I am just wondering what the youngest or smallest males that have sucessfully breed were?
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What is the smallest/ youngest a male Mojave can breed at?
Atlas511
Aug 31, 2005 05:02 PM
Replies (4)
Python Dreams
Aug 31, 2005 05:17 PM
I have a Mojave male that was around 700 to 800 grams at a little over 7 months of age and he was breeding like crazy. He bred about every female he jumped in with. I was expecting a quite a few clutches.
Nothing ever came... I think it really depends on the individual animal as to what time they develop viable sperm. Numerous people have been successful breeding young males, but I was not.
Tom Baker
Serpents Den
Aug 31, 2005 07:55 PM
Same thing happened to me last year so I'm hoping to have better results this coming season.
Steve
SerpentsDen.com
wlinville
Aug 31, 2005 08:46 PM
Perhaps next year you might check for sperm plugs? A producing male should have them. Just because it goes to the range doesnt mean its got bullets in the gun.
Ben Linville
mkreptiles
Aug 31, 2005 08:24 PM
The biggest mistake novice breeders make when breeding young males is that they "run" him with too many females. This can lead to disaster if you need to make back a big initial investment.
If you only allow him to breed one or possibly two females your success rate will climb ten folds. New males under 1000 grams are less reliable then older males. I use 1000 grams loosely because of the way some people feed. Males are allowed to get too big too fast and get fat and lazy. This is one major reason why the value of older males increases so much. I would rather have one 2 year old male breeder then 5 550 gram 6 month olds.
The benefit of many males obviously would come with the following season but that one older male can breed 8 or more females that year while the smaller males may not breed effectively at all.
I have stopped breeding these young males all together. I made the mistake of trying to breed a Male het caramel albino when he was a 650 gram yearling 2 years ago. He is now afraid of females and doesn't really eat like he used to. Last year, I never witnessed one copulation with him. He cowards in the corner of the box and the females dominate him.
Just something to think about when you decide to breed males too early.
Mike King
MK Reptiles
