when pairing...

...do you leave the snakes in for days on end, until they lock up? alternatively, if they haven't locked up within a few hours, do you remove and re-introduce a couple days later?

i had a lock a few days ago, then separated and fed. gave them 3 days to digest, and i paired them up again today. they locked almost instantly again, but when i got home from work (about 4 hours later) they weren't locked anymore. i just don't know if i should leave them, or remove the male and re-introduce in another couple days.

i've also bred a pair of virgin ball pythons this season, and they locked up for probably about 20 hours. they've been paired up many times since, but haven't locked up again, that we've witnessed.

We leave ours together.......
We also save male sheds and put them in with the males that are breeding when we introduce, so a strange male smell is around.....
Dunno if it helps get them going, but it sure doesn;t hurt things... LOL

okay, thank you! i tried the shed thing with a pair of ball pythons, but it didn't seem to work.

it looks like the male i'm trying to breed has a bit of a blue belly, do they usually breed when they're blue? i have separated them for now.

Straight after a shed I find best.....

i guess it's kind of like a man hopping out of his clothes...right!? just wants to dooooo it

With the cornsnakes, when it is the right time <just after post brumation shed> I start putting them together in a clean empty tub for breeding. They almost always get right with it and start dancing and flicking around after a minute. By fifteen minutes most are locked up or even already done!

I seperate them and then repeat the process in two or three days. I didn't breed anyone more than twice last year. I averaged 15 sellable babies per female with this method and I did not reintroduce to try and get doubles.

Now I see you mentioned Ball pythons?!?! This is a COMPLETELY different animal. For the ball I put the male into the females tub starting october/novemberish in an afternoon or evening. When I check the next morning they seem to usually be locked. I'll slide the tub back in and leave them for another day. Then I seperate the male and give him a few days rest before trying him with another or the same girl.

The balls do thing RIDICULOUSLY slow-mo compared to cornnsnakes.

Good luck

Rebecca

thanks Rebecca! this is my second year breeding and so far i've enver brumated. not that i wouldn't like to, but we really just don't have the area for it, and they seem to do fine without it for me. but when i'm able i will for sure be brumating.

thanks for all the help, never knew ball pythons were such slowpokes!

Corns are apparently sexier to other corns right after shedding. I did have a male breed in blue and shed a few hours later.

If you're planning to pair more than one female with that male, you ought to separate them. You don't want him depleting his stores of sperm until all the ladies you have in mind have been serviced. Otherwise the pair can stay together full-time if you like.