1.1 Balls (Normals) 1K and stupidity...

[BPHERP]

OK, I have 1.1 Normal Balls, I work at home, and I want to try my hand at breeding on a small scale. I have had reptiles my entire life, but never attempted breeding anything. (I thought, why not start with BP's)

(My normal female is the lighter of the two)


I basically have 2 questions.

1) Is it the male thats most important when breeding, or the female, or neither, meaning, is it just the genetics I should pay most attention to.

2) I have approx $1000 to $1500 to invest in adult breeding stock; either actual morphs, or some 100% Hets; what would you acquire if it were you? And, whatever that is, should I get all Females and just breed them to my single Normal Male?

I appreciate any and all input you have,

Brandon

[JKExotics]

Your best bet is to get the base co-dominant and dominant morphs. To be honest I started with 5k to invest and it wasn't nearly enough. Your going to get a bunch of hets anyway and will be limited to how much you will be able to breed if you breed everything to a single normal male. Males I would get are a Spider, Pastel, Mojave, and Pinstripe. Then get a bunch of normal females, see if you get normal males and morph females you can only breed the morph once per season but if you get male morphs and alot of normal females you can breed twice as much assuming you have enough normal females. Either way I still say start small because either way unless you buy breedable male morphs (alot more money) you'll have to wait 2 years (or one if you decide to try and breed a male at 500g or so) to even breed your morphs, all your females would have to be old enough to breed though.

PS: Let's not forget hemi-peen infections, don't over breed your males or you'll be in trouble 2 or maybe 3 females in a cycling rotation max.

[BPHERP]

So, in a nutshell, what you are saying is, spend some money on a quality Male Morph (Spider, Pastel, Mojave, or Pinstripe) and then get some adult breeding size normal females and breed the single male to all the females?

If I were to get 4 or 5 normal breeder females and perhaps either:

• Spider, 100% het Piebald
• Yellow-Belly, 100% het Ghost
• Harlequin Wide-Stripe
• Mojave

...which one, and would this be a good investment in your opinion?

Thanks,
Brandon

[JKExotics]

well first year I would just breed everything to the normals and hope to get some females and slowly work my way up sell the leftovers and be able to buy and start slowly, but it's a process man. Unless you have like 10k to flatout buy some breedable males and females you have to play it out and play it slow.

Spiders are good, buy one male spider and one female pastel (female must be adult) and try your luck at some bees or buy a male pastel and breed to normal and try to produce it yourself. See theres alot of possibilities but I'm tring to advise you with the money you have and it's not easy. You could get a pair of het albinos and try to prove them out but an adult pair at the least will cost you 500-750 so, it's not easy to work with that budget. Heck just the male spider will cost roughly 300 as a hatchling and the adult female normals about 100-250 depending on your source. Don't buy anything W.C if you value your collection.

[BPHERP]

Yeah, I have never bought anything WC, I don't trust that sorta thing ...

...So, I already have one normal female, and I know where I can pick up a few more for about $100 each, so If I buy 1 or 2 or more females, this leaves me about $800 to $1300 to buy a good morph male.

If you had to buy JUST ONE MORPH MALE, which would it be, and, if you have the time, why? (morph possibility wise?)

Like I said, I want to do this on a small scale, mostly for the experience, and if anything good comes out of it morph wise, then thats a bonus.

Basically, I want to get to know the whole breeding thing inside and out.

[JKExotics]

Get a Bumblebee...

Why:

Bumblebees are double hets for pastel and spider. At both the spider and the separate pastel locus they have one mutant (pastel or spider respectively) and one of the corresponding normal versions of the same gene. So you know that between the two parents there was at least one copy of each gene and also between the two parents there was at least one normal copy of each gene. Most so far would be from spider X pastel but it would also be possible to create a bumblebee from bumblebee X normal and several other combination.

Bumblebees statistically can produce:
25% Spiders, 25% Pastels, 25% Bumblebees and 25% normals

This doesn't mean that 1 in 4 will be bees, it just means that statistically speaking you have those odds, of course they could all be normals or all pastels or all spiders or all bees... catch my drift?

This example gives you an idea if you were to just pickup one male morph and wanted to produce many variant mutations spread over many females.

PS: Again be careful overbreeding just one male can and will lead to hemi-peen infections ultimately retiring that male for the season if you over breed it to many females in a cycle. I just want to say this is not something I do nor will ever recommend to anyway.

[Sloanreptiles]

The best thing to do would buy a male co-dom/dom and then breed him to a whole lot of females. It would depend on the morph you want to produce if you are looking to wait I would get a baby spider or pin 3-400 on average and then buy a big lot of baby to sub adult normal females but remember when you buy the snakes you also need cages for them, if you look to buy cages check out reptile basics or animal plastics, if you want to build I suggest you check out Tim Baileys site its where I got my ideas for my cages. If you want to produce this year look into buying normal females and a pastel male, with what ive seen on the web you could get the pastel adult for $200 and then the females you could get possibly 6 or 7 breeder size but if 1k's your budget for cages as well I would guess the pastel and 4 females. Building a rack for adults cost me about $200 without a thermostat or heattape and a baby cost me about the same maybe a little more.
Hope I was of help.

[JKExotics]

I can see you now looking through classified posts lol.

[BPHERP]

Who is designing your website? I am a web developer by trade. :0)

[BPHERP]

Right now I have...

• Hypo Boa, 4ft. (Male)
• Albino Boa, baby (Female)
• 2 Normal Ball Pythons (1.1)
• Dumerils Boa, baby (Un-sexed)
• California King Snake (Unsexed)
• Arizona Mountain King Snake (Un-sexed)
• Leucistic Texas Rat Snake (Female)