New breeder

[cinderbird]

Unless your dorm allows you to keep and breed animals, i would seriously consider against this. Its college, you'll probably be out of the dorms in a year or two where you're somewhere with more room and no one to force you to rehome your animals if you get caught with them.

Be careful with your use of the word cheap.. Do you perhaps mean affordable snakes? I suggest you read up on breeding ball pythons. The VPI Book, Pythons of the World volume II is a great place to start, and Markus Jayne's website http://ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html has a wealth of useful info.

Breeding animals is not a guaranteed money maker. Many people get into this hobby for the wrong reasons, and I'm certainly not saying that you are but your post comes across as very monetarily driven. Understand the investments you'd need to make and the decisions you'd have to make if you chose to bring more snakes into the world (and that goes for anyone who is considering breeding anything, not just you I'm going to be doing very small time breeding and am making a business plan, and thinking about some of the less than thrilling aspects of breeding these snakes. Just search for "warning, graphic pictures" threads.. You'll see the hardship that may accompany breeding).

The morphs are the same to breed as normals, that said. If you want to breed, do it for yourself. Do it for the projects and morphs that you want to work with. They're all "easy to purchase" some are more affordable than others, especially co-doms like pastels, yellow bellies and het red axanthics. But there is a reason those animals are less expensive than other morphs and it is because there are a lot of poor examples around. I wouldn't just throw two snakes together, think about the qualities of the possible parents and what they would do to offspring. For example, breeding a bright pastel male to a dark female will produce dark pastel offspring which are undesirable because the pastel is supposed to be a bright morph. (things like that).

If you pick up a female, even one that is of breeding size, she (and any new snakes) you get should be quarantined. Where would you quarantine a snake in a dorm room? (i went to college, they dont call them shoe boxes for nothing lol). Many breeder sized females take a year off after they have been moved around or stressed a lot (like when being moved or transported, or coming from a rescue situation).

Please don't take this as a direct attack on you, as it is anything but. I just feel that there are aspects of breeding that should be brought up because everyone may not think of them. Do some research and then see where you stand in the scheme of things. You can't do wrong by your animals if you're at least willing to learn, good luck!