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178 gram male producing sperm plugs??? Thoughts please

N

nevmoy

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I breed all types of reptiles for about 15 yrs of my life. I lost my entire collection because of Hurricane sandy in 2012. I'm finally getting back into the reptile world reptile neonate at a time. I now have a male mojave that is 178 grams and producing sperm plugs. I have no intention on breeding him yet so don't worry. I'm more concerned about him going off feed at such a small size. IV done a lot of searching the Internet and through all my books and haven't found anything about male producing SP less then 250grams.

So again I'll love to hear anyone's general thoughts or the smallest male you had and if you had any problems

Thanks everyone
Nevin
 
Seems way to little to start producing plugs but everyone is different. I have a male that is almost 800g & isnt doin much on the lines of breeding. Then again he is only 9-10 months old. I would just try to keep him away from any females in hopes he doesnt pick up the scent of a female & go off food. I have a small room & my babies & adults are close together & we havent had any problems with smaller males goin off food. Like i said tho they are all different. Good luck.
Chris
B and S Pythons/facebook
 
Thanks a lot chris. I have a small room as well. And the racks are all pretty close. I'm sure he would still be shooting blanks if I tried to breed him. But it's good to know I'm legitimately concerned about the feeding thing and not getting my self worried over nothing.
 
I think as long as you don't put him in "breed mode" he should be fine...none of my males go off food until I start lowering temps and simulating the season, and some of them keep eating anyway.
 
Have no fear as those "sperm plugs" are not sperm plugs. It is just hemipenal shed. It is not an actual indicator of a males ability to mate.
Just another misnomer in the ball python community.
 
TessadasExotics said:
Have no fear as those "sperm plugs" are not sperm plugs. It is just hemipenal shed. It is not an actual indicator of a males ability to mate.
Just another misnomer in the ball python community.
Click to expand...

Hemipenal shed? So if he pops a snake and little stringy things come out that look like plugs then they are not plugs because the male is so small? Sorry never heard of hemipenal shed before
 
Ball Pythons do not have sperm plugs. Like I said, it's a misnomer. If they did you could never have multi sired clutches. It would also be pointless to put more than one male to a female during breeding.
The Garter snake does actually produce them, Python Regius, no.
 
TessadasExotics said:
Ball Pythons do not have sperm plugs. Like I said, it's a misnomer. If they did you could never have multi sired clutches. It would also be pointless to put more than one male to a female during breeding.
The Garter snake does actually produce them, Python Regius, no.
Click to expand...

So the hemipenal shedding is what fertilizes the eggs and makes a living snake? So in reality it isnt sperm at all?
 
You don't see the sperm it is deposited in the female. Ball pythons do not have sperm plugs. As stated earlier they are hemipenal sheds that people started calling sperm plugs but was proven long ago not to be true.
 
It is shed hemipenial skin and dried mucus. No pythons have sperm plugs. If they had sperm plugs it would be almost if not totally impossible to have multiple sires sire a clutch.
 
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