Collection Focus / Strategy

So I've been thinking a lot about adding new genes, focusing down the ones I have, etc. and trying to create more direction to my collection and breeding efforts. I think there are 2 types of breeders / collectors:

-There are some breeders out there that are kind of Pokemon style 'gotta catch em all' and every time there's a new gene they pick it up. Their collection is basically a mash up of lots of different kinds of genes and each year they just pick and choose which ones to pair up to mix up the results they get and make a wide range of combos.

-There are others who have a collection very focused around a few particular morphs. They have certain combos in mind to hold back and buy and don't travel outside of those bounds. Even when new genes come out they don't worry about picking them up and just continue doing their thing and selectively breeding and holding back for the best possible example of the few genes they do work with.

So my question here is this: What kind of breeder / collector are you? Do you have lots of mixed genes, different colors, light and dark, pattern, etc. or do you have multiple animals with the same small set of genes mixed together differently or constantly looking to hold back better examples of the morphs you do have? If you have a more 'focused' collection, what are the genes you choose to keep focused around?

I am still very early in my breeding plans (as in my breeder female is still a baby), but here is my intent:

Pairing my 0.1 Pastel with a 1.0 Cinnamon (preferably Cinnapin, if I'm honest) To make Pewters and Pewter Blasts
Getting Axanthic into the bloodline and basically trying for the most silver snakes I can manage. (This will hopefully include Super Pewters down the line.)

Since I don't anticipate going large scale with my breeding plans, these are the genes I intend to focus on until I'm basically done with the project and another gene/genes catch my eye.

(Edit: I would also like to mix Champagnes into it somewhere, to smooth out coloring and breed the bubble pattern in.)

We definitely have mixed genes but we strive to keep our numbers (animals) down as low as possible during this startup phase. A $100k snake requires the same care as a $100 one but the profit return for your work is much greater. I think a lot of people get in this to make money but then buy a ton of lower end animals only to be overwhelmed by the work involved, they then get discouraged when that work isnt bringing in much money. This would be a signal from the market to stop breeding these animals.

We have pastel, spider, enchi, lesser, clown, spotnose, OD, yellowbelly, calico, and pinstripe in our collection but all are multigenes with the exception of one. I dont want every morph out there but I do think that there is a place for every morph. Desires are infinite and resources are finite. So you have to choose what you want to work with and if your wanting to make money you need to choose what your customers are going to be interested in, sometimes you guess right, othertimes you dont.

My main breeding focus is to create a breeding pair of Pastave Pieds and create a Super Pastel Pied and Super Mojave Pied. Besides that, I want play around with the Bee pairings and prove out my normal girl for possible het Albino.

For some reason I'm attracted to the recessive gene. Later down the line I might pick up an Anxanthic to create a beautiful Anxanthic Pied.

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So far, I am only working with a few genes in my future breeding plans. There are specific morphs I am striving to get out of these pairings, and have strategically purchased animals to be able to mix and match the few genes I do work with to get several of the multi-gene animals I would really like to have in my collection. I intend to holdback only the morphs I am going to breed to obtain. However, I may also keep some really stunning babies of other morphs produced. Ergo, I am a small time breeder/collector with specific goals centering on specific morphs. While I find many other morphs appealing, I am sticking mainly to morphs that I have always really wanted that happen to produce other morphs I REALLY want. lol. i.e.: BELs, Queen Bees, Savannahs....etc.

I sat and looked at the genetics in my collection a while back and realized every single one of my animals is either a visual recessive or het for a recessive gene (except one single lesser, and she's the hubby's), even my hoggie is recessive. So I figure I'm just going to keep going on that track and start on doubles which is why I'm doing pied x axanthic this year, but overall there's a big focus on axanthics.

I think a great strategy is to pick a recessive and blend in select dom/codoms into it. Right now I'm figuring out if I want to hop on the pied wagon late in the game or get into clown which I feel will be around for a long time. In either scenario I really need to sit down with dom/codom and figure out which are the genes I would like to keep around and which are the genes I would like to get rid of.

So far I'm thinking about phasing out spider and pastel and phasing in fire, enchi, lesser as the 3 core genes to work with. I got into hypo before fire was a big thing and looking forward I see a lot of reasons fire can be a direct replacement for hypo in combos.

Interesting feedback so far - I would love to hear others chime in if they have specific themes they go for OR if you have a more diverse collection, what are your reasons and motivations for that.

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Originally Posted by MrLang

I think a great strategy is to pick a recessive and blend in select dom/codoms into it. Right now I'm figuring out if I want to hop on the pied wagon late in the game or get into clown which I feel will be around for a long time. In either scenario I really need to sit down with dom/codom and figure out which are the genes I would like to keep around and which are the genes I would like to get rid of.

So far I'm thinking about phasing out spider and pastel and phasing in fire, enchi, lesser as the 3 core genes to work with. I got into hypo before fire was a big thing and looking forward I see a lot of reasons fire can be a direct replacement for hypo in combos.

Interesting feedback so far - I would love to hear others chime in if they have specific themes they go for OR if you have a more diverse collection, what are your reasons and motivations for that.

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Interesting, you and I are thinking very similarly on the co-dom aspect. Depending on what happens with my killerbee het axanthic x pastel axanthic pairing this year, I may be done with spider and looking to add fire and enchi as well. The axanthic killerbee was my original goal animal, so I want to produce one kind of on principle, but I'll probably shift directions after that.

Ever since I bought a fire honeybee purely for looks, I've become obsessed with ghost combos and making tons of patterns in purple and orange, and watching them change colors so dramatically as they age. That kinda molded the state of my current small collection. I want to make some hypo super black pastels and hypo black pins.

Currently I'm both types.
I have genes that are being used for specific projects and some random genes that I have no concrete plans for.

My ultimate long term project is double recessive clown hypo combos. I currently feel like I have a good mix and base of those genes with my clown, pastel lesser PDH hypo clown, pastel het clown, and pastel hypo, and black pewter het hypo. I'm going to pair the clown to pastel hypo later this year for some pastel double hets.
I want to integrate my fire yellowbelly into that project as well. She's not a het, but an excellent example of her morph.

I also have pet only ball pythons of whatever random genes that I have no intention to ever breed.
Then I have a few other single gened animals that I was originally going to breed together but I'm not certain I want to pursue that any more since I want to concentrate on my double het project.
Eventually, I might consider putting them to the clown or pastel hypo or a future double recessive animal to continue the theme of the project.

My main focus is on some Pied, Clown and Hypo combos but have a few side projects as well Orange Dream, Coral Glow and Mystic combos.

There are a lot of things out there that I like however I work alone with my snakes and the snake room is only 400 sq so I do need to stay focused and not get tempted by everything I see. ;)

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Originally Posted by Deborah

I do need to stay focused and not get tempted by everything I see. ;)

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http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1532bf58.jpg
(Not my photo, but seemed appropriate)

I'm kinda in the same boat is Nikki. I have a whole bunch of random stuff, but I do plan on adding hypo to every project.


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Hmm... I already have a hypo, bee het hypo, and a few others that are currently for sale. I need a male lesser enchi het hypo!! Would love to produce lesser enchi hypo stuff - just as clean as can be.

I am focused on pinstripe and mojave and lesser projects...particularly the BELs...also about start projects geared towards the mahogany gene and some mystic/desert stuff as well...also got het red axanthic and cinnamon snakes to figure stuff out with as well but my main focus is the BELs complex and the mystic/desert stuff.

The two big female dinkers are just to play with really...and the random assorted other snakes are more for pets...Dums and retics specifically.

Our collection is built solely around the best quality animals that we can find in the genetics that my wife and I both love. Typically, when purchasing new animals we look at bringing in new genetics or combinations to our collection. I think of it as bringing more ingredients into the kitchen. They still have to be the best ingredients around to make the food taste good lol. I hope our collection reflects that. With 65 snakes though, we are now moving more into the breeding and self sustaining collection stage than investment stage which is very exciting.

In regards to finances, we don't look to make millions off our collection or even to have it support either of us leaving our jobs. We would like it to support itself, pay back some of our substantial personal investment, and ultimately allow some funds for reinvestment into the collection. That being said, I do a focused ROI (Return on investment) study on each new addition, more to show my wife my plans and thought process before dropping personal cash. I also do a monthly P&L (Profit and Loss statement) to show the net effect on our personal finances as well as trends in the collection being self supporting. We are nowhere near there, but it is interesting to visualize the costs most people don't think of for managing and maintaining a larger collection - i.e. food, electricity, substrate, housing, and depreciation on capital investments.

A lot of that is just spill over from my primary day job, but still fun. I also have a few snap decisions that I love, so not everything is perfectly thought out lol. I will say a recessive project is much harder to leap into (we currently have 6) since it requires a larger amount of space/holdbacks and also a longer term project so my wife and I spend a lot of time discussing these before pulling the trigger.

Here is our current genetic ingredients lol:
Arroyo, Axanthic(SK), Banana, Black Lace, Black Pastel, Calico, Cinnamon, Champagne, Clown,Enchi, Fire, Genetic Stripe, Jungle Woma, Leopard, Lesser/Butter, Mojave, Nova,Orange Dream, Orange Ghost, Pastel, Piebald, Pinstripe, Spark, Specter, Spider,Spotnose, Trick, Vanilla, Yellowbelly

My wife and I got into ball pythons strictly as a hobby to begin with. After reading the book "The Complete Ball Python" by Kevin McCurley, we were really fascinated by all the various morphs and combos. Originally, we had only a normal male and a het albino female, but we soon added a spider female to our collection. After checking out the genetic wizard on World of Ball Pythons and consulting with Scott of Family Reptiles, we came up with a few ideas that we thought would be fun to create. We added a bumble bee male, a cinny-pin male, and a fire female to our collection in hopes of making fire bees and cinnamon spinners. Just the other day, we found a very nice looking mojave female and purchased her with the idea of possibly making some mystic potions. The combos that are available are super awesome, and I admit it is sometimes hard to not want to try them all. I'm currently looking for a het albino male, preferably a morph variety in order to breed to my het albino female for some potentially cool looking morph-albinos.

I like lighter morphs, im currently working towards my dream snake which is a firebee, love the contrast. And I may make other combos with that such as nuclears and fireflies along the way and after, depends how easy it is I can sell the animls I dont need while working towards my goal

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Originally Posted by chadphillips8352

My wife and I got into ball pythons strictly as a hobby to begin with. After reading the book "The Complete Ball Python" by Kevin McCurley, we were really fascinated by all the various morphs and combos. Originally, we had only a normal male and a het albino female, but we soon added a spider female to our collection. After checking out the genetic wizard on World of Ball Pythons and consulting with Scott of Family Reptiles, we came up with a few ideas that we thought would be fun to create. We added a bumble bee male, a cinny-pin male, and a fire female to our collection in hopes of making fire bees and cinnamon spinners. Just the other day, we found a very nice looking mojave female and purchased her with the idea of possibly making some mystic potions. The combos that are available are super awesome, and I admit it is sometimes hard to not want to try them all. I'm currently looking for a het albino male, preferably a morph variety in order to breed to my het albino female for some potentially cool looking morph-albinos.

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Any chance you'll agree to a breeding loan for your cinny pin male in like 4 years? :p they are difficult to find at first glance, kudos to you for finding one!

I have always been drawn to pewters, even before I learned what it took to make one, back in the beginning of my entry to the hobby. Their colors are just so unique, there isn't a prettier snake than a nice pewter to my eyes.

Pinstripe came a little later, when I started looking for alternatives than the Spider for reduced pattern. I love the dorsals on them, and the nice reduced speckles along the flanks. Spiders are nice, don't get me wrong, but you can turn around and see a spider in this hobby. Pinstripes are just more striking, to me.

Funnily enough, axanthics are really the only recessive I see myself working with so far. Maybe a token Pied somewhere along the line, but it's not close enough behind Axanthic to be in my priority list.

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Originally Posted by Archimedes

Any chance you'll agree to a breeding loan for your cinny pin male in like 4 years? :p they are difficult to find at first glance, kudos to you for finding one!

I have always been drawn to pewters, even before I learned what it took to make one, back in the beginning of my entry to the hobby. Their colors are just so unique, there isn't a prettier snake than a nice pewter to my eyes.

Pinstripe came a little later, when I started looking for alternatives than the Spider for reduced pattern. I love the dorsals on them, and the nice reduced speckles along the flanks. Spiders are nice, don't get me wrong, but you can turn around and see a spider in this hobby. Pinstripes are just more striking, to me.

Funnily enough, axanthics are really the only recessive I see myself working with so far. Maybe a token Pied somewhere along the line, but it's not close enough behind Axanthic to be in my priority list.

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I'm thinking that Pennsylvania is a little far off for me to loan out. :) The crazy thing is, I had absolutely no plans to get one. Not the biggest fan of the cinnamon gene. Nothing wrong with it, but just not "my thing". My wife saw it and "persuaded" me that we should get it. And by persuade, I mean told me it was one of the ones we were getting or we wouldn't get anything. LOL. Love that woman. It ended up being a good decision, because he really is such a beautiful snake.

I'm a small bit of gotta have it all but largely focused in the end.

I want to make all the stuff that got me into it all. Bees, savannahs, pastaves. But I'm focused in that. I also have projects for fire ax and lithium combos.

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Originally Posted by Badgemash

http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1532bf58.jpg
(Not my photo, but seemed appropriate)

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Heh, I know this snake, his name is Jaqen. :D

I'm definitely the second type of breeder lol. I have the genes I want to work with. I'll hold back what I need to and advance to get more genes into those combos. I like Hypo, Cinnamon, Fire and Lesser a lot. At least one of those four are going into almost all the combos I produce. Out of the ten snakes I have (not including normals) only two don't have at least one of those four genes lol.



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Originally Posted by Archimedes

Any chance you'll agree to a breeding loan for your cinny pin male in like 4 years? :p they are difficult to find at first glance, kudos to you for finding one!

I have always been drawn to pewters, even before I learned what it took to make one, back in the beginning of my entry to the hobby. Their colors are just so unique, there isn't a prettier snake than a nice pewter to my eyes.

Pinstripe came a little later, when I started looking for alternatives than the Spider for reduced pattern. I love the dorsals on them, and the nice reduced speckles along the flanks. Spiders are nice, don't get me wrong, but you can turn around and see a spider in this hobby. Pinstripes are just more striking, to me.

Funnily enough, axanthics are really the only recessive I see myself working with so far. Maybe a token Pied somewhere along the line, but it's not close enough behind Axanthic to be in my priority list.

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Id be willing to dicuss a cinny pin loaner for a breeding project hehehe...should have a good one or two in the next 1-2 yrs

I think our collection will be limited for a long time. until we own our own place. But we are currently strictly hobbyist. I have one or 2 I will never sell. But we agreed that as we acquire, produce the next step up that we would remove the lowest animal ( in the gene pool ) if a replacement has that gene. ( example) a pastel and pinstripe both replaced when we acquired a lemonblast. Now once we produce say a supper spinner then the lemonblast and possible the spider female will be replaced.
I personally think that a grown female ( spider ) should not be offered up until say the spinner( or killer bee female ) is up to breeding size. this way you can work on other combos as well as the younger female takes her time getting to size.
I know our snakes are making breeding weight and maturity in 2 years . My pied I produce 2 years ago has had several locks wit hone of our albinos. and she was doing that tail wagging so much I was thinking she had a nerve twitch developing lol ( first time I seen it )
:D

I have a fairly broad gene pool to work with. Nothing is a random pick up in my collection as everything has its purpose. My breeding plans are calculated somewhere 3-4 years in advance of projects Im currently working on. Ive held back ALOT of what Ive bred for for the last 7 years ( I've only sold 2 females in 7 years by choice and that was in 2013). Some stuff I breed purely to generate sales that does not interest me for long term projects

Surprising amount of interest in Axanthic

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Originally Posted by MrLang

Surprising amount of interest in Axanthic

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I'm glad you brought this up as I noticed that too. I always considered axanthic to be somewhat of a dead end with mutations the same as albino or leucism. There are certainly cool combos that can be made with them but not many 4+ gene combos from what I've seen. Maybe I'm just uninformed.

My current collection is a little mixed, but there's some method to my madness too (focus). Currently I have 9 genes (cinnamon, mojave, pastel, yellowbelly, spider, hypo, axanthic, pied, specter) in my collection. Some of these I have plans for, i.e. I want to combine the axanthic and hypo (maybe add in spider there for good measure). I really like the look of axanthic, and depending on how much I get into breeding, I might play around with it a lot, or just a little (start with true ghost, maybe later work on axanthic spider, pastel axanthic, axanthic mojave, lightning pied, etc). . I really like my pastave, and might play around with that some more. I would really like to get a savannah from my mojave and cinnamon, but otherwise I don't anticipate doing much with the cinnamon. My het pied normal came with my cinnamon, and I may or may not do something with him. For the most part he's a great pet, and very laid back so great for interpretative/education functions. My citrus yb was so pretty I had to have her (I'm not a fan of pastel by itself, but I do like what it does when combined with other some other genes), and the specter was acquired as her potential future mate in hopes of getting some super stripes. I don't anticipate doing much else with them.

May change in the future, but for now that's what I got and what I plan. There are lots of other genes I like, but for now this is enough for me to work with. I like having something to focus on, instead of playing with a little bit of everything, I don't think I'll ever get into the 4, 5, or more genes in one animal. To me it just doesn't look great. I prefer the 2 and 3 gene animals.