should i get a male or a female spider...?

i voted for the female, you have several males ready to go now. i'd rather be a year ahead on bees. bumblebees rock! to make combos, you have to have the girls ready. just my thoughts



vaughn

thanks vaughn, just when i thought i'd decided on the male, lol. :P

I also have to say a female.... Being that you already have breedable males, you need more females to keep up with the pace. That first clutch that the female spider throws will still produce males (we hope) that will be ready the following year. But with you already having a pastel male to breed to her in 2-3 years, you'll have bees in 3 years, AND still be able to produce supers the same year.

With a male, you'll have 9 normals ready to breed by the time he's ready... (maybe 4 if he goes late this year), and your pastel female next year if you want to make bees. I guess you could make way more clutches earlier with the male.. but the female just adds so much depth. If it were me, I would get the female this year... and then in about this time next year, I would get either a late 06 male, or an 07 male.

Just my .02 :)

I said female too.....you look low on female morphs ;)

If your goal is to produce a recessive/dom combo, then I would go with the female because you have no morph females. That means that next year, you can concentrate on breeding your male morphs to your het females and producing yourself some female morphs....then the following year, you can breed a male morph to your female spider. Also, this way you would end up with only 100% het and spider 100% hets.....since you have only het females now, you would just be makeing a bunch of possible hets if you got a male to breed.

Ha....but it all depends on what your goal is. Do you want to produce spiders next year? are you only interested in combos? what females were you planning on setting your current male morphs up with next year? are your trying to build your collection (i.e. holdback the majority of spiders that you produce)? ...etc...etc...

Ya know....there's a certain wisdom in consdering the female spider. Granted, you get a chance to make a lot more spiders faster if you go male...but if you want to pair up your ladies with some of your other males as well....then it ends up not being a simple choice at all.


And if you hold back a female spider from your first clutches, you're a year behind raising her up. BUT, if you hold back a male spider (hopefully from the female's first clutch!) then he will be sexually mature that much faster. Of course, you may have waited longer to get that first clutch to begin with.....

Ahhh...decisions decisons! I guess it boils down to how old these spiders are now...and how patient you can be to wait for sexual maturity.

ooooh this is painful. of course i would LOVE to be producing spiders as early as this coming season, which means that i'd have to go with a male. but going with a male does put me a year behind on combos that i would get much faster with a female considering my current collection.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by daniel1983

If your goal is to produce a recessive/dom combo, then I would go with the female because you have no morph females. That means that next year, you can concentrate on breeding your male morphs to your het females and producing yourself some female morphs....then the following year, you can breed a male morph to your female spider. Also, this way you would end up with only 100% het and spider 100% hets.....since you have only het females now, you would just be makeing a bunch of possible hets if you got a male to breed.

---

i do have a female pastel, but she won't be ready to breed until at least next year. but she is my only female morph and i do have a male pastel now so the bumblebees are covered regardless of whether i get a male or female spider. but the rest of that makes a lot of sense, with producing 100% hets instead of possible hets and whatnot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by daniel1983

are you only interested in combos? what females were you planning on setting your current male morphs up with next year? are your trying to build your collection (i.e. holdback the majority of spiders that you produce)? ...etc...etc...

---

i love spiders. the goal is spiders and combos. i do want to build my collection, but not too quickly (space! time!), so i don't plan on holding back every morph i produce. i think i need to make a flowchart, mapping out what females i want to put with what males this coming season. perhaps that will aid in the decision.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JLC

And if you hold back a female spider from your first clutches, you're a year behind raising her up. BUT, if you hold back a male spider (hopefully from the female's first clutch!) then he will be sexually mature that much faster. Of course, you may have waited longer to get that first clutch to begin with.....

---

AAAAAAGGHHHH!!! :psychotic

Since you seem to be so torn why not just get both???


More is better :D

yeah, well that would be nice wouldn't it? maybe i'll go ahead and get that lemon blast i like so much while i'm at it. :zerb:

That's the spirit!!

Why stop there???

:halohorn:

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...bpfirehead.jpg

now that's just plain cruel!