How/when should i pair my ball pythons and red tail boas

Hello everyone, I’m trying to see when I should pair ball pythons, and red tail Boas. I would also love to hear suggestions for a incubator, what temperature I should incubate, how long I should incubate ECT.

Thank you in advance,

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I don’t have experience breeding Boas or any live-bearing species for that matter so I can’t help you in that department.

This is the guide I used for breeding my BPs for the first time and I was successful with the pairing, now currently incubating 5 eggs at 87°F.
https://ballpython.ca/breeding/

They are on day 20 of incubation and I’m using the ZooMed digital egg incubator with the eggs sitting in an additional sealed container to retain humidity with perlite as an incubation substrate, so far all of the eggs are healthy and developing well. At 87°F the first pip should be expected 60-70 days give or take.

It is a really good guide but I’d definitely read into more advice from trusted breeders just to get as much information as possible. I’m sure more experienced BP breeders on here will have more to say than me though lol. @armiyana I believe has some good advice

Just out of curiosity do you already have any breeding projects lines up?

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Hi and welcome.
People do it differently with good results. For example, I don’t use a specific time to start mating, my snakes breed all year round when they are ready. But Im not saying that’s the best way, Anyway-
This is a good set of videos that give good information although they are not in the right order.

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Put your boas together in December and leave them together until you stop seeing breeding behavior. Once your female ovulates make sure she’s got a good heat source to properly incubate the babies. Even though they’re live bearers, the babies are still in eggs, just not calcified eggs like a BP.

For BP breeding, google the Markus Jayne Breeding pictorial.

I would highly suggest not producing any ball pythons for the next two years. The market is so saturated you’ll struggle to even give them away.

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I absolutely agree with this, as well as not even considering pairing until you know all the ins and outs of these questions →

Learn first, breed second (if you need to at all, I’d recommend not). I’ve seen way too many cases of people jumping into breeding without knowing the first thing about what to do, and it’s the animals that pay the consequences. Don’t just ask questions, read. Learn about the species, have your husbandry down to an exact science. Know how to get a picky eater back on food so well you could do it in your sleep. Practice IDing each and every morph you’re planning on working with individually and in combos, become an expert in them. Track what how long those morphs stay on the market and what price they’re going for. Will anyone want what you produce and how long should you be prepared to hang on to offspring. Do you have enough space, time, food and setups to do so? A certain amount of knowledge should be a barrier to entry when it comes to breeding, and it’s best to step back and take your time to get there

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So I do want to add something after reading the replies.

If you are breeding BPs just to sell and make a profit, absolutely do not do it you will have a hell of a time competing with the market, there are almost 40 thousand Ball Pythons for sale on Morphmarket alone.

Now if this is something that you are just passionate about, you have the resources and space and time to keep the offspring and just want to get into it to learn and better yourself and have fun along the way, go for it. Just be sure that you actually take the time to learn all of the ins and outs of the breeding process, look into what morphs you like that are ethical to breed and find some quality baby Ball Pythons you can raise into adulthood to breed. Before you even get into Ball Python morphs the first thing you should learn is how to properly care for them and tend to their needs when things go wrong. In the world of breeding any animal, things are bound to go wrong.

I hope this helps :slight_smile:

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Already a lot of good info here.
If you’re unsure of what to do for an incubator, I would definitely study that up first before pairing your BPs and planning for eggs.

Even a simple camping cooler or ‘igloo’ can be a fine incubator for your first season or two until you get the hang of things … But learn how to do that and handle the eggs first.

The Markus Jayne link is great for BP info. There’s also an image from Kinova floating around with an excellent timeline.

I definitely echo the statement of BPs being oversaturated right now, especially if you’re in the US. You do not want to be producing normals, common single genes or easy common combos or you may just be sitting on them a while.

You will want to perfect the husbandry for your animals first. Learn the ins and outs of the genes you want to work with. Boas and BPs both have problematic genes you’ll need to be aware of. And also, be prepared. Do not wait until you have a problem to look for a qualified reptile vet. Look for one ahead of time. The last thing you want is a snake suffering a prolapse or an eggbound female.

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