your female should be at least 3 years before she is bred with due to possibilities of her not making it through a rough prenancy, coastal eggs can be quite large and for a first time mum that isn't only enouph to breed she can die, her eggs could go hard inside her, or if you over feed or power feed her she could develope too much fat glands that make it difficult to lay the eggs and may need surgury. which will cost you an arm and a leg and you could still loose her and her eggs. so yeah I'd wait till she is at least 3 years and big enouph. do you think it would be wise to play god to try get her at breeding size asap when it could cause damage and you could loose them all in the process. I don't think its worth it, loosing such a stunning animal to a careless decission to fatten her up so she will grow large real quick, but in doing that she won't have matured and she'd still be unable to breed with, but if she does then you could have one or more serious cases to watch for.
if you over feed and power feed your snake it will get pin head sindrome and will have a very short life span, compared to what a healthey and responsably fed snake would. they could even find it hard to shed when need be and her mood will change quite drematicly.
your concerns should always be for your snakes health and well being before anything else, then think about breeding latter on after your snake had grown at a proper rate at it's own rate, you shouldn't be thinking of getting a young snake to adult size asap, your male will still breed with her when she is old enouph. if you really want a snake to be ready for breeding then why bother buying a baby just to stuff there life up so you can get good resolts with colour and pattern. seriously!!!
have you bred before or are you new at the hole thing? its not as easy as having a snake that is at breeding size and wala, sometimes it just doesn't happen they may mate but thats it, they may just cuddle and thats all you see and they don't produce. you could be waiting for up to 3 years for something to happen just because there not old enouph and there not at the right size. or you may even find that your supossid pair is infack 2 females.
there's no way you can say for absolute surton that just because she is at breeding age or size that They will give you some resolts!!!
just so you know I've been keeping for 5 years and been trying to get my cape yorks to breed for 3 years, works out its quite hard to breed snakes and I have 2 females instead of a pair, and I got about 5 probes done to one that everyone said it was male, all I could think dueing that time was, I fed him way too much earlier on and he is just way too big to breed now. I thought carefully on buying a new male this year and made sure he had bred before and he is 7.5 years old and 6-7foot. he's done his job and I should be exspecting eggs on the 9th dec.
all I am trying to say is breeding has it's downs before its ups, and just to get a snake for its patterns is perfectly fine, but it's when you start playing god with it and power feed such a young snake so you can breed then. just doesn't sound like you really know what your in for with breeding and what the hole process involves. and I don't understand why you just didn't go for an adult in the first place if you really wanted to breed next year..
My big coastals are over 9 foot and they are 4.5years old now I did feed them 1 rat a week up untill they got to 2 metre's in length then up'd the size of the rat to at least the size of its gutt and gradually now feed them 2 large rats each fortnight - a month.
thats my 2 cents
cheers
