Mass producing morphs

What do you guys think about people who will breed an Albino to an Albino, or a Piebald to a Piebald? Wouldn't you prefer to buy from someone who will keep using Het girls to breed their morph males to? Would you ever breed morph to morph?

You'd think it would make you more money, but for the sake of the morph industry and stability of prices, it would probably just hurt you and the market, as well as the genetic diversity of the morph. Just my personal opinion.

If I had pairs of morphs, I surely would breed them together.

yep i would do both actually...not every one in the public can flat out buy a pied so i would breed pied to pied for sale to people that can buy them and for my own collection and breed pied to het or normal so i can produce pieds and hets for sale to people that want that...thats if i had enough pieds on hand.

Well I don't think the market is affected by the production part as much as it is affected by the pricing of the snake. If I had an albino x albino pairing but priced all my animals at market value or higher and kept them stable at that price, well then the market would be fine. The problem is you don't find people mass producing morphs that are willing to keep them if they don't sell without dropping their prices.

there will never be enough morphs on the market.

I'd SURELY breed morph to morph...

but hey...if money's all you care about, then stick with the hets. i'll do my own thing and you can do your own thing. :rockon:

i think the answers will vary with each breeder and each different morph too..


what/how many #'s are you calling mass breeding? just curious...



vaughn

If morphs were not bred to morphs we wouldn't have anywhere near the range of diversity that we see with ball pythons today in general. :)

Hets are great for the people who can't purchase a homozygous snake, but I personally would never buy a het unless it's a co-dom, het for something, i.e. a pastel het for pied or spider het for clown.

My ball pythons are pets 1st, breeders 2nd. As a hobbyist I like the visual look of morphs so buying a het pied or having het pieds is of no interest to me. :2cent:

As far as buying from someone who breeds homo to homo, it doesn't matter to me one bit, as long as they are quality snakes. Why should it? If you are worried about the market being flooded with homozygous then why not worry about it being flooded with hets?

Ya know, I really am surprised by all of your answers, and I don't mean that in a negative, condescending way, lol. You may have changed my mind about keeping the number of albino females I produce this year :)
Hell, I should just keep all my females, albinos and hets, to prepare for the future.

keep or trade out your female morphs to mix the blood a bit. alot of breeders use morph girls for double/triple het stuff.


vaughn

Ken,


Maybe balance is a better approach. Sell half of the females you produce and maybe re-invest the money into another morph, or better racks, or what ever you need. Then keep the other females to expand your albinos into 2 or three solid breeding groups.

Neil

Oh yeah totally. I plan on producing my own females from my original albino male, and in two years buy another albino male to breed to them. I don't think I ever could inbreed my snakes unless I had an original morph, lol.

I have a really dark orange normal girl I can't wait to breed into my albino line. I love selective breeding and genetic diversity. I'll definitely be keeping those Het girls.

If I produce enough albinos this year I'll probably get a co-dom... not sure if I want a Spider or if I'll have enough to get a Lesser...

I wouldn't mind either... I just have a thing for white snakes, hehe. Next year I'll probably be buying 0.# Het Piebald.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bait4snake

Hell, I should just keep all my females, albinos and hets, to prepare for the future.

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I know I would.... :)

As long as there are still combos left to be made, I doubt you will see too many people 'ruining the market' by focusing only on producing one specific morph by breeding only homozygous animals together. Sure people breed homozygous animals together....why not?...Is someone 'bad' because they want the guarantee of all homozygous animals in that clutch? But that kinda takes out the 'mystery' behind it all doesn't it? It would make it kinda boring.

Are you really trying to say "People should produce less morphs"? I really don't understand you logic. The simple fact that ball pythons are being 'mass produced' will cause prices to change...it has nothing to do with homozygous to homozygous breedings, so I can't figure out why that is an issue.

The ball python morph industry is slipping into the stage where the animals will be cheaper and more available. Deal with it. If you would pay attention, anyone seriously 'in the game' is starting(or already has) to increase the number of breeding snakes they have in order to produce more animals especially guys solely focused on ball pythons. Ever notice that alot of people are getting more space to get more snakes? Getting more animals and increasing MORPH PRODUCTION is the only way that they will be able to stay competitive and support a functional business when ball python morph prices drop even lower and the real big boys start throwing out hundreds upon hundreds of morphs a year.

Just my take on it all.....

Actually, it was more of a P.R. thing. I remember seeing someone's site recently who only had a pair of albinos and a pair of piebalds, and all they produced was those two morphs with every breeding, and for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way.

I was just taking the public's temperature, so to speak. Floating a little trial balloon before I made a decision.

I think a lot of breeders also use a homo forms to make crosses. If I had both a pied and a albino PAIR... I'd be tempted to breed the pied to both the pied female and the albino female, in order to produce more pieds, and double het pied/albinos.
Having a pair of visable recessives makes it really easy to assure theo dds by breeding them to ensure you get visable recessives to sell, or keep to breed yourself. There's a lot of if's in the breeding normally.. and getting a 'sure thing' once in a while would be terribly wonderful.
I'm still waiting on eggs here.. and not knowing what's in them really makes it hard to wait.
Wolfy

morph to morpth.. less hard-to-sell normals that have to suffer at the hands of someone who is a novice buying them because they are low-priced :)
Just another facet to this big, glittering diamond.