on the side you see there's a group
running up the side of the hairpin yeah
and honestly
it just depends on you know if you feel
like you're missing the window on the
girl doesn't do you have any other
advice for a lot of the new people
getting into this business
what's up youtube man do i have a really
really
informative and awesome vlog today with
the homie
justin cabella and as you guys saw on
the title today is going to be a pro
tips with jessica bellica because i want
him to explain some stuff
that has helped me with a lot of stuff
with hatchlings breedings
just all crazy stuff because justin will
tell you man did i message him
yeah a lot right at least twice yeah and
an hour
every day but no it's i mean justin you
know he actually has a lot of knowledge
as you guys already know and
you know there's something they actually
showed me with hatchlings because
at one point i was having to assist feed
a lot of snakes because a lot of snakes
were not eating
due to them probably being scared
because i was probably putting too big
of
mice in there or rats or you know stuff
like that so justin actually gave me
some information
that i'm gonna have him explain that
just you know helped out a lot all right
so like one thing you know about
hatchling eating
is that they're very habit forming and
these their very first meals they're
ever seeing so you want to kind of be
the best case scenario so when they see
that first meal
they eat it and they start a really good
habit that will go on for the rest of
their lives
what you don't want is a situation where
your very first meal ends up being
really intimidating or they're scared of
it
or something happens where they don't
eat it and then from their very first
opportunity
it started to create a negative habit of
being scared of food or refusing food
so we're starting them out right and
that means just setting up that perfect
scenario
from the beginning so real quick so for
example these right here
these cypress batman combos right so
they just shut out a few days ago so
what a lot of people do is they
immediately put these in their own tubs
right
um i see tons of people do this and they
will the very same night
or even the very next night they'll
offer it food that's what i used to do
right these are awesome animals
check that out so the problem with that
is these snakes
when they hatch they put they absorb
their yolk into their bellies
so already from the moment they hatch
they have a really good buffer
of basically internal energy
to go almost 30 days without food of
course we're not going to make them do
that
but they are not hungry right out of the
egg and they're not hungry right out of
a shed necessarily
so what i found just from trial and
error is if you leave them after they
shed either in their own tub with each
other for a little while or if you put
them in their own tub
by themselves give them a few days to
just kind of cruise around to explore
kind of get used to looking for things
and let that absorption in their belly
occur more let them use up some of that
energy
so that when you offer them their first
meal they're actually hungry for it
and it's much greater chance that
they'll eat that meal and uh
start a good habit from the beginning so
for example what i started doing
is you know i have these guys they just
shut out a couple days i'm gonna put
them in their own bins tomorrow and then
i wait a week from there i know you
don't have to really wait a week but
i've noticed that just waiting a little
longer makes them a little more like
food aggressive i guess or just whatever
but
they're hungry yeah they get hungry
after a while so that that instinct
kicks in much stronger when they see
that meal
now justin here's another thing too that
helped me out a lot too because at first
i was always trying to get everybody
eating a wrap pinky
now i'm like dangling it there or they
just won't eat it then sometimes it'll
be too big so what's another
thing that you told me and this actually
is makes so much sense
i like mouse fuzzies to start um
basically you want them
to be just big enough that their eyes
are almost open or just barely open
so they can kind of crawl around but
they're not intimidating to them to the
snake but you know a lot of people are
going to be like you know because they
like to see a nice little bulge in the
you know the snake's tummy showing that
it ate something
you won't get much of a bulge with a
mouse fuzzy but what you have done is
you've created a fantastic habit
then you do it again the next week and
the next week and then suddenly
they know when they smell that smell of
a rodent they know exactly what to do
with it and
there's and they build a little more
confidence like that right
right confidence is huge if you start
out with a rat pup or something that's a
little larger and you have in the snake
has a negative experience and doesn't
need it
you are creating a potential problem if
it goes on for a little bit longer than
you suddenly you're cis feeding and
trying to deal with the snake that just
doesn't want to eat
it's because you didn't really set it up
right to begin with so already we've
already had more than 200 babies this
season and we haven't had to assist
feeding not even one snake
and you were telling me over a thousand
snakes right you've only got you haven't
you've done what two three four i think
four i have a thousand we've assisted
like
and use this because the snake is really
really small for like like a little tiny
egg or something odd
yeah something's already yeah typically
a typical ball python
you know under this program you pretty
much to take off just fine without
assisting them
the other thing we did and i'm not sure
if we ever talk about this is we set
them up on paper towels at the beginning
and offer the first couple meals on
paper towels
so that for some reason they do refuse
those meals
we can do some we have something still
to do about it we can put them on the
mulch after that
and that changes the situation and so
that bad habit that you're starting to
form kind of gets reset with a different
change
yeah and you start emotionally beginning
we would have nothing left to try
in order to fix the situation now you're
right and actually that has helped me
out a few because i remember you telling
me like i just don't paper towels and
i'm like no then i can like change it to
like you know like the raptorship or
something but like you know cocoa block
whatever you guys would use yeah
you know and then they kind of feel like
they're secured in it because they kind
of burrow under it a little bit then
they see it and then boom
plus it's just a different situation and
change is so big on
any of these whenever you have a habit
that they're forming it seems like you
don't like it
change the tub size change the betting
size change something that
resets their brain to a new habit
awesome man you're the man dude yeah all
right
another thing real quick these are
something that i get asked a lot a lot
sex scenes the proper way and i know
you've probably done so many of these
but i know you must get a lot of these
messages because i get them a lot
you know you're going to be one to
explain it a lot better um should we
just pull out a mail i guess
and sure let's see let's get this gary
here he's one of my favorites has a
perfect little x right there huh
and that marks the spot all right so by
the way guys this right here is a ghi
yellow belly pipe all right so the
bigger the male is the harder it is to
pop unless you have to really the
technique down which is not really wrong
but
there's one out of pain it's a good
second one there the second one
now this is a young male the older they
get kind of the stronger they get and
the more they are to keep that hamper
being in on their own
that is a very very effective way to sex
and see what i do is i kind of push my
thumb down here pull back
basically i'm just pushing away the
space that's in here so when i push this
way
there's nowhere for those hemp pins to
go but out and see i'm pretty far out
here on the tail
let's try one that has a little more
mature i guess this male
actually came from justin he was a life
saver
of the year he worked hard for you dude
he worked really hard for me man
i know this guy should have a little
more there we go
so there you go oh yeah so you'll see a
little bit of sperm plugs there which is
that white part
that's sticking out now what people
probably don't know is that
the sperm doesn't actually come out of
the ends of the hemp fiends it actually
swims up the side of the hemopenes
and that's the groove so i can show them
here this is the groove
on the side you see there's a group
running up the side of the hipping yeah
he actually swims
up that groove and into the female it
doesn't actually come from the hippies
themselves
no way interesting basically as far as
learning that technique you're just
gonna have to try it over and over i
don't recommend you try it over and over
on the same snake at the same time if
you have a male that you know it's a
male like try once a week once every two
weeks
so you're not injuring it by by trying
too much yeah but if you know it's a
male
then you know that you're once your
technique is good you'll be able to get
him pins out so just keep trying and
then
that same technique is something you
would do to a female as well right the
only difference or
to get nothing out yeah but the problem
is is if you don't know if you're not
confident on your technique
um then you could think that they're all
females
in the beginning i've had that problem
man and you know you know at the end you
know i was like wow
they're not investing a good probe kit
because the probe kit is really
foolproof
that's if you're at all unsure about how
you're doing your technique
use the probe kit will tell you the for
sure answer and then you know if the
probe kit says it's a male
and you're not popping hippies out then
your technique needs some work
awesome all right so another thing now
that we're here just to know a lot of
these females are doing this
um oh this one's still kind of doing it
oh this girl stopped doing let me find
one that was actually
really oh man dude they were all ball
wrapping earlier okay
usually how do you when you when you get
started on your season
um do you go off of the females already
do you go off of the way what they're
what the what they're doing in their
tubs or do you have a program already
that you have written down
you know which girls are going to be
ready to go or you just lay it up leave
us for the ultrasound
so the nice thing is if they've produced
in the past then you know what their
schedule is okay so whatever
their production time in the past so i
do is i do whatever they laid
you can start breeding them seven months
prior to that previous late date
so you don't there's no food there's no
looking at them and figuring out what
they're doing you just know seven months
apart
as long as they're eating in good shape
um if you don't know when they're gonna
go with brand new female
you don't know where schedule is you're
basically just gonna wait for her to get
to really good solid tone
um be good in good shape and then i just
start reading them honestly i'll give
them a test reading see how they react
see what happens you know and then i'll
ultrasound them later i know there's
some people in this industry and
they've had a good deal of success that
literally wait for
follicles on the ultrasound prior to
breeding
yeah i've never found that to work for
me never found that work for me and
i once i got some really good advice
from a guy named chun chun ku
dynasty reptiles and i asked him about
that like dude do you wait until
whatever he said just breed your females
just
put the males with the females let
nature work and
honestly i've been following that advice
ever since the best advice i ever got
really yeah that's good to know what i'm
doing man now with males
you know for example let's take that ghi
yellow belly for um as an example
would you start pairing him up with some
females or would you wait a little bit
or what do you know as far as size wise
with his current size yeah
i mean he's he's big enough he's a young
male yeah
but he's definitely of size to produce
fine it just depends on you know if you
feel like you're missing the window on
the girls you know if you can give him a
little more time to get up to size
great if they need to be bred then fine
a lot of times breeding will make the
males go off feed
but if they're already out feeding a lot
of times they'll start eating when they
when they get right with the females do
you have any uh secrets to get an email
started a little earlier or you just let
them you know be right
are you just use them when they're ready
they're ready and that's it yeah i don't
try to go really early on males because
i found that if you breed them really
early sometimes they will actually lock
up they're not actually old enough to
have any sperm and so what you're really
is doing is wasting both your time
yeah and then sometimes they stop
beating after that and then like out the
way a little bit
right you guys wonder how i know this
because i experienced it myself and i
lost
a couple of males for that season
because i was a little impatient
better wait better to wait they didn't
get big enough um and
uh and use them once there they got good
size on them nice justin do you have any
other advice for a lot of the new people
getting into this business as far as you
know like ambient temperature
belly heat how big is it you know a lot
of people say in the winter time drop
your temps at night
or do something crazy do you believe in
all that or do you just run your ambient
temp leave it as it is
yeah i drop my ambient a little bit i
leave my belly heat the same year round
so all this stuff right here you never
change it right
those are set pretty high because it's
working its way through the tub
through the bedding right but typically
what you want is once on the top of the
bedding you want to be 90 degrees
hot spot 80 degrees ambient and i leave
at 80 degrees pretty much
year round as my ambient i'll drop it a
little bit at night in the winter
but only at night when you say drop like
what you talking about like two five six
degrees
max oh wow okay but just for the eight
hours at night they'll come back in the
morning and pop back up just kind of let
him know that hey it's a little cooler
season
but that's it here's some other
questions i'm going to ask you now just
because i know it's helped me a lot
is there a preference that you have that
works better if you breed them
if you put the mails in at night time
opposed to put in the mails in the
daytime
i do all my breathings at night time
yeah i find it works better and the main
reason i do though
is i feel like they're first of all
they're active at night anyways they're
nocturnal so they're more likely to lock
up during the night
um the other thing is when i'm in here
during the day cleaning and stuff i'd
like everything to be kind of put where
it goes and
nice and easy i'm pulling up i want to
clean the tub but i can't because
there's two snakes locked up in there
yeah so i'd rather typically just put
them together and is it a cool in the
morning like when you're breeding stuff
it's like chris
you're coming in you're like out of bed
in the morning you're like oh
man but this stuff have you ever had
some times where you lock up put like 20
mils in and there's only like two of
them locked up you're like what the heck
yeah sometimes
it goes the other way too they like when
it's raining i'm sure you guys have do
you ever spray it down with water like i
do
i don't because i don't think the water
is the key i think the barometric
pressure is the key
oh that's i think it has to be actually
raining outside
or snowing or whatever the equivalent is
so i just been spraying a lot of water
for everything
i'm sure you know what it's been working
with your feet so i don't want to stop
you don't
all right cool cool yeah okay another
thing that i want to ask okay so so you
leave that and by the way guys so these
are pretty high but it's because you
know like if you get to like the
you know where it's actually warm right
here yeah it's only going to be like
around
88 90 that you know on top of that yeah
so yeah put that one right there all
right so now that we're back to the
whole breeding part of this um okay so
we got the females you you know you let
them
when they're ready they're ready to go
now a lot of people always ask this
question as well
is say if you have a male that's just
crushing it right he's eating he's
eating
could you still breed him your um you
know until he's like through the whole
season yeah mail that's eating is pretty
much
you can use them forever i mean there's
i haven't found a limit to that because
they're
yeah they're expending a lot of a lot of
uh energy in the breeding process but
they're also making it up for every meal
so it's when they're off eat for the
same period of time you start managing
your mailman so that's what i
that was the next question like now when
you know i've had some times where some
you know males stop eating usually they
say they have about six to eight weeks
of breeding left is that what you would
say or you go by the way they look
yeah i wouldn't quantify how long i
don't know that because it depends on
you so six to eight weeks of reading
like how many times you gonna breed it
three times a week during it or once a
week you know
okay yeah so i would just do it based on
on look and having
had experience i kind of know when a
male's looking a little a little thin
and like you
don't want to push them you know
anything besides you know them being
thin that you would look at it's more
like that
being as far as active or just when you
start seeing kind of like the spine
coming down their back
yeah just a little on the thin side
especially towards the tail you know
when they're losing some of their fat
content i'm like
you know as much as i'd like to use them
you know i want to use them for many
years to come and i want them so you
definitely just take them out don't
bring them no more
shelf him you know usually take them
another month to month and a half
of not seeing a female before the fleet
come back on the feed
but you gotta do it awesome all right
justin so here's another question just
because i'm looking at some of the stuff
i have right here
so when you're grabbing some head stuff
do you want your like
your powerhouse mail to be a hat or do
you want the females to be a hat
i mean i guess you'll go both ways
depending if you already have some
powerhouse females that you've shelfed
up correct
right so ideally you have visual females
hey hi derek that's jessica velka's
brother if you guys haven't met him
before
poor guy's always here he's always just
here to talk about snakes
all right so yeah so basically you want
as many visual girls up as you can the
nice thing is if you do have visual
females on the shelf
then you can run high-end male heads to
them and still have great odds
if you only have het females then
suddenly you're much more constricted
as far as getting good eyes you want
your male to be visual but that visual
male is not likely to have as many cool
coat ons as cutting edge stuff
typically as a nice hat mail so i like
to do it prefer the females be visual
it may also be cutting edge heads if i
have to do it the other way i will
okay cool and now do you document all
your females breeding and stuff like
that to go back
you know the next year or the upcoming
year to see you know like what happened
this time or even as far as how
right on the inside of the cards on
everybody so i can always pull out the
card on the front of my tubes i write
every pairing every breeding
for the previous year so i can see
exactly do you weigh the females
never i never went before or after
really
you know i have an eye for when they're
big enough and then after that it's only
like do they have good body tone or not
do you think she's big enough no
just a thousand grams yes that's my
that's my uh
my scale eyes i mean have you ever had a
female like you know a lot of people
like oh they have to be around 2 000
grams to breed
i have some females that are like two
three years old that are not that big
like for example this one right here
it's a small little girl and she's
already had two clutches for me you know
back to back yeah and she's only about
like 1400 grams
yeah yeah i mean 1500 grams is the
general rule
they do well everything feels a little
different sometimes they'll just some
people are just huge
yeah just get huge in the beginning and
they'll always stay that way and some
don't oh man
the main thing is just keep them healthy
you know keep them nice and thick and
healthy dude you are the man dude i've
been wanting to do this you know with
you because i said you have way more
knowledge even helping me
out with all of this man guys comment
down below if you guys let me well first
of all go check out all justin's stuff
all his information in the description
down below
and dude man thank you as always man
seriously
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you