Starting out.

If you wanna save some room and a little bit of money you could purchase multigene morphs basically getting two or three snakes in one. For example could get a spinner and cross it with a pastel or super pastel and get a lot of cool outcomes. And someone mentioned the genetic wizard at worldofballpythons.com this is a big help when you are playing around with some ideas. Just look around a bit. It really comes down to preferance. :gj:

If i were you I would put the money you want to spend on mid size probably single gene animals "depending on what you can efford." 3 years to raise them up is a long time... You can always pick up a male down the road ball pythons only get cheaper as new morphs emerge and more people are producing whats "hot" and expensive at the moment.

If youre just starting out i would get 2 females now and wait 2 years. Get a male. Wait one more year. And then your animals *should* be to breeding size. The female you get can be one or two gene, whichever you can afford or whatever you like. For the male i would definetly go with a 2 gene one. Just my 2 cents!
As far as which morphs go with whatever you like! Youll enjoy it more if youre producing morphs you like.

Just to add a little more to the last two posts. Take whatever money you planned on spending on a male and buy another female. It will take your females 2-3 years to up to breeding size. In that time your females only increase in value. Over the same 2-3 years your male will probably lose half of his value if not more. Even if you don't care about the money this allows to to not lose any money, if over the next three years, you see something new and decide to change direction in your breeding plans. If this happens you can sell the females you no longer need at a profit and buy the new females you need. Just add a male when your girls are ready. I can't tell you the money I would have saved if I had followed this plan when I was starting out.

If you like Albinos, I would pick up some codom het Albino females now (ex. Black Pastel het Albino, Spinner het Albino) and get a visual Albino male later. That puts you having cool codom Albinos first time up. Same principle applies to any other recessive project.

For example: I have Black Pewter het Hypo and Lemon Blast het Hypo girls, and a visual Hypo Mojave boy. This sets me up for a ton of possibilities and I spent way less than 2 grand on the snakes. My Pewter gal should be ready to go late this year as I purchased her as a yearling.

Also make sure you still get quality, not just any snake that carries the genes.

My advice to you would be that whatever direction you decide to go in, make sure you get your Male/Female ratio correct. Remember that you can breed 1 male to multiple females, but your female can only clutch once per season. Those male genes look cheap and appealing but save your money and get more girls.

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Originally Posted by jinx667

This sets me up for a ton of possibilities and I spent way less than 2 grand on the snakes.

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Did you steal them lol? These are my price estimates from what ive seen at shows and on KS...
Lemonblast het hypo- around $650
BP het hypo- around $650
Mojave hypo- around $700

Thats right around $2000 so how did you get them for way less? I also know for a fact every single snake you own is a superb example of the morph so im not trying to say you got crappy animals lol...

EDIT: also if you dont wanna say what you paid for them thats fine. But at least tell me where you got them from lol?

Recessive projects are great! They do not complicate anything and don’t take any more time to get combos going then co-doms…

You can’t make any Combos, co-dom or recessive without raising up some females first…

Example…

You want to make Bees?…You have to buy a Pastel female and raise her up…Then get a male Spider…

You want to make Albino combos?...Buy a Pinstripe Het Albino female raise her up…Then get a Spider Albino male…Same time line and IMO more reward at the end!

Like others have said, I suggest getting females first.
It takes them at least 2 years for a female to sexually mature.
Males can become sexually mature within a year or less.
So if you buy female hatchlings now(which are cheaper than breeding size females), you can think about the male in a years time or so.

It's always better to be female heavy than male.

And in the long run, a two gene animal is cheaper than a single gene.
A two gene animal is more expensive up front, but housing one animal compared to two will save you space, time, and energy caring for them. Plus you can get a decent verity of offspring from a double gene parent.

And if you like albinos, I suggest getting a morph het albino or a visual morph albino(such as black pastel albino or a pinstripe albino). That way you can get other morphs and albinos in a single clutch.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Did you steal them lol? These are my price estimates from what ive seen at shows and on KS...
Lemonblast het hypo- around $650
BP het hypo- around $650
Mojave hypo- around $700

Thats right around $2000 so how did you get them for way less? I also know for a fact every single snake you own is a superb example of the morph so im not trying to say you got crappy animals lol...

EDIT: also if you dont wanna say what you paid for them thats fine. But at least tell me where you got them from lol?

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I will not say what I paid exactly, but the BP het Hypo was a bit more than that because she was already a year old. The others were less. And I came in a couple hundred or so below 2K. I got the hets off of KS from folks that were cutting the size of their collections. The Hypo Mojo is from Colin Weaver.

You just have to shop around and be ready to snag a deal as soon as it shows up.