductive effort and expended energy because of generic incubation? Obviously food availability and mating encounters are an issue. This is an innocent question. AND NO, I don't have my birds confused with snakes. MANY other animals will mate again soon after losing thier clutch.

Did you incubate or did the female bp?

I haven't seen much of any info on what ball pythons do in the wild. Some have speculated that they only produce every other year but I think if they get enough food they can probably breed fine every year. I let a female maternal incubate last year and she produced again this year (of course I fed her well in the shortened recover period). Many girls have very good appetites after laying eggs and I've seen them gain back their pre-lay weight in as little as 2 months.

I suspect they breed quite frequently in the wild. I've heard that they export as many as 150,000 babies from wild harvested eggs a year from Africa. I’m not sure how sustainable this rate is but they have been doing it for a decade or so now. At least captive hatched babies offer an alternative.

Sound like your animals are behaving normally and gearing up to produce again about a year after their last clutch.

Thanks, for sharing your thoughts on this.
Yes she does and always has had an incredible appetite and she gained her weight back very quickly (2 months more or less). I guess I will let nature takes its course with the two, and eventually seperate them.

"There are plenty of snakes suffering out there because of human selfishness). No offense to anyone."

If you meant no offense, you would have kept your mouth shut. Obviously, offense was intended on SOME level.