Starters for a super pastel male?

I apologize if I'm in the wrong section of the forum; though this does involve morphs I put it here because I'd like the business side of things to be considered as well, in terms of a future breeding plan.

So far I have a 2012 male super pastel, which I adore. I've been researching breeding as a hobby for some time now. Since I have a good year or so to start up, I wanted to get a head start on some girls to pair him with. As far as morphs go, I've been looking at mojaves, butters, pins, and pieds. I've been considering mojaves and butters because there's a chance to get a BEL, which is awesome. On their own with the super pastel is get at least pastels, pastaves, and butter pastels which are cool too. I don't particularly care for fires, but I'd definitely take them into consideration for fireflies. Ideally I'd love to produce pastel pieds, but that'd require at least two pieds for a visible baby; and that'd be counting on there being the right sex to pair with the second pied- which may not produce pastel pies anyway (at 25% chance).

Would it make better sense to start off with a couple of lower priced (morph, not quality) females and wait for the pieds to drop in price? Or should I start investing from the get-go for the bigger payoff? I do want to add that I'm a beginner breeder, and that while I'd like to be fiscally sensible, I fully understand that breeding is not easy money, and the snakes always come first. Please let me know if I'm going about this all wrong as well. If you have a better starting strategy, I'm all ears!

So if an ideal "startup package" was 1.3 with a super pastel male, what would you choose for the 3? I might not end up with that many to begin with, but at least I'd have a plan laid out for future prospects.

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Originally Posted by Chkadii

I don't particularly care for fires....

So if an ideal "startup package" was 1.3 with a super pastel male, what would you choose for the 3? I might not end up with that many to begin with, but at least I'd have a plan laid out for future prospects.

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must... change... mind... !!!

http://i839.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/DSC03838.jpg

Seriously though, pick some females you like and would like to see combined with the pastel gene. There's always the possibility of you not being able to sell the offspring, in which case it's better to be "stuck" with stuff you like in my opinion! I personally love fire and don't see any future projects of mine that don't incorporate the gene one way or another but to each their own. If we all liked the same thing there wouldn't be such crazy cool variety out there from which to choose.

http://i839.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/DSC03864.jpg

Pick the morphs you love, because if you can't sell the babies you will be keeping and feeding them until you do, which could end up being the life of the snake. It sounds like a pied, mojave and butter females would be a good start. Your super pastel to a pied would give you all pastels het pied, hold back a male or a pair and you would have a great start to pastel pieds! Multi genes are always a good idea if you can afford them because it opens up what you can make. It really depends on what you are willing to spend, but whatever you do, pick the best example of the morph your looking at.

If you're going to invest big bucks in a young female, it makes more financial sense to ditch the super pastel male and invest in a stronger financial investment than a super pastel as well.

That said, IF it's a top notch super pastel, you can make some beautiful babies that will likely have some demand four years down the road by pairing him up with any of the base morphs you mentioned.

If it's a low quality super pastel, you might have trouble down the road, people have been becoming pickier and pickier in recent years about pastels and two-trait pastel combos.

Profit in breeding reptiles only comes when cost per hatchling is less than what you sell it for. Since it costs pretty much the same in housing, food, and energy to raise and breed two SPOGenchiLesserExplosionSuperDuperQuintuplefinity as it costs to raise and breed two normals, your real profit is based on how insignificant can you make raising costs relative to the investment cost of the breeders. That said, potential profit also sways with market demand, and bigger investments run a bigger risk. There's no telling if and when the pyramid of ball python breeding will stop growing at the base.

My suggestion is to pick one phenotype you're really keen on but aren't capable of buying outright at the moment, and work towards producing that. That way you stay excited about your animals, and even if you never are able to break even, you're working towards a goal you are interested in for your own enjoyment.

Get a spider and make some bee's!
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/12/09/05/adejebu2.jpg

Enchi would go with that too. :)

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The way to start if I were you is to dump that super pastel male and put your money towards a decent female and start plumping her up. It will take you a few years- unless you can afford a good sized adult/sub-adult girl.

Start collecting females. They take longer to get to breeding size (2-3 years). You can wait a year or two on males. In that time your desired male prices will drop. Why feed a higher priced male for 2 years while you fatten up your females when you can get him cheaper in a year and feed him less?

A breeder once told me this- buy some desirable females to breed for what you want. Take the lesser common denominator on your female. Here is my personal example... I want to breed Nuclear Spiders. Well... that takes a Fire/Butter/Spider. A Spider girl is the cheapest of them all, so I got a few. Then he said- never breed a lesser quality male to any female. My next purchase was a FireButter male. Next year they will all be ready to breed if all goes well. I bought sub-adult/adult females and a young male, so I will only feed each for a year before they hopefully breed.

and.... one the Fires- you really may want to consider your stance on those. They clean up anything. Here's my 0.1 FireFly and my 1.0 FireButter. Not cheap, but amazing quality.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...801_115135.jpg
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...801_115438.jpg

I personally wouldn't get rid of the super, especially if it were a snake I adored. I know a lot of people get caught up in this big race, but really, there is no finish line - just have fun!

[QUOTE=coreydelong;1911019]The way to start if I were you is to dump that super pastel male and put your money towards a decent female and start plumping her up. It will take you a few years- unless you can afford a good sized adult/sub-adult girl.

Start collecting females. They take longer to get to breeding size (2-3 years). You can wait a year or two on males. In that time your desired male prices will drop. Why feed a higher priced male for 2 years while you fatten up your females when you can get him cheaper in a year and feed him less?

A breeder once told me this- buy some desirable females to breed for what you want. Take the lesser common denominator on your female. Here is my personal example... I want to breed Nuclear Spiders. Well... that takes a Fire/Butter/Spider. A Spider girl is the cheapest of them all, so I got a few. Then he said- never breed a lesser quality male to any female. My next purchase was a FireButter male. Next year they will all be ready to breed if all goes well. I bought sub-adult/adult females and a young male, so I will only feed each for a year before they hopefully breed.

and.... one the Fires- you really may want to consider your stance on those. They clean up anything. Here's my 0.1 FireFly and my 1.0 FireButter. Not cheap, but amazing quality.




this isn't always true. :colbert:

a Cinnamon female with that super pastel male could make you some sterlings :-)

I'm a big fan of the Cinnamon, Pewter, Sterlings (and therefore pastel and super pastels mixed in)

Not the flavor of the month, but definitely pretty dang sweet looking!

I would get a cinny, fire, and lesser female. :gj:

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Originally Posted by Rawbbeh

a Cinnamon female with that super pastel male could make you some sterlings :-)

I'm a big fan of the Cinnamon, Pewter, Sterlings (and therefore pastel and super pastels mixed in)

Not the flavor of the month, but definitely pretty dang sweet looking!

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Super Pastel x Cinny will not make Sterlings!

A Sterling is a Super Pastel Cinny...

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Get what appeals to you, whether it be financially or because you like that certain snake. And be picky, they're all animals you're going to have for a bit while you grow them. If you aren't excited about the animals then what would the point be?

My personal tastes would drive me to get a honeybee, black pastel YB, and jigsaw. But that's what I'd like. If you're really into pieds I'd say go for it, recessive projects take quite a bit of extra time and the earlier you start the better. Lesser/pastel together in any combo tends to look really nice too.

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Originally Posted by John1982

must... change... mind... !!!

http://i839.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/DSC03838.jpg

Seriously though, pick some females you like and would like to see combined with the pastel gene. There's always the possibility of you not being able to sell the offspring, in which case it's better to be "stuck" with stuff you like in my opinion! I personally love fire and don't see any future projects of mine that don't incorporate the gene one way or another but to each their own. If we all liked the same thing there wouldn't be such crazy cool variety out there from which to choose.

http://i839.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/DSC03864.jpg

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Man the size difference in those fires is pretty staggering already. I know my guy is on the right, but those other two just shine!

Thank you all for your input!
I talked it over with the boyfriend, and we've decided to go with a female pied. We're hoping to order one next week, so if anyone has happened to see a promising ad for a pied, let me know!

I think the step after that will be a female Mojave (preferably older, and ideally I'd be able to start breeding next year while the pied matures) and eventually a lesser so I can shoot for a clean BEL, which is now my boyfriend's favorite morph. The mojave would be kind of a "downgrade" from the pastel-pied potential in a year from then, but I'm justifying it as giving the super pastel a shot to breed if he's up to it, and myself a chance to figure out breeding and incubating before trying it on an $800 snake. again, if this makes absolutely no sense to those of you that are in the business, I'll happily take suggestions. I dont want you to think I'm ignoring advice to stick with the top morphs I can afford, I'm just a little uncomfortable starting off with stakes that high. I'm sure some of you are laughing at my "high stakes" with your $20k snakes, but I gotta start somewhere!

However, you fire-fans have shown me the light and they'll probably be included as I expand. :) Fireflies and superflies are awesome!

Once we get the pied ball (hah) rolling, it'd be cool to expand into axanthic and albino pieds, and hopefully regular piers won't be depreciated to $50 each by then! :P

I've also taken into account the long term advice a few of you have given me regarding keeping my collection up to date with the multi-gene morphs, as well as selling off the single-gene breeders. I plan on doing that to keep the collection modest, but I don't think I'll ever sell the super pastel. He's the one that's starting it all, and if breeding ends up being a total bust at least I'll still have a cool looking pet. As a side note, I did read Mike Cavanaugh's (I hope I spelled that correctly) blog entry about breeding principles, and I'm trying to keep that in mind as I get established.

Phew, this is a big reply. I hope I covered just about everyone. It's hard to navigate and format on a phone. Thank you all again for your advice! I've been reading all these boards rabidly, and everyone seems so knowledgeable and friendly. You'll definitely be hearing from me more as time goes on!

You would be surprised at how many of us are in the same range you are, just a few years later! My most expensive snake I bought was my proven het pied girl for $500. And I agree that it is not a bad idea to try breeding with a slightly cheaper morph to get your feet wet, my first girl I bred was a normal so not very high end there! I have a normal male that was my first snake, he is useless for breeding but he is my snake that started it all, he isn't going anywhere! At least your guy will be helpful if you do get into breeding!