First post

[ginja ninja]

Hey everyone...long time listener first time caller. Thought I'd finally register for an account so I can learn from the best and get everyone's ideas and opinions in the future. I currently own 2 ball pythons...a male pastel and a female spider. The bumblebee was what originally peaked my interest in ball python morphs and I decided I would want to produce my own one day. In the past yr however my list has gotten much much longer lol. I've been setting aside money for months for when repticon comes back to tampa in June and the wish list is growing every day. As it stands right now I am planning on purchasing a Mojave female, a mystic male, and a pair of het clowns. I'm obsessed with everything clown and I WILL own one haha! Anyway guys its nice to finally post something and start getting involved. I wish I could go back and write down the names of all the people on this forum that made my life and the lives of my snakes better over the last yr. There's seriously so much information and things to learn in these threads and its awesome to see how passionate people are about their animals. I say all that to say you guys are awesome! Happy to be here.

[Morris Reese]

Great to have you!
Welcome from Atlanta, GA!
Post some pics of those snakes! We all love pics!!
Here is my Mojave girl.

[dr del]

Welcome to the site.

[Pythonfriend]

welcome

read this, i always link it for new aspiring breeders: http://ballpythonbreeder.com/2012/02...thon-breeders/ a pair of het clowns is not the proper way to start a clown project, and a mojave female and a mystic male is a way to start a mystic potion project, but not the best one.

also, putting in a blank line whenever you change the subject is not a bad idea. i dont even capitalize the beginning of a sentence. but thats just me, most other people do.

some people dislike me for being blunt, but i dont mind. to be blunt, your breeding ideas, when it comes to pairings, are far from optimal. you dont really want a mystic male, really you want a super mystic male or an enchi mystic male. and you dont want to breed het clown to het clown, with just 25% clowns and the rest being 66% possible het clowns. you want to breed visual clown to 100% het clowns that have extra genes, to produce visual clowns and 100% het clowns. possible hets are falling out of fashion.

if you really start breeding, and dont want to just have a nice pet (or 2 or 3), do you want to start at a level appropriate for 2008 or at a level appropriate for 2014? i would look for double gene females and triple or quadruple gene males, or even better, for breeding, choose a different species. there are species out there where you get 200-400 dollars for a captive bred normal, and where the prices for a captive bred are still higher than the prices for a poached / wild caught. think chameleons or rare geckos.

[ginja ninja]

Thanks for the welcomes everyone!

Sorry about the long run on paragraph I'm sure that was irritating to read lol.

Pythonfriend, I definitely see where you're coming from as far as the breeding plans go...It's more of just a list of ingredients on how to produce the morphs that I really enjoy. I also know that the snakes I'm most interested in are old news to more experienced members of the community. There's just something exciting about the possibility of hitting the odds for an animal that I really want.

I've tried to breed for profit in the past...not ball pythons but tarantula s for the past couple years and I really found that it took all of the fun out of it for me. Always stressing about what was going to sell and what was the hottest thing on the market wore on me after a while.

I have thought about the fact that I may end up with a large number of hatching that I cannot get rid of and that has raised some concern but like I said earlier that's all in the future. Right now I'm just enjoying the possibilities of what could happen.

I understand that unless you're working with 3+ gene animals and breeding the latest morphs and constantly pushing the envelope then you're probably not going to have much success as far as profit goes. And trust me if I had the money for a visual clown right now then I would own one lol. I'm just trying to put together a foundation for my collection with genes and combos that appeal to me personally.

[Pythonfriend]

i think if you master spider breeding you can make an awful lot of profit. dont expect any profit from ball pythons unless you have a whole lot of breeding females and good genetics. the price per year to keep a ball python happy is significant, and these minimum keeping requirements are important.