Good buy?

Have a chance at buying a Leopard, Spot nose, Butter, pastel, yellow bellow male ball python. Wondering what everyone's thoughts would be. Good investment? Seems to me he would have a lot of potential

I can't speak for the genetics, but fancy genes won't compensate if the snake is unhealthy, too old for your purposes, or has a lousy temperament- IMO.

He is 1 year old, very healthy and great temperament

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I can't speak for the genetics, but fancy genes won't compensate if the snake is unhealthy, too old for your purposes, or has a lousy temperament- IMO.

---

That sounds like a beautiful animal.

He does have some good potential, but you may need some strong females as well down the line.
The odds are lower, but if bred to a normal female, he can still toss a normal or single gene offspring. And they can be harder to rehome.
You would want visual recessives or an allelic combo female at least to guarantee a gene passed on and then anything from him would be awesome.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Armiyana

That sounds like a beautiful animal.

He does have some good potential, but you may need some strong females as well down the line.
The odds are lower, but if bred to a normal female, he can still toss a normal or single gene offspring. And they can be harder to rehome.
You would want visual recessives or an allelic combo female at least to guarantee a gene passed on and then anything from him would be awesome.

---

Breeder females I have at the moment are het carmel, Mojave, Butter bee, Orange Ghost and pewter yellow Belly have other females but not near breeding size

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...tter_thumb.jpg

I would say no, especially based on the females you listed. If you have a solid plan and he makes sense towards that, maybe he could be okay, but with no other information it seems like a bad impulse buy situation because he's pretty. He is basically Batman minus the hardest part (Clown) plus Butter. If he at least had het Clown, I'd feel differently. If he was visual Clown plus all that, yes, very good investment.

You should always have a well thought out plan before purchasing investment animals. If you don't have in this thread something you would work towards with him, I'm guessing you don't, and no animals is a good investment without a solid plan. Buying things without thinking it through means having to take a lot of extra steps and spend extra money to get the same results towards a project.

What I currently have

Females

Butter Bee 1479 G
Orange Ghost 1528 G
100% Het Caramel 1985 g
100% Het Caramel 1519 g
Pewter yellow Belly 1055 g
Pastel Yellow Belly 270 g
GHI Mojave Pewter 189 g
Mojave 2089 g proven breeder

Males
GHI Mojave 478 g
Pewter gargoyle 385 g
Carmel Mojave Spider 677 g
Super Stripe 576 g
Super Fly 739 g
Pastel Yellow Belly Pied 515 g
Mojave 552 g
Mystic Pastel 188 g
Blue Eyed Leucistic 560 g
Banana Super Enchi 260 g
Cinnamon Spider 245 g
Orange Ghost 125 g

You already have a very male hefty list.
The only female that would really make me say go for it is your Orange Ghost since every baby would be guaranteed het OG.

There are better options for you as a breeder in pairing males you already own to the females you already own.

I would recommend really looking at the options you have listed here and make a plan for what you really want to do.

For example, my main projects are broken down into:
BEL and Orange Ghost
Pied and Urban Camo

Any little ones that may seem like one offs fit into those projects somehow.
For example, I have a hypo cinny female that it het for Gstripe. I picked up a gStripe male so I can make GStripes het for hypo for my BEL/OG group.
I picked up my first axanthic and first albino last month! They both fit into my pied project as one is het and the other is visual.

Where would you see this male fitting best? It doesn't really feel like he makes a good BEL choice as you already have a BEL male to guarantee at least a single gene in the offspring. Same goes for the yellow belly gene... you have a super stripe male. Even on the OG female, you have a OG male already.

Also... I'm not saying normals are bad. They can be gorgeous. But for breeding they can be more difficult to place after. Or just means you won't be able to gross as much on the offspring. I try to make sure that one clutch will at least make back the purchase of an animal or feed a good amount of my collection. At least that's my hope!

Yeah, you are really male heavy already. I wouldn't even look at males right now if I were you. I'd nail down some project plans and then seek out females that match what you are missing for those plans. You could essentially support fertilizing 60 females with the males you already have, and keep in mind you are probably going to want some holdbacks that are occasionally male. Not to mention, it's probably not a bad idea to get some successful clutches under your belt before you move far past 20 breeder animals.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nikkubus

Yeah, you are really male heavy already. I wouldn't even look at males right now if I were you. I'd nail down some project plans and then seek out females that match what you are missing for those plans. You could essentially support fertilizing 60 females with the males you already have, and keep in mind you are probably going to want some holdbacks that are occasionally male. Not to mention, it's probably not a bad idea to get some successful clutches under your belt before you move far past 20 breeder animals.

---

Any chance you can recommend what I should be looking for that would go with the males I have? A smart choice? I really do appreciate all your help

You should be passionate about the projects you are working on. I can only guess based on what you have already purchased what sort of projects you would like. You already have three different recessives, which is a lot for a new breeder to deal with. I wouldn't be starting all three of those projects at once. I would pick one of the three you like best and focus on working some different morphs into that line. You have GHI and Cinny in females already, so I'd say your Banana Super Enchi would do really well with them to enhance the colors in Banana, especially the Pewter Yellow Belly female since YB complements Banana quite well. OD might be something you can look for in a female to add better color to both Banana and Mojave.

Here are some examples of Banana and Mojave projects you could work towards:

Banana Calico Cinnamon GHI:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...EE40BABB5439F3

Banana Mardi Gras:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...35A66E89B38D7A

Same as above plus OD and Leopard:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...069167C10F7075

Enchi Mojave OD YB:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...0A6FE66E44560D

OD Enchi Fire Mojave:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...377EDC41C18CF9

I would do some research about Carmel to see if that is something you even want to work with or if it's too risky. I don't know if the breeder you got those from is reputable and would be honest about health issues in the line or not. I have no idea if you know the deal with Spiders, and if you choose to breed them anyway, that's your choice, but if you aren't aware you should research that too.

Take some time to look at tons of pictures and see what interests you. Write down all the morphs that make up the combos, and see if there is a lot of overlap. Check the prices of all the different outcomes from different ways you could breed those combos. That should help steer you in the right direction. It's a huge task, but it's really important before you go buying more animals. I only know what I like and interest me, so it's hard to make some great suggestions that meet all that criteria even though I know the market well. If you have some ideas for projects and want to run them by me, I can easily give my 2c if it's a project that is cost effective and make suggestions for the best way to make it happen where you don't end up with a bunch of animals that don't sell well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nikkubus

You should be passionate about the projects you are working on. I can only guess based on what you have already purchased what sort of projects you would like. You already have three different recessives, which is a lot for a new breeder to deal with. I wouldn't be starting all three of those projects at once. I would pick one of the three you like best and focus on working some different morphs into that line. You have GHI and Cinny in females already, so I'd say your Banana Super Enchi would do really well with them to enhance the colors in Banana, especially the Pewter Yellow Belly female since YB complements Banana quite well. OD might be something you can look for in a female to add better color to both Banana and Mojave.

Here are some examples of Banana and Mojave projects you could work towards:

Banana Calico Cinnamon GHI:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...EE40BABB5439F3

Banana Mardi Gras:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...35A66E89B38D7A

Same as above plus OD and Leopard:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...069167C10F7075

Enchi Mojave OD YB:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...0A6FE66E44560D

OD Enchi Fire Mojave:
https://d20zyr0oabjxc2.cloudfront.ne...377EDC41C18CF9

I would do some research about Carmel to see if that is something you even want to work with or if it's too risky. I don't know if the breeder you got those from is reputable and would be honest about health issues in the line or not. I have no idea if you know the deal with Spiders, and if you choose to breed them anyway, that's your choice, but if you aren't aware you should research that too.

Take some time to look at tons of pictures and see what interests you. Write down all the morphs that make up the combos, and see if there is a lot of overlap. Check the prices of all the different outcomes from different ways you could breed those combos. That should help steer you in the right direction. It's a huge task, but it's really important before you go buying more animals. I only know what I like and interest me, so it's hard to make some great suggestions that meet all that criteria even though I know the market well. If you have some ideas for projects and want to run them by me, I can easily give my 2c if it's a project that is cost effective and make suggestions for the best way to make it happen where you don't end up with a bunch of animals that don't sell well.

---

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer and educate me. You have helped me a lot.