If you had to choose 3 Ball Python morphs to start with...

a male lesser, a female pastel and a female ghost

Well I would go with all females, as you can pick up a 2 gene male a year later for most likely cheaper than the current price now. I'd get a good quality female Lesser, female Enchi, and try to fit in a 2 gene female like a Bumblebee, pastel yellowbelly, or Lemonblast..

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Originally Posted by The Mad Baller

Well I would go with all females, as you can pick up a 2 gene male a year later for most likely cheaper than the current price now. I'd get a good quality female Lesser, female Enchi, and try to fit in a 2 gene female like a Bumblebee, pastel yellowbelly, or Lemonblast..

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You beat me to it. Buy all females. You are not sure if you want to breed or not but if you decide in the future you can add a male. Two or three years from now when your females are ready you will get a lot more male for your money because prices come down. If you never decide to breed females will be worth a lot more if you ever sell.

I get all females and get my male later on like couple others said I thinkI go after snakes that are at least het or possible het while I was picking out, I grab at least mojave, lesser, bee and or cinny. that are all het either pied or albino ( i got a mojave that possible het pied(no paper work) to prove out in a couple years now) but she was only 200 and cheapest ( of any the bell line morphs at hamburg last year)
and since your not buying cages and such looking at about 333 per snake and could adjust that as you pick up a cheaper snake.

oooh oooh oooh...

*drools*

I'd get a female pastel, a female YB, and a female lesser, all het for pied, (ideally...) Unsure if you could get that for 1000...But it's what I'd get, if I ever had the money.

On a $1000 budget, I'd buy a pastel and a lesser female and a male mojave. That way I'd be set up to make pastaves, pastels, BELs, mojaves, lessers, and the inevitable normals. That would give me some traders to get more in the way of snakes and cages.

We went with:

- Pastel Ghost male
- Pastel het Ghost female

If I could add two more females, I'd add:

- Enchi female
- Lesser Female

If I could only add one more female, it'd be a difficult choice.

1.1 pastel yb's and a mojave female and enough left over to buy a nice t-stat :P

Make:
pastels
super pastels
pastel yb's
super pastel yb's
ivorys
pastel ivories
super pastel ivories
mojaves
pastaves
pastavebelly's
and a few normals if your really lucky :D

Not bad for 3 snakes under $1000 ;)

I really do like the idea of starting off with all females, both to give them time to grow and me time to gain experience with ball pythons. The only thing I'm sure of right now is that I do most definitely want a bumblebee, especially since this was the morph that got me loving the ball python morphs.

I like the idea of getting 3 females too, but ideally I'd like to have a mature male to breed those girls too.
If you wait one year and then your male is a picky eater, then you'll have a small male when those females are ready at 2 years old, assuming you do end up breeding them.
Males over a year old make much better breeders "in general".