to line breed*quality* or shoot for combos?

i'm fairly new and have been doing a lot of research and notice that a lot of people tend to focus more so on combos and not the quality of animals produced. And a question i have been asking myself is it beneficial in the current market to just focus on breeding quality and not worry about combos until you have what you want or to shoot for the best multi-gene animals/hot morph you can produce?

There are breeders that have had a lot of success doing both, and ultimately the decision is up to you. The majority of breeders aren't just throwing together animals willy-nilly to create the next 20 gene baby - they're putting thought into the process and using genes that compliment each other well. With 99.9% confidence, you won't find a single person who tells you that quality isn't important when going for combos. Without stellar examples of morphs to begin with, you aren't likely to end up with great looking combos.

i know its more than likely a matter of preference but is it beneficial to try and refine your own line of a morph or just buy what you perceive as quality from someone else and go from there? i know i want to breed(waaay down the road from now) for a quality stock of a couple of particular morphs. sorry if confusing, i'm having a hard time finding words for my question. . . i'm mainly trying to get a general consensus on how others feel and go about it so i can have a basis for my plans

I think the problem with that question is the definition of quality and of line-breeding. Probably all breeders apply line breeding to their gene stacking programs but not at all in any direction specific to traits other then the industry wide desired traits: brightness and reduced pattern. It's been proven that you can line breed some serious things into ball pythons so if it was your goal to sell normal ball pythons to breeders that all have striping down their backs or extremely dark patterns with nice contrast then you should be able to successfully breed for that. I plan on incorporating several unique line bred traits into all of my snakes that will make them unique to me. The majority of my snakes so far have things that I want to pass on and breed for. Unfortunately I get conflicted on which traits I want to focus on though. I like discussing this sort of stuff so feel free to PM me and I can ramble on for days :)

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Originally Posted by thegamejr

i know its more than likely a matter of preference but is it beneficial to try and refine your own line of a morph or just buy what you perceive as quality from someone else and go from there? i know i want to breed(waaay down the road from now) for a quality stock of a couple of particular morphs. sorry if confusing, i'm having a hard time finding words for my question. . . i'm mainly trying to get a general consensus on how others feel and go about it so i can have a basis for my plans

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I absolutely understand what you're asking. The reality is that unless you really hit something out of the park (Brian Gundy's Gold Blush Mojave line for example), what you end up with is simply a nice quality single gene animal that you will likely have a tough time marketing as much more than that. Are there people who are willing to pay more for such quality examples of a morph? Absolutely. Will it take much more than simply having these nice animals available for sale in order to differentiate yourself from the sea of other breeders with nice single gene animals? 1000 times, yes.

Basically,those were the exact answers i was looking for. Thank you both. It pretty much comes down to breed something that you like that will also appeal to everyone else while refining what you have possibly into something

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Luckily i narrowed down what i want to work with to 3 morphs

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What 3 are those? I know I am conflicted on a few things dealing with Pastels. I like the jungle pattern but I also have one with a standard pattern but lots of blushing, reduced pattern and higher yellow. I assume that I could hold back and use selective breeding to enhance the jungle pattern into my pastels or the normal looking reduced pattern with more blushing. I think that the reduced Pastels with lots of blushing would probably mix into other genes better then the jungle patterned ones.

Mojave, enchi, and clown. . want to shoot for a nice enchi mojave clowns ha. . i just find everything mojave amazing

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Awesome genes! With the Clowns do you like the reduced Blade look or the more busy tear drop look?