Beginner breeder

[NickP]

Just wondering, what would you guys recommend in terms of breeding first? I'm def planning on getting a pair of hets and one dominant morph since I have a normal to breed to.

My question is, what snakes should I start off with? What did you start with? Is it purely which morph you like the best or is it best to start with the cheapest ones?

I really want to produce a Pied or a clown, and for the dominant morph I'll probably either go with Spider or Pastel.

Should I just start off breeding one pair and learn from them and then get more for next year?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Well this year is my first year, I bought what I liked or what I needed to work towards projects that I like.

I bought Pastel - Spider - Black Pastel - Het Pieds - Het Albinos - Het clown and several normal females.

Most of the BP I have, I’ve raised since they were babies.

This year I am starting small (which is good), 4 girls are ready so I just need to wait and see how it goes.

My advice get what you like, and what you can afford don't buy something because it is "cheap", invest in quality animals, be patient and do a lot of research to be prepared when the time comes.

[Gloryhound]

Start off with what you like. If you are getting a het something like pied, albino, axanthic... Make sure you get documentation varifying it. Also if cheap is what you are looking for possible hets can be a fun game of chance, but if you go this route make sure the seller has documentation that is all in order that shows where the possibility of the het comes from. It would be very easy for someone to sell off a known normal to someone as a possible het if they did not have good business ethics. In general if you are dealing with hets be ready to pay a little more for the documentation if you are given the choice between a snake someone "says" is a het and one that someone has the genetic history tracked all the way back to when he recieved his first snake with the gene and from who or what breeding he did to make the gene.

[Morphie]

honestly i would recommend attempting to see as many of the morphs in person as you can before making your decision. They are all more beautiful in person than they look in the pictures online, and it's easy to get into the hype produced by sooo many possibilities.

If you have a show or large breeder nearby that you can visit and see all their morphs, then you should visit them. Look at everything you can, hold a few, then go home without buying anything.

After a week, write down the ones you;re still thinking about or the ones you regret not having picked up while there. Then start figuring out how you're going to get those snakes into your collection - breeding or buying. Once you have a plan, buy a snake.

This approach gives you an educated start into your breeding project and mitigates the tendency to want and therefore buy everything you see right at first.

[Tosha_Mc]

IMO - it's best to start out with what you like.

Then decided how much $$$$$ you are able to spend

From there you have to decide your timeline and how much time you are willing invest.

One thing I see a lot with people and hets - is that they don't have the patience to wait the project out - they essentially have two normal looking balls sitting in their rack for 2-3 years and eventually they get impatient, sell their hets, and buy something pretty to look at. Or they get bummed out that their first clutch of 4 didn't hit the good odds and you get no visuals. It happens - will you be able to wait another year or two?

If you are a visual person instead of a patient person - keep this in mind - buy your hets, but pick up some cheap co-dom males to tinker with while your major project grows. Or better yet - pick up the female het this year, and start saving for a male visual in a year or two.

Good luck!

[NickP]

honestly i would recommend attempting to see as many of the morphs in person as you can before making your decision. They are all more beautiful in person than they look in the pictures online, and it's easy to get into the hype produced by sooo many possibilities.

If you have a show or large breeder nearby that you can visit and see all their morphs, then you should visit them. Look at everything you can, hold a few, then go home without buying anything.

I wish there was a show, but the closest one I can think of is in San Diego and that is 4 hours away from where I live if I were to drive constant 80mph :\

IMO - it's best to start out with what you like.

Then decided how much $$$$$ you are able to spend

From there you have to decide your timeline and how much time you are willing invest.

One thing I see a lot with people and hets - is that they don't have the patience to wait the project out - they essentially have two normal looking balls sitting in their rack for 2-3 years and eventually they get impatient, sell their hets, and buy something pretty to look at. Or they get bummed out that their first clutch of 4 didn't hit the good odds and you get no visuals. It happens - will you be able to wait another year or two?

If you are a visual person instead of a patient person - keep this in mind - buy your hets, but pick up some cheap co-dom males to tinker with while your major project grows. Or better yet - pick up the female het this year, and start saving for a male visual in a year or two.

Good luck!

The only thing I'm impatient about is waiting for my BP to grow

I was thinking of getting 1 pair of hets (either clown or pied) and get a spider or a pastel and breed her to my normal. That's only four snakes for now which I can afford and take care of until graduate and can invest in a room for snakes with a rack etc...

Btw this might sound stupid but is it okay to inbreed snakes? As in...say the two hets for pied produce 8 eggs and all are hets as well....can I breed those snakes together?

[Gloryhound]

Btw this might sound stupid but is it okay to inbreed snakes? As in...say the two hets for pied produce 8 eggs and all are hets as well....can I breed those snakes together?

Well the inbreeding question is a debate and a half with a few people sitting on the no inbreeding at all, some on the 1 - 3 generations, Others 4-7 generations, and then others who say it doesn't matter at all. My personal opinion is a 1-3 generation catagory and efforts should be made to make it as low as possible, but remember this is just my personal opinion.

If two Het pieds mate and have babies the babies are only 66% possible hets which means each baby has a 66% chance of actually having the pied gene. You have to breed a pied with a normal, het pied, or some other morph for the off spring to be classified as 100% Het.

[elusivereptiles]

This is just my personal opinion, but I would start with a female pastel, and a male spider. That way you keep your cost down in your first season, but you have the potential to make bumble bee's which are a very hot morph, and sell rather well.

Compaired to other morphs and het pairs I think this is the best way to go.

Female Pastel - $325-$500 depending on size
Male Spider - $300-$500 depending on size

So you are looking at spending around $1000 top end, and some het pairs cost as much or more than that. So I would go this way first, but you can do what you like.

[Jay_Bunny]

Go with what you like. Next year will be my first breeding season and I plan on breeding for spiders and possible het pieds.

[J.Vandegrift]

If it were me I would go with a pair of het pieds and a male lesser. A few extra normal females couldn't hurt either. But buy what you like.