Reptile & Amphibian Forums

NP

I like to keep it around 5-6...sometimes too many can hurt or kill the male....
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Luke Martin
Bronze Serpent Reptiles

"...sometimes too many can hurt or kill the male..."

Death by sex? Oh! To be a python!

Chris
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0.1 Normal
0.1 Banded
1.0 Reduced Pattern
1.0 Burgundy (PH Piebald)
0.2 Het Piebald
0.1 Screaming Child

I have never heard of a male that died due to breeding too many females, but any way....

We have an albino male that sired 14 clutches this year, our pastel male also produced 7 clutches.

I would say 10-12, that is what we have been doing and its been working fine.
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www.NEWReptiles.com

I talked to John Piro in Daytona and he had a customer that bought a pastel male from him that bred to 10 females and died...yet all of them didn't take either....I think he said something like 4 or 5 clutches were produced from it?....
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Luke Martin
Bronze Serpent Reptiles

Most males will stay off food while breeding so the extended time it takes to breed that many females coupled with the added energy expended it makes perfect sense. I'm sure it also has a lot to do with the age and size of the male. If you have an older male that's 3000g I'm sure you are going to be able to breed a lot more females than you would with a yearling 750g male. I have also heard of people breeding that many females with males that continue to feed during breeding.

Like most aspects of this hobby you can't always generalize.

George Knaack
GLK HERP

With your statement that a 3000 g male will be a more prolific breeder than a 750g ball. I like to keep my male breeders between 1000-1500g for breeding. I've noticed that males over 2000g get lazy, and are nowhere near as prolific as a smaller, healthier male. There really is no need to let a breeder male get that large. Much like humans, the larger and more overweight a male becomes, the more health risks occur, including lower sperm production and less 'desire' to copulate. I keep my breeder males on a 'maintenance diet', which entails a feeding every second week, (I also notice that all of my breeder males will continue to eat VERY well while breeding, moreso than a breeding female) as opposed to a feeding every 5-7 days for breeding females or females who need to regain lost egg-weight.

I was basically using that as an example. Maybe 3000g would be a bit much but the point is a larger (not overweigh) male is going to be able to breed longer than a smaller one. You mentioned keeping males between 1000 and 1500 grams, that is pretty well the range I keep my males at. However you see plenty of posts about breeding 8 month old 600 gram males, and I can't see them breeding as many females as a larger male would without causing harm.

Personally I have had better luck keeping my females feeding after copulation than I have males. This year I had multiple females go off food early and shortly after breeding they started eating again, however out of the 5 males I'm using only one of them is still eating. From what I know this has to do with females trying to build up fat stores before ovulating.

Since I did have females that quit eating early this year I talked to multiple breeders about the risks of starting breeding my males early to just the females that went off feed. All of them had basically the same thing to say. There is a good chance the males will go off feed once breeding starts, and if I plan on breeding them later in the year to the females that are still feeding they might not have the weight and energy. Obviously it is going to depend on the individual animal but with all the people I talked to about this and them all saying the same thing, I would say it is worth taking into consideration.

George