Breeding

I am wanting to be a breeder!! I know I just got my first BP Saturday but I love them.
I would like all the information I can get!! :)

Thank you!

start here: http://ballpython.ca/breeding/

:)

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

start here: http://ballpython.ca/breeding/

:)

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Thank you! :)


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The info is out there if you take the time to do some research on your own but right now this is not what you need to do, you need to focus on doing research on proper care, you need to learn to read your animal and become a problem solver (vs having people solving problem for you) only than when you have that level of experience with at least a year or two hands on experience under your belt, you can start looking into breeding, and by the time you do your animal will have probably frustrate you so much that you will likely change your mind.

Right now you have a lot to learn on your own regarding the basics and before thinking of breeding there will be a lot of questions you will have to ask yourself as well to see if it is right for you starting with the financial one.

Bottom line don't get in over your head like many have done after less than a week of ownership you need to learn to walk before you can run.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

The info is out there if you take the time to do some research on your own but right now this is not what you need to do, you need to focus on doing research on proper care, you need to learn to read your animal and become a problem solver (vs having people solving problem for you) only than when you have that level of experience with at least a year or two hands on experience under your belt, you can start looking into breeding, and by the time you do your animal will have probably frustrate you so much that you will likely change your mind.

Right now you have a lot to learn on your own regarding the basics and before thinking of breeding there will be a lot of questions you will have to ask yourself as well to see if it is right for you starting with the financial one.

Bottom line don't get in over your head like many have done after less than a week of ownership you need to learn to walk before you can run.

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Oh, I kinda knew I couldn’t do it right away. I do need to learn more and I get that. And yes I do need to solve all the problems myself but it’s good to actually ask someone sometimes too. But I get where you are coming from. Lol


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Originally Posted by ZuesTheBallPython

Thank you! :)


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Slow down. LOL.

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Originally Posted by Newbie39

Slow down. LOL.

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Yes I am going a little to fast, though, I have always been interested in snakes.


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I agree with Deborah on this one. It is SO easy to get super excited and stoked about a new interest and go off the deep end. Right now, I'm sure BPs are your obsession and everything about them is awesome, which is normal for new owners.

I would give it a solid couple years with your current BP to see if you have that same enthusiasm. I've been keeping reptiles for ~11 years and snakes for 5. In that short amount of time, I've gone through various phases of being obsessed with my snakes, adding to my collection, being "tired" of the maintenance, etc. I am just now at the point where I am considering breeding and purchasing my first breeding plan animals... That said, this is also the first year I've incurred vet expenses on two of my snakes...and likely will a third as well... So right when I'm gearing up to spend money on animals and equipment, I'm spending money on health issues lol. Not what I was hoping for, but the unforeseen risks are part of it... Not to mention finding out if you have a vet in your area that will see exotics or even knows anything about them. That was harder than I thought it would be...

A lot of pet ownership is learning to manage your time and resources to best care for your pet and seeing how that level of commitment effects your free time and relationships. Right now, you need to be keeping track of expenses and as Deborah noted, learn to keep your one BP as well as you can...keeping correct temps and humidity, doing searches on the forums here and on Google for any and all topics you can think of, etc. You should also start keeping records... like a spreadsheet of expenses and also of data on your BP, listing weights, when he shed / ate, etc.

Coming up with a sound financial and housing plan for yourself and your animals should also be priority number one. It takes a lot of money to house and feed (not to mention buy) snakes for a breeding program (or even pets). To that end, you have to consider how you will provide for your collection and how you will find a living place that will allow a large number of snakes. Keep in mind that some apartments will not allow any reptiles. Some may be ok with one snake, but tell them you have 10 and they may choose otherwise. I owned a couple snakes when I lived in an apartment but did not even dream of breeding until I owned my own house.

If you are serious about improving your husbandry and want to look into the business / research side of breeding for future purposes, I recommend these sources. This book, the Complete Ball Python and JKRs "Ball Street Journal" and his videos.

Beyond that, make the "advanced search" function on the forum your best friend.. I can't even tell you have many times I've thought of a random question or scenario, searched for it, and had numerous threads show up in the search that helped me find my answer. It is a good tool when you are looking at things that are not of immediate importance or may have been covered before. I used it quite recently when I was researching my new breeding project with ghosts / hypos and came up with some useful info.

Focus on your husbandry first. You won't be able to successfully breed until you can keep a snake happy in the first place. Slow down and do your research. I got my first ball a bit over a year ago. I'm up to 4 now, all up to breeding weight but I'm still holding off until next year until I'm completely confident I can do it. Helping an experienced breeder on his breeding project this year just to gain experience. Won't be breeding until next year though

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Originally Posted by artgecko

Coming up with a sound financial and housing plan for yourself and your animals should also be priority number one.

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I can't second this hard enough. It took me awhile to transition from owning a few pets to a small collection, but the costs rise, exponentially as your snakes grow. Taking care of a few pets is nothing like managing a collection, let alone breeding. Aside from the usual upkeep there's a lot of equipment costs to think about. Racks, more thermostats, and all kinds of accessories. When you start breeding you'll also need incubators, hatchling racks, and food for the babies. You don't want to wait until eggs are on the way to think about how you're going to find and afford these things, or where you're going to put all this stuff.

As others have mentioned, vet bills are a necesseity. They're never fun, but they're important for maintaining the health of your animals. You also have to consider what you'll do if not everything goes as planned. Sometimes baby snakes come out with deformities and adults just up and die. Would you be able to put down an animal that can't survive?

I'm actually at the point where I'm going to breed for the first time this year, I'm up to 28 snakes, about a dozen ball python females will be breedable this year. One thing to keep in mind as you build your breeding stock, one male can mate with 4-5 females. I initially made the mistake of getting one male and one female in pairs, then realized I didn't need that many males.

For me it's best to get high end males and cheaper females, even a normal female can be valuable if you breed it to a five or six gene male and give you a huge variety of offspring. I just picked up a few huge normal / het females to boost my production in my first year.

I was actually just laid off from work due to a buyout and I'm hoping I can survive this next year breeding various animals here at the farm (snakes / rats / mice / ducks / puppies / cattle, etc..) I actually started with an ARS rack system for rats and mice and have been selling the extra to a local snake breeder. Then I moved up to trading some rats and mice for some nice female ball pythons. I also bought coconut husk by the pallet and trade it along with the rats and mice for more snakes. If you plan along the way there's ways to make money as you go and have the hobby pay for itself. Once you get a rack of hatchlings to sell you'll be able to get some money coming in to pay the bills and to expand if you want to. My end goal is to have about 40 female ball pythons and about 10 males. Should give me about 280 babies per year on average, should be a good supplemental income to the farm.

Eventually I'll dump the big normal / low end females and upgrade my collection (maybe sell them cheap to someone starting out), but if you want to jump start it you can follow suit and get a big cheap female (over 1500 grams) that's ready to breed and a smaller ~ 500 gram high end male and give it a shot. I picked up a 3500 gram normal het caramel albino for a hundred bucks! And I'm planning on buying two large females (about 2500 grams) from the guy that buys my rats, a normal and a pinstripe, both females ready to breed for $100 each. I have the perfect high end male to breed with them.

And you don't need high end equipment to start, you can fabricate an incubator for a couple hundred bucks and use Tupperware with holes for hatchling snake tubs. Once you sell the hatchlings you can use that money to upgrade things.

Also, I'd recommend visiting this forum often and ask a lot of questions. I've been doing this for a couple years now and even this week I learned some valuable info from this site.

I have to agree with the others here. I also get that it was probably just a generalized question and you don't plan on breeding any time in the immediate future. But yeah, breeding is a lot more involved than buying a few snakes, pairing them up and "poof" cute little baby BPs. I'm years away from ready (but have no real plans to breed) and I've got a few years experience keeping snakes, have my own house, I'm financially secure and 38 years old.

The best advice I can give you right now is read, study and learn all about your new snake. Forget about breeding for at LEAST long enough to have years of experience, financial security and your own place.

Breeding isn't all fun and cute baby snakes. There are some negatives that come with breeding.
When do you cull an animal with a birth defect? Would you be able to physically do that to an animal?
What about the inevitable vet visits? Those costs add up quickly.

Anyway, focus on your one snake for now, put some money aside for vet visits, etc...
Learn, learn, learn my young friend...