someone give me some advice

[Maddumpling]

I have a 800g around female normal ball python that I want to breed. I got her because she was the only closest thing to breeding size (i know 800 isnt breeding size but closest to the 1500 mark) on craigslist. I want to breed as soon as possible just to have the experience, but today i saw someone sell female mojaves, pastels, and breeder normals. I want to buy one morph breeder to either make pastaves or super pastels or just some regular pastels. I have 3 and I can't keep more than that. I have one pastel, one juvenile normal, and one sub adult. Should I sell my sub adult that I only have had for less than a month and buy something that I know I can breed in the next few months? I dont want to get rid of my juvenile because she was my first, best eater, and the nicest. Subadult is a monster, eats anything but I dont think she will be ready to breed early next year.

[mpkeelee]

You won't be able to breed anytime soon. Maybe next fall if they stay healthy and put on healthy weight. But that's a maybe. If u can only have three then y r u trying to breed??? It's not going to be easy to get rid of the babies, which u will have for a while before they r ready to go.

[PitOnTheProwl]

You wont be able to breed in a couple of months anyway................. not if you are doing proper QT

[wolfy-hound]

I would be patient. If you buy a new snake, you'll have to quarentine it for a while. IF you find a breeding size female, it could be a non-breeder or non-eater, which would be why they were selling it.

You could sell the one snake, buy a larger female, quarentine the new larger female, then breed very late(early spring?) and maybe end up with eggs/hatchlings.

But if you're limited in space, what will you do with X number of hatchlings that each will need their own bin, need to be fed several times before you could sell them, and then you have to find someone to buy them, and might need a permit to do sales(depending on where you are).

If you wait and grow up the females you have, you will know better the health of the animals. And you might be better able to have space for a bunch of hatchlings and maybe have a market/buyers.

Ball pythons are an exercise in patience. Lots and lots of it. I have females that I've now had for 4 years without breeding them yet. Sometimes you just have to wait.