Breeding with only homozygous snakes.

I'm curious if anyone does this?

Seeing as how normals are almost given away for shipping costs, they seem like a detriment to the hobby. Does anyone else ever think about all the snakes they produce that are undesirable? Or is this too noble of an ideal?

I was looking at a breeders list of '09 clutches (7 pages worth) and for 80-90% of the pairings, the females were normal. Quantity over quality?

I can see the cost savings up front for those of us who aren't professionals. I love genetic stripes. I could get a 1.1 100% het pair for $200-300 where as a pair of actual genetic stripes would be ~$1400. The real pair would produce 100% genetic stripe offspring. The het pair would produce, for a couple generations, a bunch of normals, some possible hets and a couple real ones. Does the money saved up front equal the cost of all these extras? Is it fair to the snakes when we have control of this?

I can also see the side that enjoys taking a couple of hets and breeding them until you get what you're looking for. I played a card game in middle school/high school called Magic: The Gathering and it was more exciting to buy a pack of cards with one potential rare over and over than to just buy the card you wanted specifically which would probably be cheaper in the long run.

I agree with you, to a point.

Personally, my goal is to get awareness out there.

Every one of my friends and even coworkers knows that I keep and will soon breed ball pythons. Most are curious and ask about the snakes. A few have even asked about getting one someday.

And these people aren't interested in getting a $300 animal...they just want something that they can enjoy.

If I can get awareness out that these are gentle creatures and that they make good pets---while also educating about how to keep them---then those normals that I produce will go to good homes, and I will also be helping spread the entire hobby.

I think most people here at the forum would like to see the knowledge spread, until, at some point, having a ball python is just as accepted as having a cat or dog.


Here's where I agree with you: once these animals start becoming more mainstream, you're going to see the same issues you already see with cats and dogs, i.e. too many animals that end up unwanted and left behind.

It's a fine line to tread. So far, the hobby seems to be growing slowly, so hopefully we can build a decent infrastructure of education before it gets out of hand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ladywhipple02

I agree with you, to a point.

Personally, my goal is to get awareness out there.

Every one of my friends and even coworkers knows that I keep and will soon breed ball pythons. Most are curious and ask about the snakes. A few have even asked about getting one someday.

And these people aren't interested in getting a $300 animal...they just want something that they can enjoy.

If I can get awareness out that these are gentle creatures and that they make good pets---while also educating about how to keep them---then those normals that I produce will go to good homes, and I will also be helping spread the entire hobby.

I think most people here at the forum would like to see the knowledge spread, until, at some point, having a ball python is just as accepted as having a cat or dog.


Here's where I agree with you: once these animals start becoming more mainstream, you're going to see the same issues you already see with cats and dogs, i.e. too many animals that end up unwanted and left behind.

It's a fine line to tread. So far, the hobby seems to be growing slowly, so hopefully we can build a decent infrastructure of education before it gets out of hand.

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Thanks for your input and I totally agree with you.

There are many people who enjoy having a variety of pets and don't necessarily care what the genetics of those pets are. So having more affordable options of ball pythons would benefit the community by getting more support.

I'm curious if there's anyone investing/thinking about the future now.

I think I already have a list of my sons friends that want one of the snakes when they breed...which is like still 2 1/2 yrs away...normals of course. That to me is great to spread that but with that also comes the teaching. Several of his friends already come over and help with the snakes...and learn how to take care of them. If it is a kid that I give a snake to...I would most definetly make them come over and learn first.

I see too many kids at the school with reptiles and some of them scare the crap out me with how they do things. Makes me angry with the parents that they do not over see more of what is going on with the husbandry of these pets.

I'm sorry, but none of the snakes I produce are undesirable. Yes, it's true, normals cost less than the shipping price, which makes people leery of buying one to have it shipped. As a result most (though not all) are sold locally, or they are sold in groups.

I've also found that they sell out quickly, even though I have larger numbers of them than I do of morphs, since I breed co-doms to normals. As of right now, the only animals I have left are het orange ghosts, and albinos and hets. Everything else is gone, and the normals were one of the first to sell out completely, right after spiders.

I think the problem some folks have with selling them is that they don't realize they have to market them differently. Most normals will go to pet homes, so they need to be marketed to average people looking for a pet. Local classifieds work extremely well for this. Larger numbers of normals can be sold to a local pet store, if you have one that is actually knowledgeable (I do, fortunately). They could also be wholesaled to a distributor who supplies pet stores, if you had a hundred or more of them.

My normals are in very high demand as pets--far from being undesirable. Now, in terms of cash, of course I get less for them, but cash isn't the entire definition of desirability.

I'll be producing a maximum of 96 normals this coming season. That's at least $1920 in sales, because I have yet to get less than $20 ea for them, even the males sold to the pet store. Pet stores pay shipping costs too, and well-established, fat, healthy babies for just slightly less than their supplier is asking is something they love. Smaller pet stores love to buy locally. The cost of feeding the normals up 3 times to establish them is a tiny fraction of their value.

Now, if you have limited space, then I can see why you would want to stick to visual morphs in your collection, and not breed normals. I am expanding, and space is not a primary concern when I do my pairings and plan for next year's. But normals pay the cost of their mother's food and board over the course of a year. Even if a co-dom pairing resulted in a clutch of ALL normals, that would be true. This is really simple math--normal animals are priced according to how much it costs to produce them, and retailers are in fact willing to pay a bit more for CBB animals from a reliable source than they are for sketchy CH imports.

Oh I hope I did not come off wrong.....my favorite snake out of the three I have thus far is still my normal. She is beautiful and has an amazing personality.

So no....I don't think they are undesirable....just more affordable to ppl that are not into it yet.

Now I have to say....when we went looking for my sons BP...I saw a pastel and a spider and thought..who in the world would spend that type of money on a snake. Yea...that was like 4 months ago...and a butter and a bee later. You do the $$ math there....lol

I get what your saying, not that animals are unwanted, but in reality there will be more than you can find good homes for with normals unless you are fortunate to have a few pet shops picking em up from you. I personally am going to shell out the extra to buy visuals with recessive morphs... with co-doms the het versions is cool cause you can easliy produce mulitple cool things with them, plus the super version I do want some super form codom's but that wont take away from my love for any of may animals. But I can see that with out breeding morphs to normals you will already be producing alot of normals so using morph to morph would cut down on that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by withonor

I was looking at a breeders list of '09 clutches (7 pages worth) and for 80-90% of the pairings, the females were normal. Quantity over quality?

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are breeder spossed to not breed their normals, just because they don't produce homozygous animals? all these normals are just spossed to sit there? also most of the money breeders make is off all the normals, and low dollar co-doms. yea they have some stuff that cost in the thousands of dollars but most people are buying up the lower costing stuff. its how they make money and stay afloat

I knew using the word undesirable was a strong statement and may not be taken as intended. I'm not saying that once an egg is hatched that you're going to treat them differently or not care about them. But when snakes are paired up people are hoping for something and it's usually not normals. Then I read a comment after 9 healthy eggs are laid and hatched that says, "I got bad genetic odds on that clutch." All 9 hatched and those are bad odds?

Not to be offensive but a comment like:

Quote:

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all these normals are just spossed to sit there?

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Is the reason I am asking this question. We have control here, why not exercise it.

This also stems from the fact that I don't like playing the odds. "Luck" has never been on my side.

I understand what you're saying, and I've thought about it a lot. I decided to build my breeding plans around producing the fewest number of normals as possible. It's not that I think they're undesirable or lesser snakes (my favorite will always be my normal female). I just do not trust pet stores (even the reptile specialty store in town), and I'm not entirely sure I could find local homes for all of them. If that turns out to not be the case, then great! But I'd rather spend a little more at the outset and produce fewer normals. I've modified my breeding plan to include almost entirely male recessives x het females and co-dom x co-dom pairs initially, with things getting more complicated the farther along I get.

So...yeah, that's how I'm doing things. But I don't look down on anyone who doesn't do it this way (not saying you do; I'm just commenting), especially if they don't have trouble finding good homes for their normals.

I've wondered occasionally about the status of wild-type ball pythons in the hobby. When I was first getting into BPs, I hadn't planned on getting any wild-types -- I picked up several female morphs and planned on never adding any normals. But then a friend was selling a really huge, friendly, nice-looking normal female, and ... Well ... :rolleyes:

I don't think wild-type BPs are going to go away in breeder's collections any time soon, for a number of reasons. For one, even a normal female can be hugely valuable -- and produce very few or even zero wild-type babies -- if bred to the right male. A male killerbee, for example, would produce half pastels, half bees if bred to a normal female. If that's a giant female who produces a ten-egg clutch -- that girl is a great asset!

I know that I have seen giant, 2500+ gram morph females out there, but they seem to be quite rare. I know that in chinchilla breeding, although the mutation colors can sell for more than standards, any serious breeder would shun you if you said you never planned to have standards in your herd. It's conventional wisdom that standards are "stronger" genetically than mutations, and while I seriously question if this has been overstated, there does seem to be some truth to it -- generally, the more mutation genes a baby chinchilla carries, the lower its birth weight for most litters. I wonder if it may be the same way for wild-type versus morph ball pythons.

Finally, in terms of there being an overabundance of unwanted normals ... Even if I did think that were totally true, or it becomes true in the future, I don't think that it's indiscriminate breeding that will cause it. I think it would be more due to the 1000's of CH babies that are being imported each year and sold for $8-12 a head. :rolleyes: And there, you have to think, if people weren't buying 'em, other people wouldn't be expending all the time and effort and money to import them ... So somebody must be buying normals. :P

And, as if I haven't rambled enough, I'll say one more thing: I have yet to experience it firsthand, so I'm not gonna pretend to be preaching from experience, but I have a strong suspicion that carefully selected wild-type animals can be very useful in altering and improving your morphs over future generations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serpent_Nirvana

And, as if I haven't rambled enough, I'll say one more thing: I have yet to experience it firsthand, so I'm not gonna pretend to be preaching from experience, but I have a strong suspicion that carefully selected wild-type animals can be very useful in altering and improving your morphs over future generations.

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Actually, this has indeed been shown to be the case. Grant Whitmer of lavenderalbino.com found that the darkest normals/hets produced Lavender Albinos with the brightest shades of purple. I'd be willing to bet someone has crossed Pastels with light-colored normals to produce Even Better Pastels(TM).

You're using the term Homozygous wrong.

Homozygous includes normals without any other traits, all homozygous co-dominant traits, and all homozygous recessive traits.
All traits can be homozygous.

Heterozygous co-dominant traits are visible. Heterozygous recessive are non-visible.

Also, normals are not undesired. Most people who want a ball python for a pet don't want to pay a couple hundred dollars for it. And when they find they can get them so inexpensively from a breeder, they sell out faster than Petco.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eventide

Actually, this has indeed been shown to be the case. Grant Whitmer of lavenderalbino.com found that the darkest normals/hets produced Lavender Albinos with the brightest shades of purple. I'd be willing to bet someone has crossed Pastels with light-colored normals to produce Even Better Pastels(TM).

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I have a reduced normal female who will be fantastic for morphs. I also have a very nice normal male with a spider-like pattern who would make some wicked spiders. :gj:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eventide

Actually, this has indeed been shown to be the case. Grant Whitmer of lavenderalbino.com found that the darkest normals/hets produced Lavender Albinos with the brightest shades of purple. I'd be willing to bet someone has crossed Pastels with light-colored normals to produce Even Better Pastels(TM).

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http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...ston/Winny.jpg

plus

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...e/IMG_5169.jpg

equals

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...DSC_0160-1.jpg

And normal females will always be important in a breeder's collection, especially when you need to figure out EXACTLY what genes are mixed up in the multi-gene combos. Breed the male with 3+ genes in it to find out exactly what genes contributed to that combination. How do you think the big guys end up working out what's in the 4+ combos?

Eventide....if you ever need help with getting rid of normals...let me know. ;)

And see I knew we were meant to be friends...our favs are still our normals.
We so need to have lunch sometime!

Thanks for all the great information in regards to breeding and the importance of normals. I definately appreciate all the different view points in this thread and am glad to see that a couple people have had similar thoughts.

personally my favorite bp in my collection is a LTC captive normal.

But as people have said already your thought of morph x morph is better in some way isn't true, as many normals will provide a great base if you pick intelligently. For example in my own collection I'd rather outcross with quality normal animals than inbreed a morph into a depression. Besides trying to steer away from inbreeding, I think selective breeding with choice normals as a base is important for a good morph. Plus normals are so variable and amazing...

People are seriously 'into' the morphs right now, and have only touched the surface of what is possible with normals.

NERD has some line-bred high yellow normals. This is a start. Through selective breeding we can produce some truly SPECTACULAR looking animals that will not have a single mutant gene in them. It just takes time.

Working with line-breeding of normals is something I fully intend to do once I'm established in about 3 or 4 more years. Being able to produce normals that are consistantly near-black, or consistantly bright yellow, consistantly desert pale...imagine what those lines could do when mixed in with various morphs over time. It's well worth it!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blackcrystal22

I have a reduced normal female who will be fantastic for morphs. I also have a very nice normal male with a spider-like pattern who would make some wicked spiders. :gj:

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Oooooh, sounds cool! You'll have to show us how they turn out!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rabernet

[images]

And normal females will always be important in a breeder's collection, especially when you need to figure out EXACTLY what genes are mixed up in the multi-gene combos. Breed the male with 3+ genes in it to find out exactly what genes contributed to that combination. How do you think the big guys end up working out what's in the 4+ combos?

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Wowzers! The top Pastel is gorgeous on his own, but the offspring is even more fantastic! Nice!

Good point with the multi-gene combos.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BPelizabeth

Eventide....if you ever need help with getting rid of normals...let me know. ;)

And see I knew we were meant to be friends...our favs are still our normals.
We so need to have lunch sometime!

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Hee hee, sure thing! ;)

And yes, we do! It'd be great to talk snake obsession sometime! :D

My normal is my favorite out of my three snakes. She is the nicest pattern and personality, plus she was my first snake. I really do believe that once i start getting her up to a reasonable weight, she will be a great addition to my breeding plans. Plus once i get a Bumblebee, she will help me out singleing out all the genes.

Actually, i believe if you had 2 het recessives you could have a 1 in 4 chance of getting the homozygous form.
But from working with some of the big breeders it seems the common way to produce, is a male visual to a female het. And they just deal with the 50% odds and worst case produce more hets. I believe its more economical for them this way.

I just got rid of a bunch of my normals to make room for more morphs... I figure why spend $75 or so per year on rats for a ball python that will make me less than that in babies each year?

It costs as much to feed a normal as it does a quadruple morph. I have limited space for snakes and rats, so my collection is forced to stay small so little choice but to phase out my normals.

I can see the rationale for keeping normals if you have the space. You buy a $20,000 male of a new dom/co-dom morph...you want to be able to put him to as many females as possible to try and recoup your funds ASAP (before the annual co-dom/dom price drop kills you). 8 big female normals could get you 25+ morph babies to sell. Even with a price drop to $2000 ea you make your money back and then some.

First I am going to say I have not read every post on this thread but I do have to state my mind here.

The biggest reason why you should NOT only breed homo to homo is because that would lead very quickly to no out crossing which reults in huge amounts of kinked babies which results in them being put down if they are that bad.

I totally disagree with only breeding homo to homo for those reasons as well as the simple fact that normals are what sell the easiest. I bring 1 pied and 10 normals to the local reptile shop and they will buy the normal and turn their nose up at the pied because their customers can not buy the pied. It is pretty simple really to figure out that normals will not go out of style ever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ladywhipple02

I agree with you, to a point.

Personally, my goal is to get awareness out there.

Every one of my friends and even coworkers knows that I keep and will soon breed ball pythons. Most are curious and ask about the snakes. A few have even asked about getting one someday.

And these people aren't interested in getting a $300 animal...they just want something that they can enjoy.

If I can get awareness out that these are gentle creatures and that they make good pets---while also educating about how to keep them---then those normals that I produce will go to good homes, and I will also be helping spread the entire hobby.

I think most people here at the forum would like to see the knowledge spread, until, at some point, having a ball python is just as accepted as having a cat or dog.


Here's where I agree with you: once these animals start becoming more mainstream, you're going to see the same issues you already see with cats and dogs, i.e. too many animals that end up unwanted and left behind.

It's a fine line to tread. So far, the hobby seems to be growing slowly, so hopefully we can build a decent infrastructure of education before it gets out of hand.

---

These animals will never "become more mainstream" I'll bet the farm on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike@OutbackReptiles

I just got rid of a bunch of my normals to make room for more morphs... I figure why spend $75 or so per year on rats for a ball python that will make me less than that in babies each year?

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So from what you just said when I sell 3 normal males at $25 each that does not equal 75?

Sorry to be rude but your wording could have been better. You could have compared that normal to any morph and it would have been a lot better wording.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tattlife2001

The biggest reason why you should NOT only breed homo to homo is because that would lead very quickly to no out crossing which reults in huge amounts of kinked babies which results in them being put down if they are that bad.

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OK - I'm a huge fan of normals, the normals in my collection are some of my favorites. But your theory makes no sense. If I have a mojave male from Breeder X and a mojave female from Breeder Y, I've just outcrossed the bloodline. Neither mojave shares common parentage.

If I breed a pinstripe to a black pastel, I've just outcrossed the bloodline.

Why would you assume that those breeding homozygous animals to homozygous aren't acquiring animals from different and diversified bloodlines?

I would have to go look, but I believe someone once shared the statistic that cornsnakes have been line bred for up to 10 generations with no marked increase in genetic defects.

Genetic defects like kinking in caramels or wobbling in spiders appear to be linked to certain morphs, not from line breeding.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike@OutbackReptiles

I just got rid of a bunch of my normals to make room for more morphs... I figure why spend $75 or so per year on rats for a ball python that will make me less than that in babies each year?

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If you breed that normal female to a double or triple combo, she's more than earned her keep in offspring.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rabernet

OK - I'm a huge fan of normals, the normals in my collection are some of my favorites. But your theory makes no sense. If I have a mojave male from Breeder X and a mojave female from Breeder Y, I've just outcrossed the bloodline. Neither mojave shares common parentage.

If I breed a pinstripe to a black pastel, I've just outcrossed the bloodline.

Why would you assume that those breeding homozygous animals to homozygous aren't acquiring animals from different and diversified bloodlines?

I would have to go look, but I believe someone once shared the statistic that cornsnakes have been line bred for up to 10 generations with no marked increase in genetic defects.

Genetic defects like kinking in caramels or wobbling in spiders appear to be linked to certain morphs, not from line breeding.

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You are correct but the way it is stated a mojo is not the homo form. So you would only be breeding supers to supers and so on which any crossing would lead to something that is not a super so you could not breed that because all you breed is a homo animal not hets or normals.

My whole point is that if you only breed homo to homo that would mean no more recessive traits because as soon as you cross that the next generation that would be bred would in fact create normals. Very quickly line x of albino and line y become the same so when line z is bred to it you no longer have anywhere to out cross.

I do know that all morphs started with one animal from the wild and they were bred and then line breeding was done but then out crossing was done to normals. When most of us here on this sit get that first pastel or albino or anything we line breed to make more of them but if we are smart we then out breed to make for stronger genetics.

Also according to the way it is wording in the OP a pastel would not be bred because you would produce normals so only a super pastel would be bred. Spiders and all other dom traits would not be bred at all because they too create normals. So from this we lose all co-dom traits, all dom traits and are left with the recessive traits that will very quickly be inbred and they will start to produce more and more genetic deformities. There would be no combo morphs at all because they too create normals unless you have something such as the panda pied that will make cinnis het pied and only that but then you are left with animals that make more normals.

I took this in a literal way. Exactly as it was posted. If I took this wrong please let me know but that is how it is worded. Basically why breed anything that is going to make more normals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike@OutbackReptiles

I just got rid of a bunch of my normals to make room for more morphs... I figure why spend $75 or so per year on rats for a ball python that will make me less than that in babies each year?

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Well, it's simple...she'll make you a lot more than that in babies each year. Unless you're breeding a normal male to her, in which case you may only get $150, which is still twice what you stated. Unless she's laying 3 egg clutches, but if that's the case, you bred her too small. <lol> Or maybe you mysteriously got 6 males and decided to wholesale them, I guess you'd only get $48.

But if, like most of the folks here, you paired a morph to your normal female, the minimum you would expect to get would be $249--if all the offspring turned up male, and you wholesaled the normals. That's from a normal 6 egg clutch. So not only did the female pay for her food for the year, she paid her purchase price, too--just in the very first year.

Now, if you were to pair her with something nicer than a yellowbelly or pastel, you could expect to get a whole lot more. Pair her with any co-dom, and half the clutch will be co-doms, remember? That's 3 morphs, and 3 normals, on average. Estimating next year's Lesser Platinum prices, you could expect to get $960 for the clutch, assuming an average split and $20 price tag for the normals, which is what most of us are charging (and getting). That buys some seriously gourmet rats.

So, don't knock the normal girls. For an investment of $200 and a few rats, and an introduction to a nice boy, you can make over $900.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tattlife2001

So from what you just said when I sell 3 normal males at $25 each that does not equal 75?

Sorry to be rude but your wording could have been better. You could have compared that normal to any morph and it would have been a lot better wording.

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I was at one show this year and normals were going for 1 for $12 or 2 for $20.(Males or females).
Sooo many BPs at the shows now. My brother who breeds Beardies laughed and said they should just have a BP show .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rabernet

If you breed that normal female to a double or triple combo, she's more than earned her keep in offspring.

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But i'd rather breed that combo to another morph or combo :) I don't want to keep tons of snakes so I'm making my choices count.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Well, it's simple...she'll make you a lot more than that in babies each year. Unless you're breeding a normal male to her, in which case you may only get $150, which is still twice what you stated. Unless she's laying 3 egg clutches, but if that's the case, you bred her too small. <lol> Or maybe you mysteriously got 6 males and decided to wholesale them, I guess you'd only get $48.

But if, like most of the folks here, you paired a morph to your normal female, the minimum you would expect to get would be $249--if all the offspring turned up male, and you wholesaled the normals. That's from a normal 6 egg clutch. So not only did the female pay for her food for the year, she paid her purchase price, too--just in the very first year.

Now, if you were to pair her with something nicer than a yellowbelly or pastel, you could expect to get a whole lot more. Pair her with any co-dom, and half the clutch will be co-doms, remember? That's 3 morphs, and 3 normals, on average. Estimating next year's Lesser Platinum prices, you could expect to get $960 for the clutch, assuming an average split and $20 price tag for the normals, which is what most of us are charging (and getting). That buys some seriously gourmet rats.

So, don't knock the normal girls. For an investment of $200 and a few rats, and an introduction to a nice boy, you can make over $900.

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This is all true, but again i want to keep my collection smaller (less than 50) so i'm making my snakes count for a little more. I'd rather have a bunch of morph females taking up space than normals in the long run.