Must have morphs for beginners?

Hey everyone,

After owning a male normal and a male pastel for the last four years I've decided I'd like to get into breeding within the next few seasons and I'm currently starting to look around for different morphs. That said, I come to all of you seasoned vets for some advice. What do you consider to be some "must haves" morphs for a beginner that's just getting into the world of breeding? Also, what's everyone's thoughts on male:female ratio and if certain genetics are better to get in males or females (ex: it's better to get het females and visually recessive males because... *blank*). Hope all that makes sense and I look forward to any advice you're willing to share. Thanks!


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enchi, mojave, yellowbelly, lesser/butter are all good base morphs to make other combo's from.
In general I don't go by how many males to how many females.
I think up projects and get the ingredients to make the combo's I want to make.

It all depends on what you like. I based my collection on stuff i like, not what morphs are "must haves".

I agree with jerry, i decide on projects i like and get the ingredients for it. I have a master list of lots of combos i'd like to produce and morphs i like and i just kinda base my purchases off of that. Once my males are to size i'll be shooting to hatch some 3 gene females to holdback and selling most of the rest of the babies. Whatever i sell will just be put towards buying more stuff thats on my master list lol.

I would use the "common sense" approach. Buy what "YOU" like with what you can afford.

Thanks for the advice


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I'm not a breeder (yet), but agree with the others. Get what YOU like. If there's someting you like but can't afford, get the ingredients to make it. If you want multi-gene animals males generally run cheaper than females, but if you want to spend the money on females, go for it! As for ratios... some may say keep more females than males because males can breed more than females, and that's true. But again, go for what you like and what will work for your plans.

I understand it comes down to what I like. I was hoping to get opinions and some discussion going between breeders giving their input about what they collected as beginners and why. I thought that would be interesting and was hoping to get a little more discussion beyond "get what you like".


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Oh ok. Well what's your budget like for these morphs? How much room do you have for them? I'll tell you what i'd get then

To learn the ropes this season I wanted nice but AFFORDABLE snakes so the plan is pretty simple. I picked up a male super pastel to put with 2 normal females giving me only pastel babies. NO confusion. And a pair of Mojave. Same deal. No mixed clutch and a nice morph. The biggest expense will be the breeder size female Mojave. I expect she will be $6-700 with the rest of the group being about the same. I'd like to think I can make enough to cover the food bill this season and if I hit BEL I win! I went this way to protect against a dud male and have multiple clutches in case of operator error!

I honestly have no idea because I have never bred, but I have been thinking about it a lot. I decided that a good place to start would be to get some baby female colour morphs. I ideally wanted to start with a butter or lesser, because I love the look of them, but was offered a pewter (cinny pastel) at a great price and couldn't turn it down. I figured with a couple of colour morph females I could get some pattern morph or pattern/colour morph males. I was thinking in a year I would get a bumblebee male to put to my pewter when she is old enough, I love the combos that come from that pairing. I could play on this all day: http://www.worldofballpythons.com/wizard/

I think the idea is to have females with fewer morph genes and get the multi gene morphs in the males, since you can put him to more than one female.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Oh ok. Well what's your budget like for these morphs? How much room do you have for them? I'll tell you what i'd get then

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My budget over the next six months would be between $2-3k. As far as room available I will be housing them in a rack system (most likely DIY so I can house multiple sized tubs in one system).


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You've got a pastel, that's a good start. Get some large normal females and get started breeding. You're personal 'must have' list will change several times as you get more into it. My personal must haves are cinnamons, hypomelanistics, enchi's, Lessers, pinstripes and clowns because there are so many ways you can mix and match these. But I have several morphs that I like as well and several others that I hope to acquire in the future.

Well on that topic, you can see in my signature what I have. I got the pastave because she is gorgeous. I got the Mojave with her, because I could breed then together and get a bel. I got the cinnamon to bed to the Mojave to get savannah Mojave. The normal came with the cinnamon, and is a great pet. If I ever decide to get into pied, he's Hey too. I got the axanthics because I like them, and wanted to combine it with other morphs, like my Mojave. got the orange ghost and honeybee to breed to the axanthics to eventually make true ghosts (axanthic and hypo). if I do get into pied, I'll breed the axanthic into it to make lightning pied. May eventually go beyond that, but those are my initial plans. These morphs by themselves weren't excessively expensive, so I could justify getting them, and feel comfortable spending that money.

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Well on that topic, you can see in my signature what I have. I got the pastave because she is gorgeous. I got the Mojave with her, because I could breed then together and get a bel. I got the cinnamon to bed to the Mojave to get savannah Mojave. The normal came with the cinnamon, and is a great pet. If I ever decide to get into pied, he's Hey too. I got the axanthics because I like them, and wanted to combine it with other morphs, like my Mojave. got the orange ghost and honeybee to breed to the axanthics to eventually make true ghosts (axanthic and hypo). if I do get into pied, I'll breed the axanthic into it to make lightning pied. May eventually go beyond that, but those are my initial plans. These morphs by themselves weren't excessively expensive, so I could justify getting them, and feel comfortable spending that money.

Oh yeahand to add what I already said I got a honey bee instead of 2 orange ghost because I would like to breed axanthic spiders too. The honeybee give me the spider to add to the axanthic.

"fire, fire, fire" -beavis voice.

To be fair, there's a lot to said for getting something you like, but I know you're asking for more than that ;).

I think a fair bit of window shopping is in order for you. You have a respectable budget and there's no reason to limit yourself to more common morphs. The mechanics are the same regardless of genetics, so you don't need a "beginner" morph.

I personally love the recessive genes, so I would lean toward perhaps a nice female het with a dom/codom gene and a visual male (possibly with extra gene as well) for the most bang for your buck.

Thanks everyone. This is much more along the lines of what I was hoping for. Shopping around is definitely on the agenda. I have three local shows coming up between now and January. The two animals I'm really excited about would be a pied male and an albino female, but I'm thinking I'd get a better "bang for the buck" passing on the pied male and looking for some other multi-gene animals. I'll keep everyone updated :)


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I like dominant morphs for starting out it gurantees better odds of making money when bred to a normal and if you already have a pastel they can mix with them and you can make some nice profit with some pastel combos. Pinstripe, spider and champagne are some good starters.

Other good starters are... Mojave, Lesser, Butter, black pastel, cinnamon, albino, enchi, caramel, Axanthic you can find good examples of these morphs for relatively 400 dollars and under. Id like to give personal advice on one thing pick your females out first and build your males off your females getting your females first also benefits because they take longer to grow out for breeding.