First time breeding

Hello
Guys i am pairing my Male and female for the first time and iam wondering if i should remove the hides. I have got a lot of informstion from youtube on everything concerning the breeding however nobody talks about the hides because they usually have them in utbes. Also if you have Other tips it would be really Nice of you to share them with me.

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In our AP T8s I remove the hides. And I do this only so that one cannot crawl away and hide and the biggest reason I pull them is so there is no clutter obstructing my view of the lock. I aim to get one lock every 3 weeks on each female. Also I give the male at least 3 to 5 days off after a lock and offer a smaller than usual meal. Sometimes they will eat sometimes they won’t. Also I start to increase feed times on breeding females but i offer smaller meals. I bump the humidity by give the enclosure a misting of warm water and i keep my ambient at 80 to 82 degrees and hot spot around 88 to 89 degrees. Keep pairing till they dont lock and keep an eye on those girls. Look for the swell and the glow! It takes time to get a good clutch of eggs. There are other methods used for breeding, this is just what works for us. Good luck!!

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Breeding is about having the animals getting close, if you give the opportunity to one or another to hide they weill, so remove the hides and pair using the weather as your guide (low pressure, rain, storm etc). Each breeding pair does not need to be paired more than once a month.

Here is a great guide for beginners https://ballpython.ca/breeding/ it will explain what to look for

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Thank u very much for the informative answer

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I Will check the link, thank you very much for the fast reply😊

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That’s a fantastic post.

Having a equivalent on here would be very useful and save from sending users to other sources.

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It’s a good guide for new breeder however there are many different way to do things, and I am more of an opinion that people use this as a base and ask specific questions based on that article. I never see a need to copy something that is already very well written to start with.

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I saved that link the last time you posted it, and go back over it I have a question Deb

So he leaves the males in there for 2 to 3 days or shorter if he sees them locked.
So if he notices a male lock for 4/5 hours he will then take the male out, right?
Does he re-add the males after the female sheds again, and continuously do this from Nov to March?

I just want to make sure I read his article correctly. My mind is telling me one thing and then flip flopping.

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I can’r speak for what Mark Mandic does but I can speak for what I do, generally speaking I leave my males with my females for 48 hours whether or not I see a lock, some male may lock right away and for short amount of time which is fine if you witness that and want to remove the male sooner, however I am not one of those people that check all the time to see a lock and take picture (I like to give my animals privacy ;)). Once 48 hours have gone by I will separate them (unless they are locked which obviously I would than leave them longer in), after that that specific pair will meet again a month later. I may do twice a month if one or both the animals are not proven.

I stop pairing when follicles are the size of a quarter or when I feel that we are not making progress (obviously not all females being paired will take)

A lot of it comes with experience and getting to know your animals and the signs they will display and they are not all the same.

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My concern comes form one snake eating another. I know that fear is probably because I’m generally new and that’s just a fear I have in the back of mind, especially when I see the Instagram post with a tiny guy and a large female.

Do you feed them before you put them for 48 hours? @stewart_reptiles

Ball pythons are not cannibalistic, so you don’t have to worry about them eating each other.

With BP it would be very unlikely, over the past decade I have had 1 female that basically immediately try to combat a male I had just put with her, she was a first timer and basically acted like a male, obviously the trashing sounds made me pull out the male immediately, and that was the only bad experience out of many pairings. I always had an eye on her but she never did it again after that.

If something is bound to happen and again with that species it is unlikely it will happen within minutes of introduction.

As far as feeding I feed the same day every week and work my pairings around that giving them at least 24 to 48 hours to digest before pairings.

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They can be, it is rare but it has been documented however it has always been the result of severe stress or being underfed.

Yes, but under normal conditions they are not. The only time I have heard of it happening was when someone kept 2 babies in the same cage together in an attempt to “get them comfortable with each other”. Even though they were fresh babies that hadn’t taken a first meal yet.

Thankfully not a concern with BPs.

Anyone breed kingsnakes? Because they can be cannibalistic, no?

Yes Kings will eat other Kings, and Dumerils Boas are known to do it also. I’ve never had it happen. But I know someone who deals solely with locality specific Colubrids and it’s happened. He says especially with permit acquired WC specimens and even the F1 generation.

can you check this link Is this cutie gravid