Getting started in a saturated market

[ExoticsEngineer]

Hi all, I've been following the ball python hobby for many years but I'm just now getting into breeding. The amount of morphs on the market today is insane. I only have some lower end animals, a normal (my first ever snake, more of a pet) an enchi, a black widow, a lesser bee, and a pastel clown. The enchi and black widow are a breeding pair, and I'll be breeding my pastel clown my lesser bee. I've been contemplating for a while 1.) What other females should I invest in, if any? From the research I've been doing on morph market, I'll have to buy a couple expensive females if I want to make any money. But I'm iffy on what projects to get into, as I said the morphs are overwhelming. 2.) Wholesaling, which places have you guys had success selling to? 3.) Is breeding ball pythons really the main "breadwinner" of a collection when starting out in the breeding world?

[sp0420]

It really depends on what sex your current animals are to decide what females to invest in. But I'd say Clowns, I know you said females but I would invest in a powerful male like a spotnose clown and put him to most of your females. Spotnose het females were 300 last year and 600 this year add another gene and add another hundred or two to each het. They are in demand. Then you have the option to hold back any female hets to breed back to dad and grow out your collection adding new genes into clowns to either sell or hold back. Also may consider a backup male like an enchi clown or whatever you like so you don't put all of your eggs in one basket. This is basically how I started and am starting to build a quality collection.

Don't expect to make a return on any investment for some time. Females will take at least two years to get to size. Sometimes longer. With a quality male though you can put him to many females in a relatively short amount of time.

I should also add you should pick morphs you enjoy not just for the money. As for me that just happened to be clowns. Also for now I would just try breeding what you have and get a feel for breeding. Maybe invest into some quality equipment like a good incubator. Good equipment will give you better chances for successful clutches.

Also check out morphmarket you can use the filters and genetic calculator to get an idea of what you can produce with what you have or are considering and also see some current prices of what the morphs are selling for.

Hope this helps give you some ideas!

Sean

[Snow Balls]

Don't expect to make a return on any investment for some time. Females will take at least two years to get to size. Sometimes longer. With a quality male though you can put him to many females in a relatively short amount of time.

I should also add you should pick morphs you enjoy not just for the money. As for me that just happened to be clowns. Also for now I would just try breeding what you have and get a feel for breeding. Maybe invest into some quality equipment like a good incubator. Good equipment will give you better chances for successful clutches.

Also check out morphmarket you can use the filters and genetic calculator to get an idea of what you can produce with what you have or are considering and also see some current prices of what the morphs are selling for.

Hope this helps give you some ideas!

Sean

Recessives and double recessives are where the money is at currently. Unless you’re breeding a 3 gene codom to another 3 gene codom. As SP said, load up on females and don’t expect return on your investment for some years to come. I still haven’t turned any profit and I’ve invested thousands upon thousands into this hobby. Also make sure you don’t cheap out on your equipment, your equipment should be just as important as the animals you’re putting in it. It sounds like you have some pairs that will make some money already but don’t get your hopes up because it won’t be much. If you’re doing this for the money though then you’re already going to fail before you even start. Breed what you like, not what is going to make you the most money. As for wholesaling you’re going to have to talk to your local pet stores, if you produce a bunch of normals you won’t be making any money at all because normals don’t sell and if a petstore buys them then they will pay for them even cheaper than you will be able to sell them for


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[nikkubus]

Recessives and double recessives are where the money is at currently. Unless you’re breeding a 3 gene codom to another 3 gene codom.

I disagree with this bit unless you are breeding visual to het or better. It can be a huge money sync to breed recessives if you aren't smart about it. Plenty of money to be had breeding the right incomplete dominants. To know what those are you really need to study the market over a long period of time to understand the cycles things tend to take.


Don't rush into things. Take your sweet time learning everything you can and you will avoid some major mistakes. Plan projects out well to where you are always making an improvement each generation, and the animals you purchase and holdback are not just used one season and then dead weight.

I would not focus on expensive females, just get some 1-2 morph low-to-mid range girls that work well for your project. I would spend big money on your males, not just try to breed what you already have.

Avoid wholesaling if you can. You make next to nothing in comparison to selling outright, and even the best wholesalers do not do the best job with quarantine. If you can't sell directly, I would start with your local pet shop, you are more likely to get better deals and not have to pay shipping. I have worked with BSR in the past, but not recently. With MM, it seems a lot less necessary than in the past.

100% agree that you need to pick projects you are passionate about. There might be over 9000 Pastels on the market right now, but how many of them are combined with morphs that really showcase what they can do? How many have been carefully bred by selecting the highest quality color adults to breed from? If you can make people say "WOW!" when they look at your hatchlings, it doesn't matter how saturated the market is. Do what you love and it will show in your "product". Go pick any JKR or JDC animal for sale, then compare the price and look to another that is the exact same combo from somebody else and you will see what I mean.

I was making project wishlists for years before I started breeding or buying animals to breed. Pages and pages of cool looking BPs on a pinterest trying to narrow down what I wanted to work on first. Notebooks and notebooks full of working out punnets with different pairings, generation by generation, trying to figure out the best way to go about hitting goals, least amount of normals produced, getting good profit ratios, and so on. If you do this, you might have a chance to turn a profit fairly quickly. If you don't, you almost certainly will be in the hole for a very long time. I'm more than happy to share what I've learned, but it's easier to make suggestions if I have more info about what you are interested in. Far easier to critique bad or so-so ideas and suggest ways to make the same thing work better.

Black Widow x Enchi is not something I would breed unless the Black Widow is an exceptional quality example of the morph and male. I don't know which is male and female and what you are hoping to accomplish there, but every single morph in that makeup is cheap and oversaturated in the market. If the Black Widow is the female, just get a better male to breed her with. Clown would bring that project to the next level. Leopard would too. I'd do something like Black Pastel Leopard Clown male x Bee het Clown female instead. Or Enchi Leopard Clown male x Black Pastel het Clown female.

[Snow Balls]

I disagree with this bit unless you are breeding visual to het or better. It can be a huge money sync to breed recessives if you aren't smart about it. Plenty of money to be had breeding the right incomplete dominants. To know what those are you really need to study the market over a long period of time to understand the cycles things tend to take.

That's kind of what I was saying, one example would be my ghost pied project: 1.0 Cinnamon Pastel YB DH Ghost Pied x 0.1 Pastel Ghost Het Pied and 0.1 Pastel Pied Het Ghost. That's going to turn much more of a profit compared to a Pastel Ghost x Pied ect.

[ExoticsEngineer]

It really depends on what sex your current animals are to decide what females to invest in. But I'd say Clowns, I know you said females but I would invest in a powerful male like a spotnose clown and put him to most of your females. Spotnose het females were 300 last year and 600 this year add another gene and add another hundred or two to each het. They are in demand. Then you have the option to hold back any female hets to breed back to dad and grow out your collection adding new genes into clowns to either sell or hold back. Also may consider a backup male like an enchi clown or whatever you like so you don't put all of your eggs in one basket. This is basically how I started and am starting to build a quality collection.

Don't expect to make a return on any investment for some time. Females will take at least two years to get to size. Sometimes longer. With a quality male though you can put him to many females in a relatively short amount of time.

I should also add you should pick morphs you enjoy not just for the money. As for me that just happened to be clowns. Also for now I would just try breeding what you have and get a feel for breeding. Maybe invest into some quality equipment like a good incubator. Good equipment will give you better chances for successful clutches.

Also check out morphmarket you can use the filters and genetic calculator to get an idea of what you can produce with what you have or are considering and also see some current prices of what the morphs are selling for.

Hope this helps give you some ideas!

Sean

Thanks for the insight! That is my problem, I'm not really sure "what I like" for morphs just yet. I'm drawn to pieds and also clowns but I have to do more exploring to see what I like as well as figuring out which are the high value morphs in demand. For context though, my females are black widow and lesser bee, my males are enchi and pastel clown

[Snow Balls]

Thanks for the insight! That is my problem, I'm not really sure "what I like" for morphs just yet. I'm drawn to pieds and also clowns but I have to do more exploring to see what I like as well as figuring out which are the high value morphs in demand. For context though, my females are black widow and lesser bee, my males are enchi and pastel clown

The problem you might run into is people not wanting to buy your animals because they have spider in them. I love spider, but most people tend to get away from it because spider has a bad reputation in this hobby. So if you’re producing a lot of spiders you could run into the issue of not being able to move your animals


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[ExoticsEngineer]

I disagree with this bit unless you are breeding visual to het or better. It can be a huge money sync to breed recessives if you aren't smart about it. Plenty of money to be had breeding the right incomplete dominants. To know what those are you really need to study the market over a long period of time to understand the cycles things tend to take.


Don't rush into things. Take your sweet time learning everything you can and you will avoid some major mistakes. Plan projects out well to where you are always making an improvement each generation, and the animals you purchase and holdback are not just used one season and then dead weight.

I would not focus on expensive females, just get some 1-2 morph low-to-mid range girls that work well for your project. I would spend big money on your males, not just try to breed what you already have.

Avoid wholesaling if you can. You make next to nothing in comparison to selling outright, and even the best wholesalers do not do the best job with quarantine. If you can't sell directly, I would start with your local pet shop, you are more likely to get better deals and not have to pay shipping. I have worked with BSR in the past, but not recently. With MM, it seems a lot less necessary than in the past.

100% agree that you need to pick projects you are passionate about. There might be over 9000 Pastels on the market right now, but how many of them are combined with morphs that really showcase what they can do? How many have been carefully bred by selecting the highest quality color adults to breed from? If you can make people say "WOW!" when they look at your hatchlings, it doesn't matter how saturated the market is. Do what you love and it will show in your "product". Go pick any JKR or JDC animal for sale, then compare the price and look to another that is the exact same combo from somebody else and you will see what I mean.

I was making project wishlists for years before I started breeding or buying animals to breed. Pages and pages of cool looking BPs on a pinterest trying to narrow down what I wanted to work on first. Notebooks and notebooks full of working out punnets with different pairings, generation by generation, trying to figure out the best way to go about hitting goals, least amount of normals produced, getting good profit ratios, and so on. If you do this, you might have a chance to turn a profit fairly quickly. If you don't, you almost certainly will be in the hole for a very long time. I'm more than happy to share what I've learned, but it's easier to make suggestions if I have more info about what you are interested in. Far easier to critique bad or so-so ideas and suggest ways to make the same thing work better.

Black Widow x Enchi is not something I would breed unless the Black Widow is an exceptional quality example of the morph and male. I don't know which is male and female and what you are hoping to accomplish there, but every single morph in that makeup is cheap and oversaturated in the market. If the Black Widow is the female, just get a better male to breed her with. Clown would bring that project to the next level. Leopard would too. I'd do something like Black Pastel Leopard Clown male x Bee het Clown female instead. Or Enchi Leopard Clown male x Black Pastel het Clown female.

Thanks so much for your insight! I have definitely been taking my time with this, I have been following the industry for at least a decade and am finally honing in on which species I'd like to breed (including BPs). But I honestly haven't thought that far ahead in terms of BP projects and you're right it's the smarter thing to do. The BP morphs that I currently have, I thought were cool when I bought them. With the exception of my M Pastel Clown, I think he's cool too but I got a good deal on him when I bought him.

Unfortunately, I've already made some mistakes by your definition. My Black Widow is a female, I've already bred her to my male Enchi. The one morph they produced that I really took a liking to was a Black Pewter and I'll be holding him back. My other pairing will be M Pastel Clown x F Lesser Bee.

I replied to SPs post expressing my interest in Pieds and Clowns, but the one I forgot about is the Blue-eyed Lucy. I definitely want to produce my own someday. I started this by breeding my M Normal x F Lesser Bee, and got a few Lessers out of it. In hindsight, probably not the best idea but I figured now I could get a Mojave, raise it up alongside them and then breed them. Outside of this, I do want to get into a different, separate project. The challenge is figuring out where else to start when I only know the basic morphs well.

[sp0420]

Man it's so hard to tell someone where to go with their projects because so much of what you can produce is subjective as to what you personally find attractive/ like. And where you eventually want to end up with your projects.

Also I wouldn't consider anything you've done so far a "mistake" because after all you have produced successful clutches and they are animals that you enjoy. So congrats!

If I had those animals and only them and it were me I'd probably put the pastel clown male to both the spiders. Nothing would be very expensive but there are a lot of het clowns you can produce with them.

Then I would invest in some het females that will add genes to clown that you don't currently have. Ex. Enchi fire het clown would be a cheaper het that would work very well with your pastel clown. And eventually one high end clown male to breed to the hets. Keeping the pastel male as a back up male.

But again all of this is so subjective as I personally like clown and would work my projects around them. Also as the above posts mentioned its all about researching your projects. Planing planing and even more planning. Try to think several generations down the road. What you want to make from one pairing and then where to go with the possible offspring from that. I can see you started that with the bel idea.

Also there are other morphs in the bel complex that may work well with your lessers and other morphs. For example bamboo is a stunning morph that is in the bel complex and you may find that that is something you would like to work with. Keep in mind with the bel if you breed a several gene animal with another and end up with a bel you may end up turning a several thousand dollar animal into a $600 animal because you won't know what is in it and will only be able to sell it as a bel pos whatever else. So if that were something I was getting into might choose go for lesser x lesser so you know only gene in there is lesser and you have 25% chance to produce bels 50% lesser and 25% normals.

Can't stress enough how useful the morph market calculator has been for me. You can plug in the morphs see your pos outcomes and then next to that click and see animals for sale that have those genes. I spend probably a year on there and online and shows looking at morphs I like plugging them in and seeing what I could produce.

Sorry for the long response but get me talking about snakes an I'll never shut up lol.