Hello, this is going to be my first season breeding ball python and I have one male I Would like to breed to 3 females. I have heard that a good method is to pair the male with a female for 3 days starting Monday feed on the weekend and then pair again with the next female next Monday. The only thing I’m wondering is this seems a little heavy for the male so what month should I start doing this and how many months should I pair up for before I stop pairing? Thank you!
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Ok so yes if you pair with female #1 on Monday and then you tack the female out on Thursday, then you feed on Saturday or Sunday and then you pair him to female #2 on Monday and so on and so on, that should work well. Now as far as how long you are to continue pairing them, you need to continue to pair them until ovulation. That can be 4-8 months. Now as far as when to start, that is completely up to you. If you are keeping the room they are in at 80 f then it really doesn’t matter when you do start pairing.
Ok, I do keep the room at 80 year-round, so that sounds good thank you so much!
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Your welcome and also welcome to the MM community!
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Not to rain on your parade, but there are a few things to unpack in your question. First, are you ready to house and feed anywhere from 18 to 30 hatchlings? Will you have access to live mouse hoppers or the like, when they hatch as that is the easiest way to start them feeding. If this is your first time breeding, why are you trying to do three clutches at once? Instead of dipping your toe in the water, you are diving head first in the deep end and you don’t even know if you can swim.
Now lets talk about your male. You may want to consider that if you are feeding on the weekend, then putting them with a female on Monday, that you are not providing much time for him to digest before he is put in a higher stress situation. Further, you may want to consider that he will likely go off feed and remain that way the entire time you are pairing him so that is going to tax his system if it were one female, let alone three. He is not a machine. You need to monitor his weight carefully to make sure he doesn’t start spiraling downward health wise.
Now lets look at your plan. Why pair the same male to three females? That is going to leave you with a lot of hatchlings carrying the same genes. Unless it is the latest and greatest gene, that is not a good idea as it may be hard to move them out. Even if it is the latest and greatest gene, to put twenty to thirty babies out there is to saturate the market, thereby diluting the demand. Not a good business model if you are in it for the money, If you are not in it for the money, then again, no need for three clutches of the common gene.
What is the male and what are the three females you are considering?
As far as how long to pair them, I will pair a male to a female once every shed cycle for the female. I will do that until they refuse to lock or she ovulates.
You may want to revisit your plan and get a real understanding of your motivation and resources. If you can find a second male and want to try 2 clutches, then at least there will be some variation, and less animals to accommodate and worry about. Even when people want to become parents, they rarely desire to have triplets as a first experience. That’s just my $0.02.
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@graysnake brings up some good points. I’m interested to know what your project is. As in what are you breeding for genetically.
Do you have an incubator set up? It’s always good to test them early so you aren’t scrambling in case eggs do appear. Can that incubator handle 3 clutches? You could have a lot of eggs all at once…
How long have you kept these snakes? Do you already own all 4 snakes?
It sounds almost like you’re planning to get 3 females. Which you also would need to consider properly quarantining them as well, which ideally lasts for 3 months. Some wait up to 6 months… Others shorten it to a month but those are also breeders who tend to test the new animals for vitals instead of waiting it out, or know the animal they are getting through a close friend.
Personally, I would never pair a single male that heavily. I try not to breed a male more than 2x a month. Males have been known to be overbred and can get infections or hemipene prolapse.
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@eliteexoticsbyhampton Just to add some figures to what @graysnake posted, there are between 40 to 50 thousand ball pythons on MM for sale right now (if not more). Over saturated is probably an understatement for the ball pythons available right now.
As an established breeder @graysnake’s advice is spot on. But one more thing I would to as you is do you have an established reputable reptile vet lined up? Actually since you already have ball pythons you should already have a reptile vet. And when you breed any animal there are certain risks involved with pregnancies as well as complications with newborn/hatched babies should heaven forbid any of them need to be humanely euthanized. Ethical breeding is the responsibility of the breeder, first and foremost……
My $00.02 cents! 
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In Response to this question, it was more generic at the moment I’m working on building a 10x20 heated shed to hold my reptiles, at the moment i only have two snakes which are both just my pets, and I don’t plan on breeding them because when i bought them I bought them as a pet that looked cool and didn’t know if I was gonna wanna ever do breeding. Once I get my set up set up I was just wondering how you would go about doing that because I wasn’t sure how many males and females I was gonna get and wanted to know how I would go about it. At the moment I’ve saved up a lot and have a pretty sizeable investment so I’m thinking about getting into either Monarch or sunset, but mostly was just wondering how I would go about it if i went 1 male to 3 females.
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Thanks you for your advice, I do had a reptile vet set up in which I’ve been using for years with my won personal pets. I also understand how saturated the market is right now so I save up some money so I could start off with more higher end morphs with less saturation in which I may be able to get a good start in the market.
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Hello, at the moment I do not have the snakes yet I was just wondering if I was to go in with 3 females and one male how I would do it. After reading these though I think I might back it down to 1 male to 2 females. At the moment I’m still in the planning phase so I have no breeder animals right now and am currently working on making a large space for my reptiles that’s heated. When I do get all that set up I do fully plan on getting a good incubator before I even consider breeding.
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One more question for you though How many males do you think would eb a good idea per female in your experience thanks!
This is a general reply to anyone that commented on this, I appreciate you guys thank you so much for all the help. I’m just trying to ask as many questions as possible so I have the best chance of being successful and hopefully as least things wrong as possible lol!
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Excellent news!!! 
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I am fairly new aswell. I’m going to just suggest build your shed first. Decide on your racking system . See if what you built can maintain temp and see if your racks are stable then look at breeding just a suggestion. You never no what the market is like and recessives are like 5 year plans minimum. So you’ll have a lot of babies if you can’t move them.
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Welcome to the community @eliteexoticsbyhampton! My first season of breeding I had six clutches. So, three clutches seems like a solid plan to me if you’re breeding projects you specifically like and want to work.
I saw you said you were interested in either sunset or monarch. I’d recommend getting a visual male or female and the additional snakes be het with added genes (all different from one another) of course.
Pairing a male will be different for every breeder, so you’ll get a multitude of different answers. I breed once a month when my season starts (which is October). However, I will not personally breed a male that is under <850 grams in case he does go off food, and if he does, and let’s say he was set to see 3 females, I’ll remove one or two females from him and use a back up male.
I highly suggest bookmarking this breeding pictorial so you can come back and use it as reference whenever you get started up in breeding.
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