New to the Industry: How Should I Start My Breeding Colony?

[Wiggles92]

As the title states, I'm to the ball python industry (but am not a stranger to their care and such) and want to know what some good choices would be for starting my own breeding colony. The colony will be housed in a rack system, by the way.

So far I just have 0.2.0 2011 normal, but I'm looking to pick up 0.2.0 2011 pastel and 1.0.0 2011 spider or pinstripe, and maybe a couple of hets and morphs. I don't have the cash for the top-dollar morph combinations, so I'm trying to stick to the less expensive morphs for now.

Any ideas?

[Meltdown Morphs]

You could spice it up just a little and get your
0.2 pastels het ghost or possible hets
&
1.0 spider or pinstripe het ghost.

if one of the girls proved out you could be on your way to making humblebees
A morph from the BEL complex( Lesser,Butter,Mojave,Russo) might not be bad either
I'm not sure how much vanillas go for but I personally really dig the vanilla cream [Vanilla x Fire] combo

[Wiggles92]

You could spice it up just a little and get your
0.2 pastels het ghost or possible hets
&
1.0 spider or pinstripe het ghost.

if one of the girls proved out you could be on your way to making humblebees
A morph from the BEL complex( Lesser,Butter,Mojave,Russo) might not be bad either
I'm not sure how much vanillas go for but I personally really dig the vanilla cream [Vanilla x Fire] combo

The breeder that I'm getting the pastels from only has just standard pastels, but they're at a great price, so I can work with that; I'm pretty sure that the spider that I'm looking to get is just a standard spider. I might have to pick up a pair of hets for ghost, though.

As for the BEL complex, I definitely want to get a morph from that complex plus a Fire since I'm a big fan of both black eye leucistics and blue eye leucistics; the only downside is that even the base morphs can be pricey for the black eyes but luckily BEL base morphs aren't too bad in price. Vanilla cream is pretty cool, but I think vanillas are pricey.

Thanks for the help so far!

[Quiet Tempest]

If I were you, I'd pick out one or two animals that catch your eye and just leave it at that until you've got a feel for breeding balls and raising hatchlings. That way, you can decide if it's an enjoyable hobby and something you want to pursue more seriously later on. If you want to jump in head first and try to build up a "colony" so quickly, you'll likely burn yourself out before you've even produced your first clutch. Just my two pennies.

[Wiggles92]

If I were you, I'd pick out one or two animals that catch your eye and just leave it at that until you've got a feel for breeding balls and raising hatchlings. That way, you can decide if it's an enjoyable hobby and something you want to pursue more seriously later on. If you want to jump in head first and try to build up a "colony" so quickly, you'll likely burn yourself out before you've even produced your first clutch. Just my two pennies.

Ah, gotcha. I wanted to be sure that I'd be able to produce a good variety of morphs in two or three years which was why I wanted to get a few more rather than just one or two. I've been keeping snakes for years, so I'm already in love with the hobby so I'm not worried about getting burned out as much as losing out by not getting certain morphs sooner rather than latter, but I completely understand what you mean about being careful to not get burned out.

[adamjeffery]

any morph that doesnt take mortgaging your house for is already flooding the market. just breed what you like. if you want bee's but are on a tight budget then get your female pastel now and a spider later and make one. dont worry about getting a male this year. get your females they take 3 years to raise up on average. most males can breed within the first year of life. also you can get proven breeder single gene males cheap. ghost,pin,pastel,black pastel,mojave,spider,and yellow belly males are cheap 100-350 dollars as proven breeders. but if you get your girls now maybe next year you could get a pastel lesser for example or a bee male. males drop every year in price as people replace them iwth newer better versions. hold out and get your male later and put your money into the girls this year.
adam jeffery

[Wiggles92]

any morph that doesnt take mortgaging your house for is already flooding the market. just breed what you like. if you want bee's but are on a tight budget then get your female pastel now and a spider later and make one. dont worry about getting a male this year. get your females they take 3 years to raise up on average. most males can breed within the first year of life. also you can get proven breeder single gene males cheap. ghost,pin,pastel,black pastel,mojave,spider,and yellow belly males are cheap 100-350 dollars as proven breeders. but if you get your girls now maybe next year you could get a pastel lesser for example or a bee male. males drop every year in price as people replace them iwth newer better versions. hold out and get your male later and put your money into the girls this year.
adam jeffery

Hmm, that makes a ton of sense to me, actually! In that case, I think I'll get maybe one male since I have a friend that's willing to give me a good deal on one, but otherwise I'll get no more than five more females and call it good since I'm capping myself at eight total BPs for this year.

As for the morphs in particular, I'm a of the BELs and black eye leucistics, so I'll snatch up a female from one of the base morphs for one of those if at all possible. I also like the various bees, so pastels are a must, too.

[Wiggles92]

I just picked up two 2011 female pastels, so now I'm at 0.2 normal and 0.2 pastel.

[snakemansnakes]

We all like pictures ya know.

[Wiggles92]

We all like pictures ya know.

Haha, I need to take some of them for my records anyway, so I'll get right on that later today.