Hello,
Is it too late to breed this season? I know cooling should’ve started in October/November but I just got a couple adult females this week. Would it be better to prep them for next season? Or can I still try breeding now?
Thanks for the advice and help!
-Katherine
Females generally won’t breed if they aren’t comfortable with their surroundings, and to my knowledge you don’t really need to cool them. They will seek cold themselves if they wish. BPs don’t really brumate in the wild, unlike other snakes that native range actually experiences a winter. Chances are you will need to wait until next season.
You can definitely try now, I have some friends that breed year round.
You could start now…but should probably quarantine them for a while first
I’d clear them through quarantine before attempting to breed, but otherwise it wouldn’t hurt to try.
I bred one of my females last year a month or so after I got her, after I put some food into her to get her up to weight and cleared her.
She went on to lay 3 good eggs and a slug.
I’m thinking about pairing her again this year actually since she suddenly gained a bunch of weight recently and has been a little more aggressive with feeding (might be follicle growth), but can’t decide who I want to pair to her.
She’s a pewter — I was thinking either my butter spinner male again, or my banana yellowbelly male.
I was also thinking my banana pied male for some hets, but he’s a new breeder still trying to figure it out so I’m worried he’s not gonna get locks on her 
Ball pythons will breed year round. There isn’t really a season.With that being said I don’t think a female you just acquired will. Also it’s probably a good idea to let an animal settle into your care before your try to breed her. I’ve never once cooled my ball pythons. Ultimately it’s your decision but I would want to establish a female in my collection before I bred her. But I haven’t bought an adult female in many years. Most of the females I breed these days is gals I produced myself.
I am going to buck the system here a little bit.
Ball pythons absolutely have a seasonal breeding cycle. Their native environment has a very clear seasonal pattern and that pattern has driven their evolutionary history to breed during a certain time of year. The start of the natural breeding season in their habitat range is around late February/early March.
Now, the nice thing is that you can use behavioural cues to “trick” females into thinking it is the right time of year so that does allow you to breed pretty much any time of year.
I don’t ever personally use an behavioral cues to trick females. I have females that breed well out of “season” with literally no change in anything from me. I acknowledge there is a season in the wild. Could it be that certain lines are so far removed from wild blood lines that they have kinda created there own individual breeding “season”?
Certainly possible that inadvertent selection has begun pushing us to some females that have slipped the bonds
The ratio of females laying eggs went way up for me when I started cooling them. However I bred way late last year due to personal stuff going on. So I started cooling in March vs normally I do it on Thanksgiving. Ratio of females laying eggs was way down from previous years. Back on my normal routine this year and so far there’s a ton of breeding going on. We shall see how well the females do now that they are back on track.
If it was me, I’d just wait til next season. But yes you can breed out of season