Collection Focus / Strategy

[Stewart_Reptiles]

My main focus is on some Pied, Clown and Hypo combos but have a few side projects as well Orange Dream, Coral Glow and Mystic combos.

There are a lot of things out there that I like however I work alone with my snakes and the snake room is only 400 sq so I do need to stay focused and not get tempted by everything I see.

[Badgemash]

I do need to stay focused and not get tempted by everything I see.

(Not my photo, but seemed appropriate)

[Marissa@MKmorphs]

I'm kinda in the same boat is Nikki. I have a whole bunch of random stuff, but I do plan on adding hypo to every project.


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[MrLang]

Hmm... I already have a hypo, bee het hypo, and a few others that are currently for sale. I need a male lesser enchi het hypo!! Would love to produce lesser enchi hypo stuff - just as clean as can be.

[OsirisRa32]

I am focused on pinstripe and mojave and lesser projects...particularly the BELs...also about start projects geared towards the mahogany gene and some mystic/desert stuff as well...also got het red axanthic and cinnamon snakes to figure stuff out with as well but my main focus is the BELs complex and the mystic/desert stuff.

The two big female dinkers are just to play with really...and the random assorted other snakes are more for pets...Dums and retics specifically.

[Joshua Jasper]

Our collection is built solely around the best quality animals that we can find in the genetics that my wife and I both love. Typically, when purchasing new animals we look at bringing in new genetics or combinations to our collection. I think of it as bringing more ingredients into the kitchen. They still have to be the best ingredients around to make the food taste good lol. I hope our collection reflects that. With 65 snakes though, we are now moving more into the breeding and self sustaining collection stage than investment stage which is very exciting.

In regards to finances, we don't look to make millions off our collection or even to have it support either of us leaving our jobs. We would like it to support itself, pay back some of our substantial personal investment, and ultimately allow some funds for reinvestment into the collection. That being said, I do a focused ROI (Return on investment) study on each new addition, more to show my wife my plans and thought process before dropping personal cash. I also do a monthly P&L (Profit and Loss statement) to show the net effect on our personal finances as well as trends in the collection being self supporting. We are nowhere near there, but it is interesting to visualize the costs most people don't think of for managing and maintaining a larger collection - i.e. food, electricity, substrate, housing, and depreciation on capital investments.

A lot of that is just spill over from my primary day job, but still fun. I also have a few snap decisions that I love, so not everything is perfectly thought out lol. I will say a recessive project is much harder to leap into (we currently have 6) since it requires a larger amount of space/holdbacks and also a longer term project so my wife and I spend a lot of time discussing these before pulling the trigger.

Here is our current genetic ingredients lol:
Arroyo, Axanthic(SK), Banana, Black Lace, Black Pastel, Calico, Cinnamon, Champagne, Clown,Enchi, Fire, Genetic Stripe, Jungle Woma, Leopard, Lesser/Butter, Mojave, Nova,Orange Dream, Orange Ghost, Pastel, Piebald, Pinstripe, Spark, Specter, Spider,Spotnose, Trick, Vanilla, Yellowbelly

[chadphillips8352]

My wife and I got into ball pythons strictly as a hobby to begin with. After reading the book "The Complete Ball Python" by Kevin McCurley, we were really fascinated by all the various morphs and combos. Originally, we had only a normal male and a het albino female, but we soon added a spider female to our collection. After checking out the genetic wizard on World of Ball Pythons and consulting with Scott of Family Reptiles, we came up with a few ideas that we thought would be fun to create. We added a bumble bee male, a cinny-pin male, and a fire female to our collection in hopes of making fire bees and cinnamon spinners. Just the other day, we found a very nice looking mojave female and purchased her with the idea of possibly making some mystic potions. The combos that are available are super awesome, and I admit it is sometimes hard to not want to try them all. I'm currently looking for a het albino male, preferably a morph variety in order to breed to my het albino female for some potentially cool looking morph-albinos.

[kylearmbar]

I like lighter morphs, im currently working towards my dream snake which is a firebee, love the contrast. And I may make other combos with that such as nuclears and fireflies along the way and after, depends how easy it is I can sell the animls I dont need while working towards my goal

[Archimedes]

My wife and I got into ball pythons strictly as a hobby to begin with. After reading the book "The Complete Ball Python" by Kevin McCurley, we were really fascinated by all the various morphs and combos. Originally, we had only a normal male and a het albino female, but we soon added a spider female to our collection. After checking out the genetic wizard on World of Ball Pythons and consulting with Scott of Family Reptiles, we came up with a few ideas that we thought would be fun to create. We added a bumble bee male, a cinny-pin male, and a fire female to our collection in hopes of making fire bees and cinnamon spinners. Just the other day, we found a very nice looking mojave female and purchased her with the idea of possibly making some mystic potions. The combos that are available are super awesome, and I admit it is sometimes hard to not want to try them all. I'm currently looking for a het albino male, preferably a morph variety in order to breed to my het albino female for some potentially cool looking morph-albinos.

Any chance you'll agree to a breeding loan for your cinny pin male in like 4 years? :p they are difficult to find at first glance, kudos to you for finding one!

I have always been drawn to pewters, even before I learned what it took to make one, back in the beginning of my entry to the hobby. Their colors are just so unique, there isn't a prettier snake than a nice pewter to my eyes.

Pinstripe came a little later, when I started looking for alternatives than the Spider for reduced pattern. I love the dorsals on them, and the nice reduced speckles along the flanks. Spiders are nice, don't get me wrong, but you can turn around and see a spider in this hobby. Pinstripes are just more striking, to me.

Funnily enough, axanthics are really the only recessive I see myself working with so far. Maybe a token Pied somewhere along the line, but it's not close enough behind Axanthic to be in my priority list.

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[chadphillips8352]

Any chance you'll agree to a breeding loan for your cinny pin male in like 4 years? :p they are difficult to find at first glance, kudos to you for finding one!

I have always been drawn to pewters, even before I learned what it took to make one, back in the beginning of my entry to the hobby. Their colors are just so unique, there isn't a prettier snake than a nice pewter to my eyes.

Pinstripe came a little later, when I started looking for alternatives than the Spider for reduced pattern. I love the dorsals on them, and the nice reduced speckles along the flanks. Spiders are nice, don't get me wrong, but you can turn around and see a spider in this hobby. Pinstripes are just more striking, to me.

Funnily enough, axanthics are really the only recessive I see myself working with so far. Maybe a token Pied somewhere along the line, but it's not close enough behind Axanthic to be in my priority list.

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I'm thinking that Pennsylvania is a little far off for me to loan out. The crazy thing is, I had absolutely no plans to get one. Not the biggest fan of the cinnamon gene. Nothing wrong with it, but just not "my thing". My wife saw it and "persuaded" me that we should get it. And by persuade, I mean told me it was one of the ones we were getting or we wouldn't get anything. LOL. Love that woman. It ended up being a good decision, because he really is such a beautiful snake.