Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I heard that when attempting to breed, you should always pair a smaller male to a female. Why couldn't you use a male that is the same size or larger than the female?

Curious,
Chris
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"I don't know about you...but I find comfort in that." -- Cowboy

A big mature male will git-r-done better.
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Chad Bachman

The same person who told me Super Pastel x Super Pastel doesn't necessarily yield all Super Pastels...and it's better to breed Albino x Het Albino (or Piebald x Het Piebald) rather than to breed Albino x Albino (or Piebald x Piebald).

You know who you are!!! =)

Chris =)
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"I don't know about you...but I find comfort in that." -- Cowboy

All reasonable questions but sounds like you are right to now be skeptical on that source.

I've only used one 2,000 gram male (usually working with young possible het males) but he seemed to be a very active breeder with a 1,500 gram girl and I got a 100% hatch rate.

Well, with some of the other responces, I guess we should start breeding dwarf male Balls, cuz the big ones are lazy...LOL. Fat males are lazy breeders, not big ones!
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Chad Bachman

I've heard that the smaller (not younger) the male is, the less chance you have of him being lazy and more willing to mate. I prefer my males under 2000g for breeding.
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www.strictlyballs.ca

I have 2 males that go maybe 3000 grams plus and they will breed anything.....not lazy at all.........

......small males are lazy or scared in my opinion......

........bigger is better here.......
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.................

LOL made ya look Seriously, my friends put in an average sized male into a BIIIG female's cage, and the little chicken hid in the water dish for three days! Guess he didn't like "big girls."

I always heard that larger males maybe too agressive for smaller females. Buy the way how many ball pythons do you own and how long have you been ino ball pythons. I have quite a few.

Me? I've only been interested in Ball Pythons for a few months now. I mean...I've owned a Ball Python for several years, but hadn't really pursued Ball Python husbandry until recently. I currently own 0.1 Normal, 0.1 Banded (which is technically a pretty Normal), and 0.2 Heterozygous Piebald (which I'm currently advertising for sale). I'd like to get either an Albino, Axanthic, Butterscotch Ghost, Orange Ghost, or Lemon Pastel. I'm just waiting for a fair trade/partial trade on my Het Pied girls. (Nobody seems to have a lot of cash right now.) Oh, well. =)

Chris =)
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"I don't know about you...but I find comfort in that." -- Cowboy

My experiences with all snakes is that when you have a male that is overweight, he will not breed as well. This also goes for females in exteme cases. I tend to keep my males leaner, which is easy since most go off feed during the winter (too busy breeding). However, they still continue to grow albeit slower than females over time. My older males breed very well and range in weight from 2200-2700g and range in age from 6-8yrs.

I would prefer more mature males over the younger ones (under two years) because fertility appears to be better overall. This may be due to more frequent copulation or better/more sperm production. It is hard to say which without proper testing.
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