Why haven't I had baby snakes yet...?

[frostyftw]

I looked in my container with the 2 snakes I was going to breed, a while back.

I saw the snakes mating...

I don't know if I scared the male or what...

Anyway, no babies after about 5-6 months..

Then I put them together again, they mated...

They mated sometime in February..

No babies still from that female... -.-

Sometime in April or maybe the beginning or May, another one of my snakes got pregnant and no babies.

Is something wrong...?

[frostyftw]

I'm 90 percent sure that those are the right months.

But I might be slightly off.

I don't think so, though.

[kibakiba]

Are you sure they mated? If there wasn't a lock up, there likely wont be any babies. What you saw might have been courting and nothing else.

[frostyftw]

Oh, I never thought of that.

I'm positive they mated, though.

Anyway, can snakes reach an age where they are too old for breeding?

[kibakiba]

Did you witness the female dragging the male around? That has happened during every successful mating I have seen.

Probably, if they were they might not be receptive and just ignore all attemptes from the male.

[Mommy2many]

Yeah, if they weren't "locked" then they were probably just "tail holding"; i.e. courting. I've had alot of that occur and nothing else.

[frostyftw]

Alright, thanks everyone.

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, you need to see a lock up. Often it will last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. During that time, the male's organ swells up and he cannot "pull out" and he gets dragged around mercilessly by the female. Sometimes there's even a little blood.

Even then, there's no guarantees. Some females will accept the male and lock up, but then not ovulate and so, no litter. I think the girls do this so they will have some sperm stored, which can remain viable for several years, so that if they become ready to ovulate but there's no willing males around, they can have a litter anyway.

If you see mating activity but can't watch them through the entire courtship, which can last for days or weeks. Come home and check the female's cloaca. Usually there is "tail" tell signs if actual copulation has taken place. Her cloaca will look a little bit "used" if you know what I mean.

Here's a couple of my concinnus' locked up. This did result in a modest litter of 7 offspring, around 67 days later if I remember right, which was the shortest gestation I've ever personally experienced with concinnus. Usually its 80-110 days. But then again, she had a somewhat moderate bacterial upper respiratory infection that I didn't notice until about a week later. Antibiotics (which were successful in clearing it up) had to wait until after the babies were born. don't know if maybe the infection affected gestation period, but the babies did appear to be full term, so I dunno.:confused:

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I swear my "parts" hurt for him as I watched. LoL.