Yb or asphalt/gravel

[DCR]

Hi I know there's probably plenty of topics out there on this site pertaining to yb vs asphalt/gravel and a few things I've read up on and seen in various videos is that it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between asphalt/gravel and yb. Some other key things I saw in videos and read in topics/articles is that the asphalt/gravel tends to be darker in general and that the alien heads will have no key holes. I also read that the yellow belly tends to be brighter yellows in general. We picked up a male a few months back and he's pushing 1000gs and he was labeled as an asphalt/yb he was injured during the care of the previous owner by unsupervised feeding of live rats and he got the tip of his tail pretty severely chewed up, that was not my doing. Well about a week ago we picked up a female she's pushing roughly 2000 grams and she was sold to us as a proven breeder yellow belly, they definitely have the belly patterns to prove they're in the yb complex, hence why there's no belly pics included. Some key differences I'm noticing between the two is that the female is extremely dark in her alien heads, in person they're basically brown and the male he's much brighter with a nice head stamp and his alien heads towards his tail have mostly no keyholes in them. So I was hoping if someone more experienced might be able to shed some light on me and be able to potentially properly I'd these snakes further in the complex without breeding them. The goal is to obviously breed them but was trying to see what we might be expecting to pop out of eggs before that happens, Thank you in advance.

Female(yb)
https://ibb.co/PWCvYWP
Male (asphalt/yb)
https://ibb.co/R3h7Hx5

[nikkubus]

Many people have speculations about little differences they can see to tell them apart from each other. The only one that I think has any merit whatsoever is that asphalt can have slightly darker blacks, but it's nothing remotely definitive, especially when you don't have siblings to compare. I have YB's with no keyholes, and I've seen plenty of proven asphalt with keyholes, so I certainly wouldn't rely on that.

Just going to have to breed to find out unfortunately. If I were you, I wouldn't breed those two together even if you knew for a fact he was asphalt, especially as a new breeder. You have to think about the difficultly in selling hatchlings and plan accordingly or you are going to be sitting on 5-8 BP's that won't sell for a really long time if ever, especially the males. Plus if you are thinking long term, you haven't accomplished anything towards a decent project goal by breeding them. Instead I would figure out some morphs and 3-5 morph combos you really like that have some morphs in there that sell especially well, and pick up some combo animals to work with to cut down on normals and asphalt/yb only hatchlings. If you don't think ahead, you are going to burn yourself out and waste a lot of money messing around breeding cheap animals. I know cause I have been there, and many other breeders would agree. Save up some money and pick up a male that has a bunch of morphs including something in the yb complex to breed to her, and hold off trying to prove him out till you are either more established or have a good combo female to breed to him and I guarantee your profit margin drastically improves.

[DCR]

Many people have speculations about little differences they can see to tell them apart from each other. The only one that I think has any merit whatsoever is that asphalt can have slightly darker blacks, but it's nothing remotely definitive, especially when you don't have siblings to compare. I have YB's with no keyholes, and I've seen plenty of proven asphalt with keyholes, so I certainly wouldn't rely on that.

Just going to have to breed to find out unfortunately. If I were you, I wouldn't breed those two together even if you knew for a fact he was asphalt, especially as a new breeder. You have to think about the difficultly in selling hatchlings and plan accordingly or you are going to be sitting on 5-8 BP's that won't sell for a really long time if ever, especially the males. Plus if you are thinking long term, you haven't accomplished anything towards a decent project goal by breeding them. Instead I would figure out some morphs and 3-5 morph combos you really like that have some morphs in there that sell especially well, and pick up some combo animals to work with to cut down on normals and asphalt/yb only hatchlings. If you don't think ahead, you are going to burn yourself out and waste a lot of money messing around breeding cheap animals. I know cause I have been there, and many other breeders would agree. Save up some money and pick up a male that has a bunch of morphs including something in the yb complex to breed to her, and hold off trying to prove him out till you are either more established or have a good combo female to breed to him and I guarantee your profit margin drastically improves.

You know I really do appreciate you seeming to be the only individual responding to the majority of my posts 😂🤣 we have quite a few bps
Females:
Yb
Butter pastel banana
Pastel cinnamon
Emperor kingpin
Orange dream calico enchi spider
Bumblebee
Firefly
Ghi black pastel
Tsk axanthic
Clown
Pastel bamboo spider
Males:
Lesser
Asphalt/yb
Banana Fire enchi
Orange dream mojave fire
Tsk axanthic
Ghi cinnamon mojave
Banana clown
Banana Pastel
Banana pastel het red axanthic
Killer mojave bee 100% het Orange ghost

We've got quite a few projects we'd like to start eventually, we just need a jumping off point and we've paired our pastel cinnamon to the lesser a few times, have not seen a successful lock yet, and we planned on pairing the 2 yb together as well, mostly to see where we stand as far as being able to make it happen. Alot of those snakes still have a long ways to go before they're breeding size and thats all fine, we definitely want high profit margins, we've got alot invested in the collection we've got going on so far, and it seems the only set back we've had so far is someone sold us a sick snake off of morph market.
So pretty much we've decided to slow down on acquiring new snakes until we start seeing some returns, even if it takes a little longer than expected thats fine. Any kind of advice you have to offer I'd be greatly appreciative of in all honesty.

And I see what you are saying as far as staying away from the single gene combos, if I might elaborate, what you are saying is; you would not start breeding the 2 single gene ybs together because single gene snakes are quite inexpensive and the likelihood of us getting a bunch of normals is massively higher than it would be if we were to breed 2 snakes that both had 5 genes in them because of the gene pool percentages?

[nikkubus]

It depends on what the single gene is and what the goal you are working toward is. Some single gene animals command decent prices because they are either highly in demand, or rare, or both. YB is one of those morphs that there are thousands of for sale on the market, so by itself, it's a tough sale and cheap. Breeding a YB female to lets say your Lesser male, still wouldn't be an ideal pairing, but at least it is working towards stacking up new morphs in the project, even if they all sell cheap. YB to Asphalt, so you get your Freeway, but then to add anything else, you are back to a clutch of Asphalt/YB's possibly in combo with the new morph you are trying to add.

You don't want to go too crazy breeding 5+ morph to 5+ morph, because then it is a nightmare to identify and you end up selling many of them as a couple of those morphs "poss" the rest.

You have some great animals there, with a lot of potential, and there are a few combinations I would think are great pairings to get started with. Some of those animals, I would seek out something slightly different from the mates you have available. You are pretty male heavy right now, so I would probably focus on the next couple of purchases being female, and have female-heavy holdbacks. I would make that Banana Clown male the star of your show for right now. He would be a great choice to breed your YB female to if he is ready to go! You would get no visual Clowns, but Banana on it's own sell pretty well, Banana YB even better, and you hold back one female YB het Clown and bring that project to the next level with what YB adds to both Clown and Banana when she is up to size and can be bred back to the sire.

If you want to tell me which males are up to size if the Banana Clown isn't, I could make a different suggestion.

[DCR]

It depends on what the single gene is and what the goal you are working toward is. Some single gene animals command decent prices because they are either highly in demand, or rare, or both. YB is one of those morphs that there are thousands of for sale on the market, so by itself, it's a tough sale and cheap. Breeding a YB female to lets say your Lesser male, still wouldn't be an ideal pairing, but at least it is working towards stacking up new morphs in the project, even if they all sell cheap. YB to Asphalt, so you get your Freeway, but then to add anything else, you are back to a clutch of Asphalt/YB's possibly in combo with the new morph you are trying to add.

You don't want to go too crazy breeding 5+ morph to 5+ morph, because then it is a nightmare to identify and you end up selling many of them as a couple of those morphs "poss" the rest.

You have some great animals there, with a lot of potential, and there are a few combinations I would think are great pairings to get started with. Some of those animals, I would seek out something slightly different from the mates you have available. You are pretty male heavy right now, so I would probably focus on the next couple of purchases being female, and have female-heavy holdbacks. I would make that Banana Clown male the star of your show for right now. He would be a great choice to breed your YB female to if he is ready to go! You would get no visual Clowns, but Banana on it's own sell pretty well, Banana YB even better, and you hold back one female YB het Clown and bring that project to the next level with what YB adds to both Clown and Banana when she is up to size and can be bred back to the sire.

If you want to tell me which males are up to size if the Banana Clown isn't, I could make a different suggestion.

The asphalt/yb is around 1000gs
The lesser is 650-700gs
The od mojave fire is 350-400gs
The Banana Fire enchi is 450-500gs
The Banana pastel is 250gs
The Banana pastel het red axanthic is about 225gs
The Banana Clown is under 100gs
Ghi cinnamon mojave 150gs
Killer mojave bee under 100gs
And tsk axanthic is about 225gs as well

[nikkubus]

I'd get a little more weight on the Banana Fire Enchi and go with him for this coming season with your YB female. Not sure if you are doing temperature cycling, but if you are, there is a good chance he will put on a good chunk of weight and size by the time it's appropriate to start pairing. If you can manage to hit a female Fire Enchi YB, that would make a great future mate for your Asphalt/YB. Banana combo would be even better if you have a female maker by chance.

[DCR]

I'd get a little more weight on the Banana Fire Enchi and go with him for this coming season with your YB female. Not sure if you are doing temperature cycling, but if you are, there is a good chance he will put on a good chunk of weight and size by the time it's appropriate to start pairing. If you can manage to hit a female Fire Enchi YB, that would make a great future mate for your Asphalt/YB. Banana combo would be even better if you have a female maker by chance.

Very respectable suggestion, we are unaware if he's a female maker but would not be surprised at all if he's just a male maker lol.. so you think get him up to 700+ and breed him to the yb female?

[nikkubus]

Yep, that's what I would do. Then you can regroup for winter 22, where most of your males should be up to size if you want to change things up.

Proving out your Asphalt/YB is something I would do at some point, I'd just put it on the back burner and try to line up a female that will throw stuff that will sell.