Good buy?

[jeff68982]

Have a chance at buying a Leopard, Spot nose, Butter, pastel, yellow bellow male ball python. Wondering what everyone's thoughts would be. Good investment? Seems to me he would have a lot of potential

[Bogertophis]

I can't speak for the genetics, but fancy genes won't compensate if the snake is unhealthy, too old for your purposes, or has a lousy temperament- IMO.

[jeff68982]

He is 1 year old, very healthy and great temperament

I can't speak for the genetics, but fancy genes won't compensate if the snake is unhealthy, too old for your purposes, or has a lousy temperament- IMO.

[Armiyana]

That sounds like a beautiful animal.

He does have some good potential, but you may need some strong females as well down the line.
The odds are lower, but if bred to a normal female, he can still toss a normal or single gene offspring. And they can be harder to rehome.
You would want visual recessives or an allelic combo female at least to guarantee a gene passed on and then anything from him would be awesome.

[jeff68982]

That sounds like a beautiful animal.

He does have some good potential, but you may need some strong females as well down the line.
The odds are lower, but if bred to a normal female, he can still toss a normal or single gene offspring. And they can be harder to rehome.
You would want visual recessives or an allelic combo female at least to guarantee a gene passed on and then anything from him would be awesome.

Breeder females I have at the moment are het carmel, Mojave, Butter bee, Orange Ghost and pewter yellow Belly have other females but not near breeding size

[jeff68982]

[nikkubus]

I would say no, especially based on the females you listed. If you have a solid plan and he makes sense towards that, maybe he could be okay, but with no other information it seems like a bad impulse buy situation because he's pretty. He is basically Batman minus the hardest part (Clown) plus Butter. If he at least had het Clown, I'd feel differently. If he was visual Clown plus all that, yes, very good investment.

You should always have a well thought out plan before purchasing investment animals. If you don't have in this thread something you would work towards with him, I'm guessing you don't, and no animals is a good investment without a solid plan. Buying things without thinking it through means having to take a lot of extra steps and spend extra money to get the same results towards a project.

[jeff68982]

What I currently have

Females

Butter Bee 1479 G
Orange Ghost 1528 G
100% Het Caramel 1985 g
100% Het Caramel 1519 g
Pewter yellow Belly 1055 g
Pastel Yellow Belly 270 g
GHI Mojave Pewter 189 g
Mojave 2089 g proven breeder

Males
GHI Mojave 478 g
Pewter gargoyle 385 g
Carmel Mojave Spider 677 g
Super Stripe 576 g
Super Fly 739 g
Pastel Yellow Belly Pied 515 g
Mojave 552 g
Mystic Pastel 188 g
Blue Eyed Leucistic 560 g
Banana Super Enchi 260 g
Cinnamon Spider 245 g
Orange Ghost 125 g

[Armiyana]

You already have a very male hefty list.
The only female that would really make me say go for it is your Orange Ghost since every baby would be guaranteed het OG.

There are better options for you as a breeder in pairing males you already own to the females you already own.

I would recommend really looking at the options you have listed here and make a plan for what you really want to do.

For example, my main projects are broken down into:
BEL and Orange Ghost
Pied and Urban Camo

Any little ones that may seem like one offs fit into those projects somehow.
For example, I have a hypo cinny female that it het for Gstripe. I picked up a gStripe male so I can make GStripes het for hypo for my BEL/OG group.
I picked up my first axanthic and first albino last month! They both fit into my pied project as one is het and the other is visual.

Where would you see this male fitting best? It doesn't really feel like he makes a good BEL choice as you already have a BEL male to guarantee at least a single gene in the offspring. Same goes for the yellow belly gene... you have a super stripe male. Even on the OG female, you have a OG male already.

Also... I'm not saying normals are bad. They can be gorgeous. But for breeding they can be more difficult to place after. Or just means you won't be able to gross as much on the offspring. I try to make sure that one clutch will at least make back the purchase of an animal or feed a good amount of my collection. At least that's my hope!

[nikkubus]

Yeah, you are really male heavy already. I wouldn't even look at males right now if I were you. I'd nail down some project plans and then seek out females that match what you are missing for those plans. You could essentially support fertilizing 60 females with the males you already have, and keep in mind you are probably going to want some holdbacks that are occasionally male. Not to mention, it's probably not a bad idea to get some successful clutches under your belt before you move far past 20 breeder animals.