Piebald combos?

I am completely inexperienced with breeding snakes and am trying to do substantial research before jumping into anything so thought I would reach out for some help here.
I absolutely love pied BPs and I currently own just one snake which is a plain old (but very beautiful!) piebald male. I've been looking around at interesting pied combos and really love the look of pieds that have any combination of fire, orange dream, pastel or yellow belly. Are there any other combos I'm overlooking that might be good (and relatively inexpensive) to get into as a first time breeder?

I've also read elsewhere that it's better to breed females with less genes and males with more, but of course I have a single gene male so I'd be forced to shop around for females with lots of genes to breed him to. Is this going to end up holding me back at all if I choose to keep him as my only male for the foreseeable future? I didn't really have breeding or morphs in mind when I bought him as I intended to just keep him as a pet, but I've been growing more and more interested in breeding these animals over time.

Apologies if anything I've said makes me sound uninformed - I'm still doing my research and don't intend to start breeding until I feel confident I know enough :)

Thanks for any input!

Starting out with a single gene male for your first project isn't the worst way to start. It just does make things a bit slower if you want to build up to bigger projects. I was on my way to doing something similar, but while still waiting on my female to get to size, I ended up finding a great male to cross with her. Opps.... :P

Of course, you will have to keep in mind that the market is a bit flooded with new breeders at the moment...and while that definitely can help with finding a snake for your projects, keep in mind that you will also have to compete when finding homes for your little ones. There can also be the occasional breeding issues as you go on. For example one of my current snakes is a rehome from a breeder who had an incubator fail, so he has a kink.
Piebald is a pretty healthy gene, but some other genes can lead to birth defects or neurological issues. OWAL has a pretty good list of possible issues here: https://www.owalreptiles.com/issues.php

And now that that's been said....
An adult female of size will of course run you more than a younger hatchling. But honestly all of the genes you mentioned are some great genes to look into for a pied project. They're bright and fun combos for sure. Enchi or coral glow/banana might also be a nice one to add in to that mix. I would try to make sure whatever female you do pick up is het for pied, that way you get a 50% ratio of pieds and het pieds on top of what was mentioned.

Another option might be looking for something else that's recessive, like an Albino, Hypo/Orange ghost or Desert Ghost that is het for pied. That can bring in some other possibilities for colors. Everything would be either a pied het for 'x' or double het.

Personally, a single gene male, especially recessive, is just going to be a bad idea in the long run. You are going to spend a lot more on females than you would just getting an additional male that you chose specifically for breeding. If you really want to breed him specifically, at bare minimum, each female you breed him to should have het pied + some other morph to make it worth while.

The genes you mentioned are all good choices. I'd avoid Super on YB or Fire so you don't get hard to ID snakes with limited color. You might consider getting a different YB complex morph that when in Super doesn't completely kill off pattern and color, and in the long run is worth slightly more anyway, such as Asphalt or Gravel. Banana or Coral Glow might be a nice cheap choice as well to work with that looks good with Pied. A lot of your darker morphs looks great with pied, but either are difficult to breed for, have known issues in Supers, expensive, or some combo of those- plus generally make really high-white Pieds. Mahogany would be my top choice if going for darker Pieds though.

Good stuff is piebald! But unless you’re working with the visual and or the 100% het pied it is the long road. Try and make sure you’re pied male doesn’t have a underlying gene. Visual pieds can be more than just pied. Maybe the breeder/ seller will have more information. Make sure you work with and have projects that you really find interesting. Work projects that are not flooded in the market if you can. Candy, clown, albino, piebald are all recessive projects that if you’re not working with the visual form or the guaranteed 100% het form will be time consuming. Most of us do have to take cost into consideration. Good luck and we’ll be here for you. Consider red stripe and spotnose if you feel you like them as part of your piebald projects.

Spotnose piebaldhttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...e/001.jpgThankhttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...otnose/001.jpg

There just aren’t many red stripe piebalds available on the market. A great project with a incomplete dominant to a recessive project to which there is a open field to work with.

I tried finding a photo of one red stripe piebald and could not. Great incomplete dominant gene to recessive project. Of course you will have to make red stripe 100% het pieds first. Then line breed. Or outcross with someone else’s red stripe 100% het pied.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

Spotnose piebaldhttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...e/001.jpgThankhttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...otnose/001.jpg

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More like spottail. :P

Seems to me it’s more like a black eyed leucistic with a decorative attachment. Lol. ;)

Typical piebald pattern disruption to the extreme! Hahaha

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Armiyana

Starting out with a single gene male for your first project isn't the worst way to start. It just does make things a bit slower if you want to build up to bigger projects. I was on my way to doing something similar, but while still waiting on my female to get to size, I ended up finding a great male to cross with her. Opps.... :P

Of course, you will have to keep in mind that the market is a bit flooded with new breeders at the moment...and while that definitely can help with finding a snake for your projects, keep in mind that you will also have to compete when finding homes for your little ones. There can also be the occasional breeding issues as you go on. For example one of my current snakes is a rehome from a breeder who had an incubator fail, so he has a kink.
Piebald is a pretty healthy gene, but some other genes can lead to birth defects or neurological issues. OWAL has a pretty good list of possible issues here: https://www.owalreptiles.com/issues.php

And now that that's been said....
An adult female of size will of course run you more than a younger hatchling. But honestly all of the genes you mentioned are some great genes to look into for a pied project. They're bright and fun combos for sure. Enchi or coral glow/banana might also be a nice one to add in to that mix. I would try to make sure whatever female you do pick up is het for pied, that way you get a 50% ratio of pieds and het pieds on top of what was mentioned.

Another option might be looking for something else that's recessive, like an Albino, Hypo/Orange ghost or Desert Ghost that is het for pied. That can bring in some other possibilities for colors. Everything would be either a pied het for 'x' or double het.

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Thank you so much for the detailed response!

I'll definitely have to look into getting another male later down the line, but I think my boy will do for now until I have a better idea of some more ambitious projects I'd like to get into.
I'm very aware of morphs with issues and have been mindful to steer clear of them so thank you for the helpful resource!

Banana is also a fantastic suggestion - they're beautiful snakes and it seems like banana would go well with the other morphs I'm interested in. So it's better to be breeding a visual pied to a het pied then, rather than producing all visual pied snakes?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nikkubus

Personally, a single gene male, especially recessive, is just going to be a bad idea in the long run. You are going to spend a lot more on females than you would just getting an additional male that you chose specifically for breeding. If you really want to breed him specifically, at bare minimum, each female you breed him to should have het pied + some other morph to make it worth while.

The genes you mentioned are all good choices. I'd avoid Super on YB or Fire so you don't get hard to ID snakes with limited color. You might consider getting a different YB complex morph that when in Super doesn't completely kill off pattern and color, and in the long run is worth slightly more anyway, such as Asphalt or Gravel. Banana or Coral Glow might be a nice cheap choice as well to work with that looks good with Pied. A lot of your darker morphs looks great with pied, but either are difficult to breed for, have known issues in Supers, expensive, or some combo of those- plus generally make really high-white Pieds. Mahogany would be my top choice if going for darker Pieds though.

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Yeah, it is looking like I'll really need to invest in another male, but I think he'll do at least for the first clutch. I'm not too confident in my ability to tell what morphs are in a snake just yet, so I'd be more comfortable starting out with just a few genes anyway. Though, since I don't have a female yet and I'll most likely be getting a hatchling, I have quite a bit of time to get another male before she'll be big enough to breed.

Cheers for raising the super YB/fire point as well. I've seen some gorgeous snakes produced with the gravel/asphalt genes (especially in combination with pastel) but I honestly don't know very much about these genes. As I understand, they're only visually distinguishable from yellow belly in combos or super forms? In which case do pied gravels/asphalts look the same as pied YBs or does pied make them distinguishable at all?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

Good stuff is piebald! But unless you’re working with the visual and or the 100% het pied it is the long road. Try and make sure you’re pied male doesn’t have a underlying gene. Visual pieds can be more than just pied. Maybe the breeder/ seller will have more information. Make sure you work with and have projects that you really find interesting. Work projects that are not flooded in the market if you can. Candy, clown, albino, piebald are all recessive projects that if you’re not working with the visual form or the guaranteed 100% het form will be time consuming. Most of us do have to take cost into consideration. Good luck and we’ll be here for you. Consider red stripe and spotnose if you feel you like them as part of your piebald projects.

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I am looking to get a het pied female but it really does limit my options ^^; I'm not in any rush though, so I'm happy to wait around until a good one becomes available as I'm most likely going for a hatchling anyway :)
My boy definitely looks like a normal pied but I'll ask the breeder about his parents so I'm aware of any potential surprises.

Thank you! I'll have a look into spotnose and red stripe. I'm definitely intrigued by spotnose now that you've pointed it out, as the few pictures I've been able to find online all seem to look similar to the one you posted. Love a piebald with a white head!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

I tried finding a photo of one red stripe piebald and could not. Great incomplete dominant gene to recessive project. Of course you will have to make red stripe 100% het pieds first. Then line breed. Or outcross with someone else’s red stripe 100% het pied.

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Will definitely keep this in mind! I think it would be worth the time investment to see what can be done with this combo :)