1.1 Balls (Normals) 1K and stupidity...

OK, I have 1.1 Normal Balls, I work at home, and I want to try my hand at breeding on a small scale. I have had reptiles my entire life, but never attempted breeding anything. (I thought, why not start with BP's)

(My normal female is the lighter of the two)
http://www.b-p.org/balls/balls.jpg

I basically have 2 questions.

1) Is it the male thats most important when breeding, or the female, or neither, meaning, is it just the genetics I should pay most attention to.

2) I have approx $1000 to $1500 to invest in adult breeding stock; either actual morphs, or some 100% Hets; what would you acquire if it were you? And, whatever that is, should I get all Females and just breed them to my single Normal Male?

I appreciate any and all input you have,

Brandon

Your best bet is to get the base co-dominant and dominant morphs. To be honest I started with 5k to invest and it wasn't nearly enough. Your going to get a bunch of hets anyway and will be limited to how much you will be able to breed if you breed everything to a single normal male. Males I would get are a Spider, Pastel, Mojave, and Pinstripe. Then get a bunch of normal females, see if you get normal males and morph females you can only breed the morph once per season but if you get male morphs and alot of normal females you can breed twice as much assuming you have enough normal females. Either way I still say start small because either way unless you buy breedable male morphs (alot more money) you'll have to wait 2 years (or one if you decide to try and breed a male at 500g or so) to even breed your morphs, all your females would have to be old enough to breed though.

PS: Let's not forget hemi-peen infections, don't over breed your males or you'll be in trouble 2 or maybe 3 females in a cycling rotation max.

So, in a nutshell, what you are saying is, spend some money on a quality Male Morph (Spider, Pastel, Mojave, or Pinstripe) and then get some adult breeding size normal females and breed the single male to all the females?

If I were to get 4 or 5 normal breeder females and perhaps either:

• Spider, 100% het Piebald
• Yellow-Belly, 100% het Ghost
• Harlequin Wide-Stripe
• Mojave

...which one, and would this be a good investment in your opinion?

Thanks,
Brandon

well first year I would just breed everything to the normals and hope to get some females and slowly work my way up sell the leftovers and be able to buy and start slowly, but it's a process man. Unless you have like 10k to flatout buy some breedable males and females you have to play it out and play it slow.

Spiders are good, buy one male spider and one female pastel (female must be adult) and try your luck at some bees or buy a male pastel and breed to normal and try to produce it yourself. See theres alot of possibilities but I'm tring to advise you with the money you have and it's not easy. You could get a pair of het albinos and try to prove them out but an adult pair at the least will cost you 500-750 so, it's not easy to work with that budget. Heck just the male spider will cost roughly 300 as a hatchling and the adult female normals about 100-250 depending on your source. Don't buy anything W.C if you value your collection.

Yeah, I have never bought anything WC, I don't trust that sorta thing :)...

...So, I already have one normal female, and I know where I can pick up a few more for about $100 each, so If I buy 1 or 2 or more females, this leaves me about $800 to $1300 to buy a good morph male.

If you had to buy JUST ONE MORPH MALE, which would it be, and, if you have the time, why? (morph possibility wise?)

Like I said, I want to do this on a small scale, mostly for the experience, and if anything good comes out of it morph wise, then thats a bonus.

Basically, I want to get to know the whole breeding thing inside and out.

Get a Bumblebee...

Why:

Bumblebees are double hets for pastel and spider. At both the spider and the separate pastel locus they have one mutant (pastel or spider respectively) and one of the corresponding normal versions of the same gene. So you know that between the two parents there was at least one copy of each gene and also between the two parents there was at least one normal copy of each gene. Most so far would be from spider X pastel but it would also be possible to create a bumblebee from bumblebee X normal and several other combination.

Bumblebees statistically can produce:
25% Spiders, 25% Pastels, 25% Bumblebees and 25% normals

This doesn't mean that 1 in 4 will be bees, it just means that statistically speaking you have those odds, of course they could all be normals or all pastels or all spiders or all bees... catch my drift?

This example gives you an idea if you were to just pickup one male morph and wanted to produce many variant mutations spread over many females.

PS: Again be careful overbreeding just one male can and will lead to hemi-peen infections ultimately retiring that male for the season if you over breed it to many females in a cycle. I just want to say this is not something I do nor will ever recommend to anyway.

The best thing to do would buy a male co-dom/dom and then breed him to a whole lot of females. It would depend on the morph you want to produce if you are looking to wait I would get a baby spider or pin 3-400 on average and then buy a big lot of baby to sub adult normal females but remember when you buy the snakes you also need cages for them, if you look to buy cages check out reptile basics or animal plastics, if you want to build I suggest you check out Tim Baileys site its where I got my ideas for my cages. If you want to produce this year look into buying normal females and a pastel male, with what ive seen on the web you could get the pastel adult for $200 and then the females you could get possibly 6 or 7 breeder size but if 1k's your budget for cages as well I would guess the pastel and 4 females. Building a rack for adults cost me about $200 without a thermostat or heattape and a baby cost me about the same maybe a little more.
Hope I was of help.

I can see you now looking through classified posts lol.

Who is designing your website? I am a web developer by trade. :0)

Right now I have...

• Hypo Boa, 4ft. (Male)
• Albino Boa, baby (Female)
• 2 Normal Ball Pythons (1.1)
• Dumerils Boa, baby (Un-sexed)
• California King Snake (Unsexed)
• Arizona Mountain King Snake (Un-sexed)
• Leucistic Texas Rat Snake (Female)

Were you asking me who designs my webpage? If so its me lol not good.

Yes, I was asking.

I am a web developer, been doing websites for over 10 years now.

http://inlandmedia.com/

When are you going to put it up?

If it were me, I'd get a well-started male lesser who would be ready to breed next winter and 1-3, which is do-able for under $1000.

But that's because I think lessers are just one of the most gorgeous snakes out there. Also the possibility of getting some female lessers and a few years down the road having a BEL seems nice. Of course it's looking like lessers will become quite the popular snake in the coming few seasons, and prices will inevitably drop as supply goes up. However that's something I'm quite happy about since I'm more interested in being able to afford some nice snakes rather than potential offspring being less valuable.

My suggestion is get something that you're excited about and you love the looks of. If you're excited about what you're producing and a little less concerned about maximizing selling potential, you won't enjoy the work as much! Your collection will evolve on it's own I'm sure :D

Oh sorry Its been hard to get it up and we are considering just getting someone to do it and we are really considering anything. I have a pretty bad site up at the moment and I dont know why its not in my signature but I changed that. I will look over your site and see if we cant use you.
Thanks

Sure, no obligation, its just what I do :)

Brandon

Get what you like or what you want to produce for your own collection. Honestly, making back even your initial investments (snakes, racks, food, supplies etc...) will take some time, if it happens at all.

I decided to get into ball pythons back in '05. This is my first breeding season, I hope to have anywhere from 1-6 clutches. Over the past 3 years, I have spend between $12-15,000. I do not expect to make that back money wise, which I am ok with as I knew that going into this. It does allow me to create combos that I would like to have in my collection, even if some of them might take me 10 years!

I feel the same way.

Whatever I spend, regardless of amount, it's for the love of the animals...

...thats what hobbies are about, fun/love/interest/community/etc.

However, I want to at least go in with some knowledge and at least have the potential to produce some nice clutches.

I don't mind buying a few middle level morphs (spider, mojave, albino, pastel, etc) and having some fun :)

Thanks for the post.

Brandon

Id say male spider female pastel, thats what i did then you can make bees. Or a male cinnamon bred to your female would make more cinnys, or any other co dom. I wouldnt breed a normal female to anything but cod-doms so at least you get some morphs, otherwise get a reccesive morph and make hets. As for a male normal hes not really any good for breeding if you want to make morphs. He'd be good as a teaser, if his smell is on the female it might get another male more likely to breed.

Thanks, good idea.

Brandon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kryptonian

Id say male spider female pastel, thats what i did then you can make bees. Or a male cinnamon bred to your female would make more cinnys, or any other co dom. I wouldnt breed a normal female to anything but cod-doms so at least you get some morphs, otherwise get a reccesive morph and make hets. As for a male normal hes not really any good for breeding if you want to make morphs. He'd be good as a teaser, if his smell is on the female it might get another male more likely to breed.

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It matters if the normal is a male or female? :confused: I thought it didn't matter what morph was what sex, as long as you had the right mix



I think if I had a 1k-1.5k budget, I would get a male Cinny and a couple females (Pastel and another Cinny) and make Pewters and Super Cinny's :D. Or maybe a male Pastel, and a female Cinny and Spider, but idk if that's in the money range. Or, possibly a male spider, female pastel, female pinstripe!..I've got a little list of what I'd like to acquire within the next few years in order to make the combo's that I want in my personal collection, so I'm full of ideas on this. But my potential cost is going to be in the neighborhood of 10k, 2k alone just for the albinos and pinstripes, not counting the cinny's, quite a few female pastels, spiders, lesser's, etc etc and supplies/tanks or racks >.< But I want to produce that smexy killer bee and pewter someday :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lateralus_Love

It matters if the normal is a male or female? :confused: I thought it didn't matter what morph was what sex, as long as you had the right mix



I think if I had a 1k-1.5k budget, I would get a male Cinny and a couple females (Pastel and another Cinny) and make Pewters and Super Cinny's :D. Or maybe a male Pastel, and a female Cinny and Spider, but idk if that's in the money range. Or, possibly a male spider, female pastel, female pinstripe!..I've got a little list of what I'd like to acquire within the next few years in order to make the combo's that I want in my personal collection, so I'm full of ideas on this. But my potential cost is going to be in the neighborhood of 10k, 2k alone just for the albinos and pinstripes, not counting the cinny's, quite a few female pastels, spiders, lesser's, etc etc and supplies/tanks or racks >.< But I want to produce that smexy killer bee and pewter someday :D

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It doesnt matter either way you have the same ratio of normals to whatever morph. Female normals are simply more useful cuase they make the babies and are good to breed to codoms to get more morph babies. If you had a pastel male and a normal female you could breed them and get 50/50 pastels and normals. If the female was pastel and the male is normal it almost seems a waste of the female. Males are usually cheaper so to buy your male as the morph he can be used to breed multiple females, so make him the morph. Basically a male is good for more than one breeding but a female is only good for one, so why breed her to a normal, unless you really want more normals. If your budget is tight I would put your investment into male morphs and normal females, this way you will get a better turn around. Meaning you buy some hatchlings.A male pastel for say $150 and a normal female for $75. so you have spent 225. you bred them you get 50/50 pastel/normals. If you did it the other way around you female pastel will probably be 200 or more, male normal will be 50. you have spent more $ for the same ratio of babies. Plus the male is sexually mature faster do if you use the male as your morph he will be ready before your female and could be bred to your current female in the meentime. Now you will have a 1.2 ratio. with 2 females producing 50/50 litters of pastel/normals. Same idea would apply if you want to make bees. Get the spider as a male,he will be around 3-400, the female are closer to 600. get the female as a pastel, she could be as cheap as 200. This way you have your male and female for the same price as you would pay for just the female if you did it the other way around. Basically I think about waht i want to produce then get the male as the higher end morph of that combination. Unless you are making supers or trying to get a ressisive to show from het to het breedings then it doesnt matter since you need the same morph in both sexes.

Id say, a super pastel male, and 2-3 sub/adult normal females,
just because, a super pastel will throw ALL pastels, and possibly a super.
and then you have a crap load of pastels lol

I would buy some co-doms, 1 male and a few females. Sure your females wont be up to size for a couple years but it will make your chances of producing normals go down.

For 1k you could buy a pastel male, cinny female, spider female, mojave female and even some cash left over.

Breed the pastel male to your normal female and hold back your pastel females and sell off the normals and pastel males.

By your second year you can breed that pastel male to cinny, spider, and mojave females and make some great combos.

A lot of people will tell you to buy co-dom males and a bunch of normal females but I chose not to do it that way as I want to keep my production of normals to a minimum.

It sounds to me like you're getting into breeding because you love the animals, yes? Well, what do you like? That's what it really comes down to. What combos do you really like? What base morphs do you like? Get what makes you happy and what you're going to enjoy because they are going to be with you for a long time!

Quote:

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For 1k you could buy a pastel male, cinny female, spider female, mojave female and even some cash left over.

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I like this idea :D. They'd be hatchlings, so it would probably be a couple years before you saw any babies from them but in the mean time you could breed the pastel with your normal girl and hopefully get some more female pastels to hold back.

Good luck man!

I've owned a corn snake for 8 years and only recently started acquiring bp's. I didn't have and still dont have big amounts of money to spend on purchasing a breedable size male or female morph so I'm taking the long road, but for me its more the joy of owning them and the idea of what can be produced in the long run.

All the bp's I own were purchased on payment plans with the exception of two.. my first male bp, who was free I only payed for shipping and my lemon pastel male. We received our tax money and he was an outright purchase (thanx to hubby saying yes). My collection consists of a 100% het pied pair, a pinstripe male, a lemon pastel male, a cinnamon pastel female, a spider male and three normals.. 1 male, two females.

If my cinnie girl gets up to breeding weight this season, i will pair her up with my pinnie male. a clutch that could potentially produce cinnies, pinnies, a cinnapin (I gotta pray hard for that one :P) and normals. My other normal female is also close to breeding weight and I could pair her with the pinnie as well, or even the lemon pastel male.

Buy what you like to produce what you want. My view of this hobby is I own and breed for what I want for myself, everything else is secondary and bonus of the hobby. :D good luck with whatever choices you make. Most importantly, enjoy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FIEND_FO_LYFE

Id say, a super pastel male, and 2-3 sub/adult normal females,
just because, a super pastel will throw ALL pastels, and possibly a super.
and then you have a crap load of pastels lol

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super pastel x normal doesn't throw supers, they will all be just pastels. Which is still nice though!

hear is what i did.

06 Spider male - $400
07 Pastel Female - $350
08 Pastel Male - $125
07 Normal Female - $82
BoaMaster 32qt rack - $215
Helix $150

Total = $1322

With this setup im hoping to get some bees, pastels, and spiders. I plan on buying more normal breeders this year and hopefully start breeding this year.