Suggestions on Where to Start?

Hey all,

I finally got down how the genetics work. This weekend I'll probably start building a rack to prepare myself as I feel myself getting sucked into BP collecting. I like the suggestion that I should get 3 females and one male come time that I have the chance to breed them, the problem is that I'm having a hell of a time making ANY kind of decision!

I know that I'm really drawn to the minimal pattern/yellows/albino/pied/BEL animals. If I'm going to do it, I want to do it right so I figure I can get some nice starter females in the $500 range on a couple of them and I'd like to splurge on the 3rd female. After a while, once I know what I have for females I'll know what kind of male I want to produce animals that I like but I can't for the life of me make any solid decision. I know I want to do either or both pied and albino though to get 2 animals that carry the gene, let alone both to produce animals with both characteristics is going to be expensive, probably more than I should spend.

Can I get a few suggestions on what to start with and why? Like, you should get 'X' female and maybe 'Y' female because if you get 'Z' to breed with them you have the chance of producing 'XZ' and 'YZ'. I've used the calculator for hours as well as browsed every sponsor and other vendor website I can find but my knowledge is only getting me so far.

If you don't want to suggest what I should get, maybe you can share what YOU started with and why. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and if you have one or 2 females that I might be happy to buy feel free to shoot me a PM :P

Thanks in advance, so far this is a great forum with lots of helpful people and to those that I've already talked to, a big THANKS to you, you help to make this forum a great place for someone like me to learn!! :D

A lot of people go with pattern morph females and color morph males. That way, your males have a tendency to color up your entire collection when bred to all of your girls.

For your females, I'd have one with at least Enchi in her and one with at least Spider in her (no good collection is complete without a bumblebee female IMO). The third could be a toss-up based on your own tastes - Mojave would be my suggestion since you like the BELs. This would give you a solid assortment of girls to build your collection with.

For a male, I'd go with at least a two gene male - something like a Fire Lesser would go a long way towards making some hot hatchlings with any one of the females listed above and give you some nice BELs with your Mojave girl.

As for my own collection, this is pretty much the exact thought process I used. I say pretty much, because my first BP was my Butter Pastel, and she was the first morph my wife fell in love with while I was drowning her in pictures of BP morphs trying to make up my mind. :) Next came my Enchi girl, then my Sugar and Spinner Blast (my token Bumblebee with Pinstripe added in for good measure) girls came at the same time. And, since my wife wants a Butterfly, my male (one of my males?) will have at least Fire in him. A lot of people suggested I get a Firefly Yellow Belly to pair up with my girls. Since I have two girls with Pastel already, I'll probably get at least a Fire Yellow Belly. My dream male though is a Fire Orange Dream Yellow Belly.

Eric

Oh the can of worms you opened up!!! First of all I'd like to suggest to maybe try reposting this under the breeding section if u find your not getting enough feedback:)

Now for my suggestions! It seems we share the same interest in reduced patterns n BELs so these are some of my hopes for when I get into breeding. I have a normal female already but assuming I would get 3 girls n a sire here's my approach.

Female lesser
female fire
female ??? (Can't think of the name :/)

Male pastave (pastel/Mojave gene combo)

. every pairing gives the chance to turn out some very nice 3 gene bangers which will boast well for any future projects. I'm on my phone n can't say everything I want Cuzco connection speed but worldofballpythons has a great breeding wizard I'll post more when I get to a CPU

right on guys, just what I"m hoping to hear! I'd love to hear from more of you!

Axanthic is what I was looking for, they do great things when reduced :D

Nooo not ax :/ ohhh screw it I can't think of it

there recently was a really good link to a blog article about it.... and i dont manage to find it :(

But i remember some things....

- buy hatchlings and raise them up to breeding size.
- if you go into a specific project, buy females first, and males 1 year later. That way they get ready for breeding at roughly the same time. Otherwise you would watch the price of the male go down for a year.... better buy it later when the price has come down.
- always breed a more valuable male to less valuable females. so, breeding a lesser bee to a pastel is good, but breeding a pastel to a pastel would be a waste. Breeding albino to het albino is good, or breeding albino spider to albino is good. But breeding a male het albino to a female albino would be a waste. Even breeding albino to albino would be a waste.

ah damn, never mind. Now i finally remembered the title of the blog post and found it.

http://ballpythonbreeder.com/2012/02...thon-breeders/

its really good, aimed at people that want to go professional, but still.... doing it cost-effectively and making the maximum out of what you have isnt bad for amateurs either :)

Females- enchi, yellowbelly, lemonblast
Male- cinnamon spider

You get a nice spread of genes in there and can produce some really cool animals. You can even take it in a more 'ivory' direction after a season or two.

If I was getting 3 girls and one male, I would get a fire female, yellow belly female, and lesser female, and a smoking pastel enchi male. Whatever morphs you decide to eat, make sure they are fantastic examples. I shop the snake, not the breeder or price(to an extent) If you buy incredible looking breeders, you will produce incredible looking babies.

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Originally Posted by brobertson

Whatever morphs you decide to eat, make sure they are fantastic examples.

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I don't always eat BPs, but when I do, I make sure they're fantastic! :P Of course, you can't always judge a book by it's cover - I've had some incredible tasting normals too... :D

With cost in mind, you could actually produce some really good looking BP's. You could consider the following as well. There should be something worth holding back out of those 3 clutches. :)

Male: Lesser / Yellow Belly

Females: Mojave / yellow Belly, Firefly, Pinstripe

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Originally Posted by BigIan

I know that I'm really drawn to the minimal pattern/yellows/albino/pied/BEL animals.

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the other suggestions are also nice, but i personally wouldnt want to combine so many different codominant genes without going deep into at least one gene, or gene complex. Unless thats what you want, but when you like minimal pattern / patternless stuff, which basically means super-forms or gene complex stuff, and you like recessives, i think you need to focus more on one gene or gene complex to get there quick.

so a plan for codominant stuff could be:

male super mojave (+ another codom maybe), female lesser (for very white BELs), female mystic or phantom (for mystic potion / purple passion), and then a female with maybe some other gene you like to add to the mix, maybe a female enchi, to later hit male and female mojave enchis. or a pinstripe, since that also works well with mojave.

or a male ivory (super yellowbelly), and a female yellowbelly, female specter (for super stripe), and again some other gene to first combine with yellowbelly and later breed into ivory / super stripe.

for a recessive a plan could look like:

a male visual pied, and a female pastel het pied, a female spider het pied, and then maybe just a 100% het pied female. then you can use your own hatchlings to gradually upgrade to a male pied + extra gene, and female visual pieds.


Basically, just choose 1 plan, and go through with it as far as you can with the resources you have. And which plan that is is your personal taste. But the male and at least 2 of the 3 females, or all 3 females, should really fit into the plan you have decided on.

then, buy female hatchlings, and one year later buy a male hatchling, and the male should be more expensive than any of the females. So, females for up to 500 maximum each, and then a 750 dollar male, that would (for example) make sense.

what about the Sugar's? Not many people seem to be breeding them...

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Originally Posted by BigIan

what about the Sugar's? Not many people seem to be breeding them...

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sugar or calico is a dominant, much like spider.

so you can work them into any project and sort of have them floating around and well-represented in your collection. But its not a recessive, and there is no super form, so you cannot really focus on it or go as deep into it as you can with other genes.

enchi for example, if you really like enchi you can go extreme and end up with super enchi + extra gene males, and a bunch of super enchi females and enchi + extra gene females, and then add other genes into that really enchi-heavy mix and keep stacking more genes onto your super enchi ball pythons.

With dominants where there is no super form, you just cannot go that deep.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigIan

what about the Sugar's? Not many people seem to be breeding them...

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I love me some Sugar! Here's mine on the day I got her:
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...oxSugarF07.jpg

Calico/Sugar are very similar. I went with Sugar when I saw this girl, but I was shopping for either at the time. More people seem to have Calico, but most of the combos I have seen with either are stunning.

If I had the money, I'd go lesser/butterbee female, firefly female and for the last one, get a 1 or 2 gene visual female 100% het pied (depending on what you can afford), for example mojave or pastave het pied, etc. For the male, I'd get a 2-3 gene 100% pied, that way you still have the opportunity to hit on the pieds, but won't be 'stuck' with as many normal offspring. Eventually you can replace or add to your breeding group with your awesome holdbacks :)

Females: Lesser and Pied
Male: Leopard Mohave

With just those 3 you can make both Pieds and BEL's. If you get a Yellow Belly female down the road and breed a daughter of hers back to dad there's the potential for Ivory Pieds.