New BP owner and future potential breeder :)

[Jessica Loesch]

Hi everyone I have been looking around the forums for some time now and wanted to make an introduction ...

I picked up a baby female normal at 85g about 15 - 20 days ago. She looks so healthy and is very friendly. She loves exploring. Have fed her once and no sheds yet, nor signs of a shed.

Anyway, Here is a pic!


IMG_6527 by muffywrx, on Flickr

[dragonboy4578]

Welcome to bp.net... She is a pretty looking girl....

[snakesRkewl]

Very pretty little girl, congrats and welcome to the forums

[Aes_Sidhe]

Welcome to the Ball Pythons Pokemon Gang
Dont hesitate to ask questions we are here to help You out

[Jessica Loesch]

Thanks everyone

My hopeful plans are to get a pair of pieds as babies and grow them up, or maybe a pied and a 100% het pied. I am guessing I should get them from different sources to prevent inbreeding or is that not a bad thing in the snake world?

I would also like to get some sort of dominant gene morph to breed with my normal girl, but unsure which morph I want to get Not looking for anything TOO high end. But would like something that looks completely different than a normal

Anyway, got a pair of mice tonight so I can start saving up some pinkies, hoppers, etc for my future stock

I am thinking about building some sort of tower that will hold tubs. What size tubs are recommended for breeding/babies and how many snakes per tub etc etc etc

Am still researching all the time

[Jessica Loesch]

Thinking maybe a butter. Would be really neat to hold back any butter offspring and try for blue eyed leutistics. Thoughts? Again, I read about this, but I have no idea on the ethics of inbreeding with snakes.

[llovelace]

Welcome to BP.net

[Jessica Loesch]

Thanks I'm thinking about ordering a baby butter male from constrictors unlimited.

Should I put off ordering the butter until my female is about 2 years old so they will mature at the same time or would it be okay to make the butter wait a while before he breeds?

[AK907]

Thanks everyone

My hopeful plans are to get a pair of pieds as babies and grow them up, or maybe a pied and a 100% het pied. I am guessing I should get them from different sources to prevent inbreeding or is that not a bad thing in the snake world?

I would also like to get some sort of dominant gene morph to breed with my normal girl, but unsure which morph I want to get Not looking for anything TOO high end. But would like something that looks completely different than a normal

Anyway, got a pair of mice tonight so I can start saving up some pinkies, hoppers, etc for my future stock

I am thinking about building some sort of tower that will hold tubs. What size tubs are recommended for breeding/babies and how many snakes per tub etc etc etc

Am still researching all the time

Pretty ball.

For dominant/co-dom morphs, spiders are easy to come by and have lots of potential and are very easily distinguished from normals. You can pick them up very cheap too.

As for the mice, don't bother. Get your ball on rats ASAP!!! Even the smallest baby balls have no problem with rat pinks. They are far more nutritious than mice and its much easier to start baby balls on rats than trying to switch an adult ball that was raised on mice. Any breeder or someone who has kept a number of balls will tell you the same.

The towers you refer to are usually called racks. They are the way to go if you're going to keep lots of snakes. For adult balls most people use between 28qt and 41qt tubs, sometimes larger in the case of exceptionally large balls. For hatchlings/babies, a shoebox sized tub works great. You want them small enough that they feel secure.

One snake per tub. Period. The only exception would be when you're pairing up two adults for breeding, but that is only temporary.

[Jessica Loesch]

Thanks for the awesome info! I just read the part about one snake per tub, lots of research left to do

And for the suggestion on rats - great! I can do that. Mine is on F/T right now, mice. Do you think she will take F/T rat babies easily? Otherwise, might have to keep a batch of mice babies to freeze while I try to wean her off.

Can I put a pair of rats in a 10 gallon (without babies, have their own enclosure in the future)? I wouldn't think so, but can find an enclosure easily if this is the case.

Awesome awesome info. Think I might build my own. Am building a 314g aquarium stand at the moment already ^_^

Will probably make it a nice shelving system with baby shoe boxes on another smaller rack perhaps.

Any thoughts on the butter I mentioned?