Dilemma male or female to start

I'm finally in a stage of my life where I can realize my dream raising an breeding reptiles. Im want to get into ball pythons as bp morphs is what attracted me to reptiles in the first place.


Now I have set out about 800$ to get start. This is gonna include all the initial equipment at the animals.
I'm not expecting to even break even for at least 2-3 years but I want to get start in the right way and make decision that will lead to me making profit in the future. For now I just want to gain experience raising the animals but I want to make sure the animals I pick will not be worthless or make worthless babies 2-3 years down the road.


As for what morph i want to see in my cages, I like every single morphs tbh and I don't really have one morph specially that I want to go after. So I figure I would start with the basics pastel mojave spider etc that I can build up towards more impressive morphs.


Im going to drop $350 on 4 tub rack from RBI and thermostat. That leaves me with $450 to buy the actual animals.

From my research the consensus seems to be that if I want to work to co dominat/dominant to start with male and if I want to work wth recessive start with females.

Since I want to play around with codom genes I'm thinking I need to start with a male?
I found some people selling proven male bumblebee from 09 for around $200
is it a good idea to start with an older male? I'm thinking of picking up an older proven male for cheap and than pick up 1 or 2 older normal female so in the best case scenario I can breed as early as next year. The males is already ready I just need to get the normal females up to size. Not to mention I will have $100 or so left for rodents and misc stuff I might neeed

am I oversimplifying everything? I keep on thinking that $200 for a bumblebee sounds too good to be true. Or I'm looking at this the wrong way. Any suggestion for this noob is greatly appreciate

Female is always the best choice to start with in my opinion


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Originally Posted by Solarsoldier001

Female is always the best choice to start with in my opinion

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I agree.

The way I look at it is - build up your female(s) first and then invest in a male. Your females take longer to reach sexual maturity and breeding size. Your typical female breeders should be (this is a 'general' rule) 1500+ grams, 18 months old or have had 3 winters, while males can breed as early as 6 months old in some cases.

I see a lot of people that get into the hobby and end up having a 'male heavy' collection due to good deals and variation in price with males vs females in single and double gene animals. IMO Its always better to be heavy on the female side as 1 male can breed with many females.

Also never plan.on breaking even or making money lol!

I prefer starting with babies and raising them up on my own. Always start with the females first and add males later on.

definitely females first. You want to try to produce quality animals at a rate you can handle not just buy the cheapest codom male and a bunch of normal females. That will produce the most snakes for you but they will probably be low quality and harder to sell at a decent price. So you will have to sell cheap just to move them or the feed bills and maintenance of the hatchlings will eat up any profits you hoped to make. Also the more hatchlings you produce the bigger you hatchling rack and incubator will need to be. One four tub rack is not going to house any hatchlings.

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Originally Posted by snake8myelbo

Also never plan.on breaking even or making money lol!

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I'm pretty sure if people never planned on this the industry would be a lot less lucrative than it has been for many.

To address the author from a similar situation. I would have to agree with everyone else, starting females first is the way to go to begin with if you plan on breeding. Main reason being your male is useless until you have females of proper breeding weight and health. This can usually take 1.5-3 years on average, that's my opinion. In this time that means if you go with all females and no males you are not going to be feeding an extra mouth for longer than you need to(save money here). Secondly it means that the market value of the particular morph will depreciate in value over the next season or two, due to more and more of the general public producing them.

Recessive or dom/codom I don't see a benefit to starting males.

P.S.

The 350 you think you're spending on the rack is going to be more than you think, try closer to 450-500. I'm not 100% sure about what your deal includes shipping, heat installation(flexwatt, tape, clips, cords), thermostat(can cost a good deal, mine was $350), the tubs themselves, hides, thermometers, water dishes, substrate. I thought I was good on just the rack materials that I used for building which was 250, then after I added all that stuff on it ended being close to $700.

Just some things to keep in mind. As well as shopping costs on snakes.

Im starting out also and I agree with everyone else get females first. try to get a 2 gene female so if you get a different 1 gene male you will be able to end up with 3 gene babies as opposed to a one or two gene that you would have origninally gotten. Or you can also save up while you get your female big enough and end up getting a 2 gene male and try to hit for a 4 gene baby.

I'm in the same boat as you just starting out! What makes most sense is loading up on females! So far I've got two HIGH quality hatchling females a Pastel and a Pinstripe! So far I've spent under $500 dollars on snakes, caging and feeders. I'm planning on waiting to get a Male until my girls are both around 900 grams (Both at 150 now) No sense in paying for extra feeders until my ladies are almost ready! I'm going to be adding 3 more females this spring. And I feel like I can add three more babies build a 7 level rack and stay under $800. $1300 Investment until getting any Males under budget is my goal, then spend $700 on the boys! If you plan on doing a small 2.5 breeding colony this seems the best way to do it! Yet I don't care if I make any money I just want to produce what I like!

MALES=== Mystic****Bumblebee het.Pied

Females== Pastel**Pinstripe**Mojave**Cinnamon** Het.Pied

Knowing breeders can help on snake prices also :)

Pretty good advice so far. I too would definitely go with a female or females first. Due to the time needed to raise them up and get to sexual maturity, it is an easy choice if you are going to breed them. Males only have to reach a third of the female's weight before he can reproduce. Good luck!

I agree with everything said above.
Females first!
Though I wait 2 winters and not 3 to start breeding them.
Getting a male first is a little pointless because you have an extra mouth to feed, house, and clean after.
You would still have to wait for that female to grow up (lets say 2 years). So within that 2 years, you have a male and female(s) to take care. Yes it's not difficult, but you can save time and money not housing that male for at least a year.
I say buy a male when your female is at least 500-800 grams. Plus by then, male prices would probably drop.
Also, someone mentioned breeding a 2 gene female to a single gene male. Unless the single gene male is a high dollar or uncommon morph, you want to breed that female to a snake equal to or better than her. (2+ gene males)

Anyway, with that said, I also recommend investing in multi gened animals. They are better in the long run and will save you time, space, and money. For example, instead of having a pastel and spider, you can get a bumble bee. That's half the work, time, and money. It adds up in the long run.
And multigened animals means less chances of normals in a clutch.

Thanks everyone for the input. I'm starting small, my goal right now is to have a 1.3 colony to start hence why i bough the 4 tub rack for now. You can buy dividers from RBI for their rack/tubs so I'm thinking i will divide up the tubs for now to raise my starters in there till they grow big enough than I will remove the divide. The baby rack can come later when I'm able to finally breed.

Recalculating every I definitely underestimate the enclosure side of things. the rack itself comes with heating and tubs already but since i live in Canada I will most likely be hit with tax and duty when i bring the rack across the border. I skimp on thermostat and just got a cheap $30 one from amazon for now, with my budget I don't think I will have more than one snake for a couple on months I figure a good thermostat can wait till i have at least 2-3 animals in the collection.

So I'm estimating around 400-450$ on the caging and equipment that leaves me with 350-400$ for the snake. I'm thinking of looking for a bumblebee female to start, seems to be the cheapest multigen right now.

I would Raise that girl up for a few months at which time I should be able to throw down another 500$ or so for another multigen girl and than go from there

How does my plan sound? Am I missing something glaringly obvious before I order the equipments and get my hands dirty

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Originally Posted by threezero

Thanks everyone for the input. I'm starting small, my goal right now is to have a 1.3 colony to start hence why i bough the 4 tub rack for now. You can buy dividers from RBI for their rack/tubs so I'm thinking i will divide up the tubs for now to raise my starters in there till they grow big enough than I will remove the divide. The baby rack can come later when I'm able to finally breed.

Recalculating every I definitely underestimate the enclosure side of things. the rack itself comes with heating and tubs already but since i live in Canada I will most likely be hit with tax and duty when i bring the rack across the border. I skimp on thermostat and just got a cheap $30 one from amazon for now, with my budget I don't think I will have more than one snake for a couple on months I figure a good thermostat can wait till i have at least 2-3 animals in the collection.

So I'm estimating around 400-450$ on the caging and equipment that leaves me with 350-400$ for the snake. I'm thinking of looking for a bumblebee female to start, seems to be the cheapest multigen right now.

I would Raise that girl up for a few months at which time I should be able to throw down another 500$ or so for another multigen girl and than go from there

How does my plan sound? Am I missing something glaringly obvious before I order the equipments and get my hands dirty

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Sounds ok. I would recommend just getting your whole rack and tubs set up first, finish that and then see how much money you have left over before you start planning ahead. I know I do that and it makes time seem like forever. The best thing keep ball-pythons has taught me so far is planning and efficiency. There is always work to be done in the mean time rather than obsessing about balls, do the work and results will come much sooner.

If you want to start with a male bee and normal breeder females that is fine in my eyes, you have to start somewhere. At the same time tho you will end up with babies fast and will need somewhere to house them so that means buying or building a hatchling rack and buying a new t stat for that rack.

I think you just need to sit back, drink a beverage of your choice and add up the expenses going the route you originally posted. It will cost twice as much as your initial guess due to needing another rack and stat. Best of luck, don't rush into it or you will probably not like the outcome...

I agree with the females first. Like its been said its super easy to get a male heavy group because of the price of males most of the time.

I'm not sure how much bees go for in Canada, but in the US I haven't seen good quality bee females under $500-500.

I also agree with getting the rack setup first and go from there. The last thing you want is to get the snake and have a malfunction or can't get the temps straight and the animal suffer or die because of it.


Just my $.02

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Originally Posted by threezero

Thanks everyone for the input. I'm starting small, my goal right now is to have a 1.3 colony to start hence why i bough the 4 tub rack for now. You can buy dividers from RBI for their rack/tubs so I'm thinking i will divide up the tubs for now to raise my starters in there till they grow big enough than I will remove the divide. The baby rack can come later when I'm able to finally breed.

Recalculating every I definitely underestimate the enclosure side of things. the rack itself comes with heating and tubs already but since i live in Canada I will most likely be hit with tax and duty when i bring the rack across the border. I skimp on thermostat and just got a cheap $30 one from amazon for now, with my budget I don't think I will have more than one snake for a couple on months I figure a good thermostat can wait till i have at least 2-3 animals in the collection.

So I'm estimating around 400-450$ on the caging and equipment that leaves me with 350-400$ for the snake. I'm thinking of looking for a bumblebee female to start, seems to be the cheapest multigen right now.

I would Raise that girl up for a few months at which time I should be able to throw down another 500$ or so for another multigen girl and than go from there

How does my plan sound? Am I missing something glaringly obvious before I order the equipments and get my hands dirty

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You should build your own racks for now. Much cheaper and would allow you to purchase a good thermostat.

when starting on a low budget to purchase the snakes. you need to get something that's going to help you build a collection of female morphs. my opinion would be something like. buy females. maybe a few pastels and a few normals. raise them up some and then buy a male bee as you were thinking of a bee anyway or killerbee depending on the price in a year or two. the normals you can get fairly cheap even with some size to them. when you breed your male to them, you can produce:

with the male bee to female pastel,
killerbees
bees
superpastels
pastels
spiders
normals

with the male bee to a normal female
bees
spider
pastels
normals

with a killerbee male to a pastel female,
sames as the bee without any normals or spiders

male killerbee to a normal female,
bees
pastels
no normal or spiders

bee = bumble bee

you can make many morphs with these combos, holdback ones you want and trade for morphs you don't have
it's a start, you need to build a base of morph females with size so when you want a combo male that's more than you would like to spend on a single snake, you at least have females to support it.
good luck with your decision, this was just an example and I hope it helps some. don

Thanks again everyone.

So I just ordered my rack. With the money left I could either buy one bumblebee female or I could buy say 2-3 pastel/normal females.

Since I'm aiming for quality not quantity right now(aiming at a 1.3 breeding colony here) should I just buy the bumblebee female or should I diversify?

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Originally Posted by threezero

Thanks again everyone.

So I just ordered my rack. With the money left I could either buy one bumblebee female or I could buy say 2-3 pastel/normal females.

Since I'm aiming for quality not quantity right now(aiming at a 1.3 breeding colony here) should I just buy the bumblebee female or should I diversify?

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I would honestly say get what you like looking at the best cause it's gonna be your pet for the next two years. I recommend the bumblebee female if that's what you like, then which ever morph male you get for her a year down the line(preferably a 2 gene) will give you crazy odds at cool morphs with less chance of normals. If it were me I would rather produce morphs of 1-4 genes on my first go rather than say any male to 2 pastel females.

I would also advocate getting females first.

I would say you should try for a 2 gene animal. The female bumblebee sounds great.




I noticed you joined in 2006 but have not mentioned any animals that you currently own. If I glazed over something, apologies. Are you just 'diving in' or do you have experience with ball pythons? Maybe you should get one as a pet for a while before deciding you're going to breed them. It's a lot of work from what I hear around here and it is not guaranteed to 'pay off.'