thoughts on starting breeding

ive had a male normal BP for about 8 months now, will be moving into a bigger place next year or so and kicking around the idea of breeding.

from what i gather, male normals are just bout the worst thing to have for breeding lol. would getting a female morph be worth it? any suggestions to a cheap one?

also whats the reality on 'making dates' with other peoples snakes and getting one or more of the babies? is there much chance anyone would want to with a plain normal? where would one find these people anyway?

but yea just bored and dreaming mostly haha

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Originally Posted by eternalfrost

from what i gather, male normals are just bout the worst thing to have for breeding lol.

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See this is why i have so many snakes! No one loves the normal males!! What a shame!! I often wonder where they all go every year? I through normal males on codoms to make more codoms.. I feel sorry for those guys lol!

I agree with Jas' wonderings about where all of the normals go to.... some normals are really beautiful! To answer your question about less expensive morphs, I would recommend a pretty pastel or a mojave; you can't go wrong with those two...IMO. :P

Hi,

I love my normal male. :snake:


dr del

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,

I love my normal male. :snake:


dr del

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I have an absolutely phenominal male normal. Definately try a codom mix.

Chuck:gj:

i also love mine dont get me wrong! so beautiful especially after a shed! really rich black and gold with tiny white highlights up from the belly. i honestly dont see wahts so different about a huge number of 'morphs' out there, like the sites with 50 or so morphs listed.

im guessing codom = codominant? what exactly does that mean? its when two dominant traits mix together yes? what significance does that have here? sry know almost zip about genetics :confused:

i dont have any normal males...

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Originally Posted by eternalfrost

im guessing codom = codominant? what exactly does that mean? its when two dominant traits mix together yes? what significance does that have here? sry know almost zip about genetics :confused:

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Let see if I can simplify this....

Co-dom= A gene that will show up or not. The genes dont hide, like recessive genes (albino, pied, etc)

Ex: A Pastel(Co-Dom) + Normal = Both normal and pastel babies
An Albino(recessive) + Normal = All 100% het for albino (all normal looking snakes that carry the albino gene)

Hope that helps..

Heres a great site for learing bout balls
http://www.ballpython.ca/gallery/breeding.html

I'm definitely not a genetics expert but I think I can help a little.

The co-doms like mojaves, pastels, y.b.'s, lessers, cinny's, etc are morphs in which the gene that causes the morph can be combined with itself to produce a different morph. For example breeding two mojaves will produce mojaves and blue eyes leucistics which contain the mojave gene from both mom and dad. The mojaves out of a mojaveXmojave cross have only recieves one mojave allele, either moms or dads. Remember, a mojaveXmojave cross will yield 25% normals as well. The blue eyes leucistics made from mojaves, (you can make them from a number of morphs including butters and lessers as well) when bred to a normal will only produce mojaves. The mojaves that come out a mojaveXmojave mix only have one mojave gene while the blue eyed leucistic has 2 "mojave" genes. Don't mix this up with a dominant morph in which two of the genes (homozygous form) will still only produce the original morph, aka there is no "super form." I'm sure there are others , but the spider is definitely the most common. In other words breeding two spiders will still only make spiders and normals. When the spider gene combines with another spider gene, it does not change the spider look. Hope this helps a little for now, but I'd suggest reading up on it. There are ALOT of articles to read if you look around, most big breeders have a genetics page on their website. I'm going attach the one from NERDS site, as I think it's a good start. Just scroll to the bottom of the page, there are 4 articles increasing in complextiy as you go. check em out.

http://www.newenglandreptile.com/care.html

And to get back on topic. I bring males to a pet store by me one at a time so they don't stack them in the same tank. This way some little kid like I was can have his first bp and the snake gets a good home with a youthful, enthusiastic keeper. I'm a firm believer that a snake is GREAT pet for kids esp male bp's. Mostly because they require less day to day care than say a hamster. But maybe thats just me.... :) Eternal if I were you I'd start looking to grab a female or two. If you decide you don't want to breed your normal later, you can always find adult males for sale. He'll be useful for breeding as well as being you for fun snake. Use him to make the younger males jealous and it'll push them to breed, male-male combat and "sperm-swapping". Have fun! :gj:

eternalfrost trying to find a breeding loan with a normal male will be pretty hard unless you have a friend with a single female that is willing. youll be better off with your own female(and dont forget a seperate enclosure for her). the least expensive morph right now is probably the pastel and you can get one for a couple hundred bucks. she would need to be of proper size and age before you try to breed her so while you are raising her up it would be best to do as much research as you can to see what its going to take to go through with it, incubate eggs, and care for the hatchlings. its not just heat lamps and hatchlings, you need time, money and knowledge to successfully get babies.

for example combating males may make them even harder to breed so its best to get research from many different sources so that you can make the best decisions for your situation.

Eternal my thoughts are this...breeding balls is fun, thats why i do and I imagine that's why most do it. For whatever reason alot of people like to make it seem like a job. Its not like bearded dragons where you will be saddled with a ton of babies and nothing to do with them. If you want to try it, try it! Just make sure you're taking care of your animals. Alot of the stuff you need can be built affordably or bought used as well. If you get a female or two by the time they're raised to 1500 grams you will know what it takes to care for ball pythons, you will know if you want 10-16 more, if you can afford it then do it. My guess is you'll get the bug like most of us and go from there. It doesn't mean you have to become one of the people who build enormous businesses around them and exploit the species. Make a couple babies and have fun! People forget that in this industry. Just keep your normal male...you'll be happy about it later. He's the one that started it all.....

thanks for the input guys. good old punnet squares haha caps=dominant small=recessive

hetXhet
....Xx Xx
Yy YX Yx
Yy Xy xy


is there any list of morphs with pics and wich are dominant, recessive, and codominant?

I love the NERD site if you cant tell...it gives really good descriptions....click here http://www.newenglandreptile.com/ner...=543&Itemid=76

Its their new site...really good!

I would get a female mojave or pastel. Once you raise her up you can breed her to your male and hatch out a few more co-doms. Then you raise up one of the males and breed him back to your female and you can hatch out a super pastel or a blue eyed leucistic.

my 7 year old normal male is with a female pastel as i type. my pastel male just isn't getting it done and i dont want to waste a season.

Can I ask why you'd want to breed? In my opinion BPs are kind of like the Pit Bulls of the snake world. Everyone and their mother is breeding them and they're overpopulated. Not that other reptiles aren't overpopulated, but BPs are especially overpopulated.

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Originally Posted by bsd13

Can I ask why you'd want to breed? In my opinion BPs are kind of like the Pit Bulls of the snake world. Everyone and their mother is breeding them and they're overpopulated. Not that other reptiles aren't overpopulated, but BPs are especially overpopulated.

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I have to disagree. There aren't rescues specifically for ball pythons, nor are there a ton of unwanted ball pythons sitting in animal rescues. There is a huge demand for ball pythons, and the ones that are unwanted are usually picked up pretty quickly. A ton of people are breeding them, but the demand is there and growing with the supply.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I have to disagree. There aren't rescues specifically for ball pythons, nor are there a ton of unwanted ball pythons sitting in animal rescues. There is a huge demand for ball pythons, and the ones that are unwanted are usually picked up pretty quickly. A ton of people are breeding them, but the demand is there and growing with the supply.

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I'll just point you back to Pit Bulls (and Rotties, and Dobs) huge demand, but at some point the demand is met and then the rest are trash.

Not saying you shouldn't breed just asking why breed with so many out there?

Ball pythons aren't dogs. If the demand ever drops that low, there are probably hundreds of people on this site alone who would take a few unwanted healthy snakes. I would. Even if you have a good amount of land, dogs are too costly to have more than a couple. Most dog enthusiasts have 1-5 dogs. Very few have more than 10. It's not uncommon for a ball python enthusiast to have 20-100+ snakes, and most are always open to take on a healthy rescue or three. It's apples and oranges.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Ball pythons aren't dogs. If the demand ever drops that low, there are probably hundreds of people on this site alone who would take a few unwanted healthy snakes. I would. Even if you have a good amount of land, dogs are too costly to have more than a couple. Most dog enthusiasts have 1-5 dogs. Very few have more than 10. It's not uncommon for a ball python enthusiast to have 20-100+ snakes, and most are always open to take on a healthy rescue or three. It's apples and oranges.

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Good point.

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Originally Posted by bsd13

Can I ask why you'd want to breed? In my opinion BPs are kind of like the Pit Bulls of the snake world. Everyone and their mother is breeding them and they're overpopulated. Not that other reptiles aren't overpopulated, but BPs are especially overpopulated.

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This could very well be fixed if more people would do their homework on the breed b4 they pass judgments on them, they want to look at what a few people have done with them and act like that is all the breed can do. While I have yet to breed any bp's, though I plan too very soon *crosses fingers*, my whole life I bred am staffs (pit bulls) and Shepard’s. Am staffs are the sweetest breed out there, yes there are a few bad apples but this goes for any animals, there are over 2 million am staffs out there and they all get judged by what 2,000 or so have done, there are countless families that you never hear about with several am staffs and a house full of kids pulling on their ears and stepping on their tails, yet no one gets bit. But if you were to look at how the breed is in their most vicious moments (when trained to fight another in a pit) you would learn the most about them.
1st they are intensely trained by a person to be mean and attack by being hit and not feed most of the time, yet this guy is almost never bitten
2nd when they show up for the fight they give the other person’s dog a bath (anyone that has ever gave a dog a bath knows how much they love this, but ask yourself if the breed was so mean to people would you wash another man’s dog that was trained to kill?)
3rd once in the ring there are 3 people the 2 owners and the ref. the ref stands there with a stick bout a foot long that he uses to pry the dogs apart, and to move their lips off their teeth. Now this raises 2 questions a dog that mean why would 3 people get in the ring and why would you get between them.
The only answer to all of this is the breed naturally is not mean to people (it’s a lost art now but back in the day they bred dogs for certain jobs as we now breed bp’s for certain colors and looks) am staffs were bred to fight bulls and be powerful but yet gentle and loyal. It’s their loyalty that makes them willing to fight to their own death just to please their owner.

Sorry if I went off a little bit there I just hate when people judge the breed with out knowing it at all (please note im not saying that you were saying anything bad about them). As with any animal that is properly trained and handled they make a great pet (ok I should have said domesticated animal tigers, cobras and such still are a little to out there)

no i never fought any dogs nor have i ever been or would go to a dog fight, i only know the stuff that goes on from research that i have done on the breeds history

Ball pythons are collected. They are in a sense like other collectors items, baseball cards coins etc except you get to play with them and have to clean up for them. Nothing like dogs though. I have 5 dogs and 30 bps. I want to make MORE bps while I might shoot myself if one of my dogs got pregnant and I had to keep all the babies(impossible but you know what I mean). A person can care for an entire collection more or less in one day and not have to do more than look for the rest of the week, while dogs are a 24/7 pet. BP's do best when kept like records, stacked one on top of another(in tubs of course). A huge amount of BP's can be kept in a very small amount of space if you use a rack system, dogs need alot of room to run and need attention and love from their owners, BP's would be happy if you never put a finger on them... BP's are more like coins than dogs. lol!