I have a proven 1 y/o male that has locked 4 times with a different female who just laid a clutch last week. Today I introduced him to a different female hes been placed with before but I’ve never seen a lock between them they would just cuddle or go to opposite ends. Today when I put them together he was tail wagging then kind of started thrashing like trying to push his way out or something then shooting across the tub from end to end. He would do this for a few seconds then go over to her like he was going to try to lock then went back to going back and forth really fast after a couple minutes of just sitting there. She was very calm and honest seemed confused lol. I have separated them since he didn’t chill out after about 10-15 minutes. Has anyone experienced anything like this? Should I just avoid pairing them?
You say this female has never locked with your male, and this seems like some pretty unusual behavior from the male… it seems like he is stressed in the presence of this female based on your descriptions of his behavior…
Are you 100% sure this “female” is actually female? I’ve never seen what male BPs act like when they are put together but I’d imagine it causes some stress due to the presence of competitors.
I know males of other species may try to wrestle and shove eachother…
Either way if putting them together causes the male significant stress when he acts completely normal with other females I’d reccomend not attempting to pair them until something can be figured out.
Is this the first time you’re breeding this girl? Agreeing with @cmsreptiles here. I would double check that your female was properly sexed
Male ball pythons will fight. That is also the sort of behavior that I’ve seen from a male who just smelled another male on me. He was normally a sweet little guy but in breeding season when that happened? A whole different little dude.
Also the same thing when a friend accidentally put 2 males together for a few minutes.
I’ve never sexed her myself, bought her as a female a couple years ago and just based on her size I’d be very surprised if she was a male. I’ll get a second opinion, I’m not 100% confident on popping adults.
She was sold to me as a female a couple years ago from another breeder so I never second guessed if she was female or not. I’ll get a second opinion, I’m not 100% confident on popping adults.
You can send a piece of shed in to do a sex text to be 100% sure about it. It’s easy and not expensive. I know it is possible to spend a bunch doing all the morph tests, but if all you want is sex determination it’s not expensive at all.
I don’t personally use size to guage the sex of BPs… I’ve personally seen monster sized males at expos, easily 3000+ grams. So I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually have a large male… especially if you’re feeding them like a female.
Older photo but still holds true.
6qt tub lid for scale. One of my breeder girls with my normal male. He’s my largest BP by length.
He also was sold to me as a female. In a 1.1 pair. Lol
Yes that’s exactly what I planned to do! I’ll update when I get the results!
Shed test revealed what was sold to me as a she is actually a he lol
Oh no, and he was named Hestia too.
Sadly I think this happens to all of us at some point. My very first BP was sold to me as a female. He’s a very large male, so it seemed like he was growing as a female would. Then I found sperm plugs/hemipenal casts with a shed. XD