What Male Morph Should I Get Next?

[Alex Roca]

Hello everyone,

I have been following this forum for quite some time, but this is the first time I decided to become a member and contribute to it. First of all, I want to thank you for all the information and help you have already provided me. I have learned a ton from the posts on this forum. I discovered ball pythons less than a year ago, but I was so impressed by these beautiful animals that I already built a small collection with the intention to start breeding in the future, hopefully next year. What I have right now is:

• 0.1 Pinstripe
• 0.1 Albino
• 0.1 Mojave
• 0.1 Firefly
• 1.0 Pastel YB

My plan is to purchase a second male to breed with these females. I would like to get your advice on what kind of morph do you recommend to get. I am trying to stay away from spiders, and I love jigsaws and Dragon Fly. My male (pastel YB) and the Pinstripe will be ready to breed next year, but the other three females are just a few month old, so I have some time to consider all the breeding projects and decide.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Alex

[Pythonfriend]

i see nice stuff and good choices so far

an albino male or albino + extra gene male for the albino female would be quite obvious.

apart from that, lesser would be a nice gene to have, also enchi. enchi cannot be missing in any collection i think. since you like jigsaw and dragonfly, maybe more fire or more mojave or more pinstripe would also be nice.

i would say narrow it down to a few genes you would like to have in a male and breed to the females, and then you have a variety of 2-gene or 3-gene combos to choose from for your male, and then narrow down that list of combos.

[boost3d05]

depends...are you in it long term that you want to mess around with recessive genes? or did you want instant cool babies with co-dom./dom. genes?

[Alex Roca]

depends...are you in it long term that you want to mess around with recessive genes? or did you want instant cool babies with co-dom./dom. genes?

I am on it for the long term. I love recesives, that is why I have an albino, but I have a constrain on the amount of animals I can keep at home. This is a hobby, not a business. I believe recesives requiere a significant amount of speciments. This is my first Ball Python project so I believe It will be encouraging to get some cool babies soon.

[TheSnakeGuy]

Pastel Lesser or Fire Mojave

[Pythonfriend]

I am on it for the long term. I love recesives, that is why I have an albino, but I have a constrain on the amount of animals I can keep at home. This is a hobby, not a business. I believe recesives requiere a significant amount of speciments. This is my first Ball Python project so I believe It will be encouraging to get some cool babies soon.

you can run a recessive project and make progress with it with 3-5 BPs. with one male breeder, two female breeders, and occasionally 2 holdbacks.

lets take pied as an example. you could start with a male visual pied and two 100% het pied + extra gene females. when you get eggs, try to hold back a male visual + extra gene and a female visual + extra gene; as they grow up they replace two of your breeders and you are back to 3 BPs. You just need to buy a new animal every few years or so, to avoid too much inbreeding. You can also breed your pied (+ extra gene) male to a different multi-gene dominant/codominant girl to make a new quality multi-gene 100% het pied female holdback, and so on.

especially when you collaborate with other local breeders and sometimes exchange hatchlings for new genetics, it can be done with minimal size and minimal inbreeding. of course it will move forward faster with a larger number of breeders because you hit the right odds more often, but over time you can get advanced stuff even with a tiny recessive project.


my personal plans would be to first start out with dominant and codominant genes until i reach a point where i have double and triple-gene males and females, and then go into a recessive project, because the multi-gene combos will help a lot when it comes to producing really nice 100% het holdbacks later on.

[Alex Roca]

Thank you very much for all this useful information. I have been considering your suggestions and looking at morph online when I run into a black pastel mojave. They are beautiful. Do you think that will be a good choice? How much should I expect to pay for a baby male? Have you seen any for sale?