Why everybody wants to Breed?!

I am a Biologist so I love the genetics of them. Mixing genes and seeing what I get out, I find very rewarding.

I am in my first breeding season, got 2 clutches in the incubator at the moment (the first should pip in a week) and expecting about 4/5 more.
I have been keeping snakes since I was 19 or 20 (I just turned 33 on May 4th) so you can hardly say I just got into them to breed or anything.

The reason why I started breeding is to get those morphs I can't afford or I don't see all that much.

Like I have a calico Super Pastel X Super Fire clutch in the incubator hoping to hatch some Calico Fire Fly, it isn't a high end combo, but I haven't seen 1 being offered here in the Netherlands same goes for my HGWG X Mojave Breeding.

I also I have Pastel het. Pied X Pastel het. Pied (Pastel pieds and killer pieds aren't that expansive anymore but they where when I bought the het's), Clown X Leopard, Clown X Orange Ghost.

Now I think you can see the plan behind those pairings and Leopard het. Clowns and double het. Candied Clowns are still gonna be quite expansive and in all honesty I haven't seen any being offered here either.

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Originally Posted by fLako0aGuiiLaR

Why everytime i come to the forum there's a thread of people saying that they got their first ball python and they want to know which morph should they get next for breeding.

Is it because they think they are going to make big money selling the offspring?
Is it because they want to try how it feels?
why?

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I decided to breed because I've owned 8 ball pythons (all different morphs) for the past 3 1/2 years and I love snakes, and it makes more sense to me to breed the ones I got and make new morphs I want and possibly make a little money then to go out and buy those morphs. And this year was my first breeding season ever and I'm on day 30 of incubating my lesser x lesser clutch. Hoping for a BEL, but I will be so happy and amazed just to see their little heads pipe regardless. So for me I do it for a few reasons, but mainly because I've very passionate about ball pythons.

I breed snakes because there's not enough snakes in the world LOLOL.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caspian

I did once try breeding Betta fish, to see what I'd get... fifteen years or so ago. After one healthy hatch of the ugliest Bettas I've ever seen, all over my house for several years, and taking care of each of those individual tanks, I will NOT be doing that again! They looked like zombie Cambodian bettas.

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Lmao!!! [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
This just made my day!

I'm in this for the long haul.



Breeding animals has just always been "my thing." I had a pretty successful Mongolian gerbil breeding business (colorpoints and mottleds were my main projects) and eventually breed fancy mice for a very brief period as well. I owned ball pythons growing up, loved and enjoyed them. I ended up giving my mine away senior year of high school because I thought I was going away to college. That didn't quite work out so five years later, they're back. I got my very first one this time around and after a little while and hours of research later, I began investing and putting together my own breeding program. I have two main goals in mind for hobby "business." This first is to produce top notch quality animals. Animals that retain their color and contrast from hatchling to adulthood. That don't fade or brown out. My second goal is to produce animals that I can keep as pets down the road and be able to look back at that animal and say "I produced this." I take great pride in all the animals I produce and to me there is nothing better than to be able to look at an animals you've produced and known all the time, money, effort and love that went into the final product. I don't know, I'm weird.

So far I've invested at least $3-4K on my current collection, including all the necessary equipment. I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider the money making aspect of the hobby. I do hope to make a profit eventually from my projects. But not to pocket and going on a shopping spree with. Money made from the project will be put right back into the project. Better equipment, future website operations, paying for booths and the cost of attending shows. Like I said from the beginning, I am in it for the long haul.