where to go from here?

heya,

Starting this June i got back into ball pythons (or snake keeping in general) and i have spend 1525 euro's (1910 dollar) (including the pied female i pick up sunday 12th of october) wich to me is an significant investment.

when i pick up my pied lady i will have the following;

0.1 Orange Ghost
0.1 Super Fire
0.1 Lesser Pastel
0.1 Genetic Stripe pastel
0.1 Piebald
1.1 Pastel het. Piebald

I am picking up the female piebald at an reptile show and now my question comes;

should i invest more and get 1 or 2 more females or maybe get me a male or 2 and let the waiting game to breeding size begin? My biggest female is only about 600 grams so that would be a long wait, atleast untill the 2015 breeding season. the other females are only 300 grams or less.

please let me know what you would do. maybe even if it is buying a almost ready to breed female and a male to be "sure" to get a go at breeding in 2015.

I have another +/- 750 euro ( 940 dollar) saved up for that show on october 12th

I would wait. Keep that money set a side and think about what you really want and what combinations you want to produce. I think if you ask anyone who breeds, they can share a story or two where they bought snakes that they would rather have waited on. For me, I bought 5 females that I wish I hadn't. They are good eaters, have all produced for me, but I want to keep my collection small, so now I need to sell them to keep more of the cool hatchlings I produced this year. Overall, I think it is better to wait, and only buy snakes you think you really can't pass up. Get a long term plan together and stick to it. It will really help and let you keep the animals you like the most. Don't buy just to fill up rack space. You could pick up another male in about 9 months to a year and be in a very good position, and prices are only coming down with time.

The following is my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

The OP has one male and six females. I would get at least one more male (possibly two more). I do not know the best male/female ratio, but I would prefer to mate one male to no more than three females.

I would mate the pastel het pied male to both the pied female and the pastel het pied female.

Ideally, I would want a genetic stripe male and an orange ghost male. One or both might be heterozygous if money will not stretch that far. The genetic stripe male would be mated to the genetic stripe female. And the orange ghost male would be mated to the orange ghost female.

The lesser pastel and super fire could be mated to any male. If no other male is available, a normal will do. A normal male should be under budget.

If money will only stretch to one male, answer two questions. Which do you like better, orange ghost or genetic striped? And which of those females will breed first? The answers will tell you what male to get.

That assumes you want to keep all the females. Slowcountry Ball has good points.

Good luck.

thanks for both your inputs,

1 to slowcountry balls,
I dont feel sorry for getting any of the girls i do have and i am not realy afraid i will as i have only bought morphs wich i do like but... i do understand what you mean and will keep that in mind :)

2 to Paulh,

i dont realy think at the moment i have to get an OG or g-stripe male as i would't mind making het's or double hets on my first breeding attempt, that is also why i have chosen to get the visuals of the recessive gene's in the females, so it wouldn't cause i would mind keeping a het. male to breed back the year after.

Gene's that i still would like to add are;

Clown, GHI and Leopard

and i was thinking (cause of what i wrote above) to get a clown female and get the GHI and Leopard gene's in male's

but i do agree with Paulh that i would atleast have to add 1 male as i just dont want to pair my Pastel het. Piebald to my OG female (she will be the first ready to breed) but i am not sure if i should do it now or get a female / more females first.

Gong off of what you said about making hets for the recessives I say you save your money for a male with the most genes you could find(that you like) in your price range. The pastel het pied male would go to the pied and female pastel het pied while the other male would go to the other 4 girls. You would make fun combos while (hopefully) creating multigene hets to breed back to the mothers. The only thing is that you have both black eyed and blue eyed Lucy animals that could pretty much wipe out the other genes when you produce an all white snake. So either you risk it and buy a ball with one of the genes inside of those complexes or you stay away and buy something like an enchi spider pinstripe which would produce babies that carry genes that can be told apart. Higher end would be like an enchi GHI banana, you have some time til your girls are breeding size so take your time and save your money before picking out a male

hey,

yeah i already desided to stay away from creating BEL's as indeed it would make it impossible to see what other gene's are in there.

but anyways

so every one seems to agree on the fact i should get more females at the moment

As the orange ghost is the oldest, it seems to me that a leopard or ghi male for her would be first priority. Then I'd see if the money will stretch to a female clown, too. YMMV.

I would get some females now that you would like to breed to the 3 morphs you mentioned (get those 3 in males after the females get a little bigger). That will give you time to save money for the ones you want while having the females you want to breed them to, and as previously mentioned the prices go down the longer you wait. That's what I would have done different. Right now I have 2 breedable males with nothing to breed them to.

ok thanks alot :)