Here is my conundrum... Though I've bred corns for years without an issue and bred exactly what I wanted, now that I have ball pythons, suddenly the choices are much harder. Personally, I've always focused on one project at a time and only bought animals that worked with that breeding plan. With bp's, I started the same way. I wanted a BEL but didn't want to pay that much for one snake so I bought the components (2 pastaves and a lesser) to make one of my own. However, the animal that had me fall in love with bp's in the first place was an albino. At a show, I saw a high contrast girl and bought her. Now for the real problem... I can breed the albino with the pastave boy and get normals, mojaves, pastels, and pastaves, all het for albino. As much as it isn't horrible, it's a waste of her genetic potential in my mind.

I am looking at expanding my genetic base with a hatchling (or two if they are on the cheaper end) this year. Now that I've been able to spend more time researching the morphs and watching the effects they have, I've narrowed things down to 3 possible additions:

-First would be an enchi to enhance the BEL breeding group I have going on. I love the way they brighten the colors of the different morphs. This would not solve my issue with wasting the albino genes. This could also yield results more quickly than the recessives would.

-Second would be a pied to start messing with an albino pied project. Ideally, I'd be looking at at a pied het. albino. The pied genetics could also be worked into my other project once I have a larger breeding base. This would also take a couple generations to bear fruit.

-Third would be a clown to go with my albino girl and eventually work it into my other project as well. Love clowns though this looks to be the most expensive of the three options. This would take a couple generations as well.

What I'm looking for out of this project is what will benefit my breeding program in the long run. From what I've seen, about the only other genetics to mix with the albino and have them noticeable are the pattern changing genetics. Past that, I'm not seeing taking it further and having it be useful for anything other than genetics. Though I don't want to waste the albino genes, after years of corns and working with nothing but recessives, the idea of working with recessive genetics again isn't thrilling. The only reason I'm considering pieds and clowns is because I love the look. In the end, the project will need to be able to continue growing and be semi profitable. Not looking to turn this into a business, but it's nice when they pay for their own rats. It would be nice to get some advice from some of the breeders who have done this for awhile and have experience with the genetics in question. Unfortunately, I love all 3 of the possible morphs so I can't go based on 'breed what you love' though chances are over the next few years, all 3 will be added. Need to figure out where to start though.