How do you decide what to keep?

We all love hatching out babies, seeing the eggs pip open with little heads, but there are usually more animals popping out that one would want to keep.

So the question is:

How do you decide what to keep of your hatchlings, and how many?

I'm talking personal, not general.

I think it's a personal matter, you see what hatches out, who feeds easiest/fastest and what the patterns/phases you like to continue breeding, passing down the lineage and whatnot?

I label tub's HB on the ones I want to keep.. this may be 5-6 of each morph. When I'm done hatching that particular morph I go through all the HB tubs and make a realistic decision about how many and which ones I want then I let go of the rest..

How they look and how they play into future breeding plans. If they're really cool I'd keep them regardless of whether they fit into the breeding plan or not depending on if I have the space and time to devote to them.

I know who I am going to keep as soon as I see what's insided the egg. Unlike a lot of breeders out there, I breed for me. To amke what I want to keep, not to sell to others.
My customers are an afterthought and I generally make available to them the "other stuff' from a clutch. I pair my animals to produce what I think is cool or will work nicely in my collection. I keep the cool stuff, and sell the rest. Out of 200 eggs, I'll likely hold on to maybe 15-20 animals total.

i like to keep the ones that have a diff look to them or happen to be really bright or reduced pattern. The rest is up for grabs although deep down i would really like to keep all of them.

When I get started, I'll probably breed for all the good qualities and what I think the morphs and even normals should look like. I want to make quality animals instead of just throwing any example of a morph together just to make that morph. I'm starting off with a horribly picky het pied, but hopefully I'll breed it out. My normal is just about perfect and will be once she starts taking f/t rats. And of course make projects out of anything interesting that pops up.

Oh, and like mykee, I'll be breeding for me, and just be lucky to sell what I can.

I keep what patterns I like, I also usually sex them and keep the ones of the sexes that I need. When something really nice pops out, I will keep it regardless of whether or not it will fit into plans, or is the wrong sex.

I start the season already knowing what I will keep back. For example, this year I'm going for a cinnamon mojave (savannah) and will hold back one. If I get 1.1, then I'll just keep the male and sell the female. If I get 2.0, I'll keep my favorite and sell the other. And so forth.

I used to hold back a lot, and next thing I knew I had no space for anything new! So I have to go into the season knowing what I'm hoping to produce and knowing what I want to keep back.

Before I even have all of the clutches in the incubators, I decide how many of what I am going to hold back for the season. It's important to do this, because you need to be sure you have room to house them all!

This year, I get to hold back 3 females of each morph, plus a woma-lesser male, a trio of lessers het OG, a pied male, a pied female, and 1 het pied female.

Of course, I have no guarantee I will GET that many of each of those...but if I do, they will be kept. The only deal-breaker for me is a hatchling that fails to feed readily, or a hatchling that displays remarkably bad temperament. Those will be sold with full disclosure. (Bad temperament isn't always permanent, and when a snake is really gorgeous it can be bred out over subsequent generations, but it's just not something I personally want to deal with in my collection).

Now, provided I have some choice among the holdbacks (an excess of animals that meet those criteria), I select the ones I feel are highest quality visually.

If I have multiple clutches on the way, then I pick my holdbacks from the first clutch...after the later ones hatch, if I decide there is something better in them, I will keep the better one(s) and put the others up for sale at that time.

One advantage of this is that you have some very nice animals going up for sale after they are a bit larger and have more developed color. It's generally not too difficult to sell those!

I just ask my wife and my friend the Angel and they know what I should keep and what I should let go.

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Originally Posted by Royal Morphz

I just ask my wife and my friend the Angel and they know what I should keep and what I should let go.

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I tried that.. Carrie had every tub in the room marked sell.. I think she was trying tell me something..

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

I tried that.. Carrie had every tub in the room marked sell.. I think she was trying tell me something..

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To funny Ed Liza is more of a keeper than a seller

You keep whatever doesn't sell for the price you want to get out of it.

If I let my husband decide what we keep and what we sell, we'd never sell anything. He's a sucker for a baby ANYTHING.

For me, I will hold back whatever I am trying to produce. For example, this season I was trying for pastels and spiders because I wanted to hold back a female pastel and a female spider. Neither of my girls took this season so that was a no-go.

Next season, I'm going to breed for a female pastel, female spider, a male pinstripe, a lemon blast (any sex), and hold back all 50% possible het pied females I produce.

I don't breed to sell. I breed for what I want, and sell what I don't need for future breeding purposes. Of course, if I really like a certain snake's temperament, I'll keep it. This happened with a male normal we rescued. Fell in love with him, so he stays, even though I'll never breed him.

This is a tough question but a very good one. I hold back anything that catches my eye. Any with a weird or unusual pattern. If I am shooting for a combo and produce just one I will usually hold it back. It is really hard to say.

I could say I am only holding back 10 this year but who knows what will pop out?

I try to keep at least a trio of every visual morph I produce and sell the rest.

Note to self..get to know Liza find out what she likes,,and those "ivories" will be mine.......,:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

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Originally Posted by pfan151

I try to keep at least a trio of every visual morph I produce and sell the rest.

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i like the sound of that:gj:

My very first clutch was just laid, so I can't speak from personal experience yet... but my plans are to keep one female Mojave (if he's the daddy), one female pastel, and possibly a good looking normal gal. I'm already too heavy on males, so it's all about the girls! :D If I don't get any of the above, I'll probably just keep the hottest male - have to keep one from my first clutch, right?

I'm already planning for next season most if not all my pairings are to build my collection, I already have a list of potential holdbacks. If something is super cool and wasn't part of the plan I will definitely deviate.LOL

What I keep is based on future plans and whether or not the animal is what I am looking for in a morph.

I do not keep morphs/combos just to say I have them, they must be what I consider a great example of the morph (according to my picky taste) for me to keep them.