Wanting to breed...need advice!

[danigurrl]

Allo! I was wondering what would be some good lower-cost morphs to begin a breeding project with. I don't want to start with normals (even though they are beautiful!) and I don't want to make a $5k investment quite yet. This will be my 1st breeding project. This isn't going to be happening for another couple years, since my male is only a baby.

I was also wondering if anyone had any good breeding tutorials that I can research, other than searching the forum. Its never too early to start learning!

[tmlowe5704]

Allo! I was wondering what would be some good lower-cost morphs to begin a breeding project with. I don't want to start with normals (even though they are beautiful!) and I don't want to make a $5k investment quite yet. This will be my 1st breeding project. This isn't going to be happening for another couple years, since my male is only a baby.

I was also wondering if anyone had any good breeding tutorials that I can research, other than searching the forum. Its never too early to start learning!

visit www.8ballpythons.com and www.ballpythons.ca

They have great timelines and calendars for breeding. As for using morphs, it depends how long you want to wait. You can get a het albino pair for $600 maybe cheaper in some places and you have a 25% chance of making albinos when they are both sexually mature. Or you can go the dominant/co-dominant route and buy a single dom or co-dom male and mate to a normal female and it will be a little cheaper than buying a morph female. You have 50% chances of popping out a morph in this situation and you can also breed that single male to multiple females.

[LadyOhh]

Some of the "lower end" visual stuff is as follows, and are at market price around $1500 or lower:

Spiders (Dominant)
Mojaves (Codominant)
Pastels (Codominant)
Yellowbellies (Codominant)
Albinos (Recessive)
Cinnamons (Codominant)
Black Pastels (Codominant)
Ghosts (Recessive)

These are the more common morphs available. I'm sure there are more that I am not thinking of at this moment, but all of these are good animals to start with.

Do what you love... Not what is the "best investment".

You will be sorely dissapointed if you are only in it for the money.

[danigurrl]

I'm not in for the $$ at all, I'd be thrilled if I broke even. I love the light morphs, pastels, lemon pastels, pastel spiders, axanthic (<~~~my favorite!!), and also pieds.

I think I might wait and see if I can get a good price on a pair of het axanthics, because so far this is my absolute favorite morph, but a little to pricey at the moment. I'm in no rush.

[tmlowe5704]

If you are in no rush, pick up a het male and some normal females and wait til the females are breeding size and breed them to the male, then save all the female babies and breed them back to the original het male.


Takes A LOT longer than if you buy a het pair though. But the initial investment is much smaller.

[J.Vandegrift]

I'm not in for the $$ at all, I'd be thrilled if I broke even. I love the light morphs, pastels, lemon pastels, pastel spiders, axanthic (<~~~my favorite!!), and also pieds.

I think I might wait and see if I can get a good price on a pair of het axanthics, because so far this is my absolute favorite morph, but a little to pricey at the moment. I'm in no rush.

If axanthics are your favorite then go with the het axanthics. With hatching season coming up you should be able to get a pair pretty cheap. Just make sure you buy from someone you fully trust. If you are getting into axanthics I would recommend going with the VPI line. They are the best out there by far IMO.

[djslurp1200]

If axanthics are your favorite then go with the het axanthics. With hatching season coming up you should be able to get a pair pretty cheap. Just make sure you buy from someone you fully trust. If you are getting into axanthics I would recommend going with the VPI line. They are the best out there by far IMO.

I would say the VPI's look the best as well from what I have seen... They definetly look better in person as well , I Saw some at the Tampa show in oct. Definitely go with someone you trust when it comes to purchasing hets. I'd definitely go with a pair of 100% hets myself but since you have stated that you like the pastels you couldn't go wrong with those either...Look for the best examples of whatever line you choose and go with them. If you were going to get into pastels, I'd get the female first and get the pastel male later or breed your current male to her when he's ready and get your pastel male so you can make some supers!

Either morph would be great, some people have made some really good points here as well...just make sure you purchase the morph(s) that YOU want to clean up after, feed and look at for the next 20+ years...

Best of luck to you and keep us updated on your decision...