How do you decide what to keep?

[LadyOhh]

We all love hatching out babies, seeing the eggs pip open with little heads, but there are usually more animals popping out that one would want to keep.

So the question is:

How do you decide what to keep of your hatchlings, and how many?

I'm talking personal, not general.

[valleysnakeguy]

I think it's a personal matter, you see what hatches out, who feeds easiest/fastest and what the patterns/phases you like to continue breeding, passing down the lineage and whatnot?

[Freakie_frog]

I label tub's HB on the ones I want to keep.. this may be 5-6 of each morph. When I'm done hatching that particular morph I go through all the HB tubs and make a realistic decision about how many and which ones I want then I let go of the rest..

[sho220]

How they look and how they play into future breeding plans. If they're really cool I'd keep them regardless of whether they fit into the breeding plan or not depending on if I have the space and time to devote to them.

[mykee]

I know who I am going to keep as soon as I see what's insided the egg. Unlike a lot of breeders out there, I breed for me. To amke what I want to keep, not to sell to others.
My customers are an afterthought and I generally make available to them the "other stuff' from a clutch. I pair my animals to produce what I think is cool or will work nicely in my collection. I keep the cool stuff, and sell the rest. Out of 200 eggs, I'll likely hold on to maybe 15-20 animals total.

[BallsUnlimited]

i like to keep the ones that have a diff look to them or happen to be really bright or reduced pattern. The rest is up for grabs although deep down i would really like to keep all of them.

[stevepoppers]

When I get started, I'll probably breed for all the good qualities and what I think the morphs and even normals should look like. I want to make quality animals instead of just throwing any example of a morph together just to make that morph. I'm starting off with a horribly picky het pied, but hopefully I'll breed it out. My normal is just about perfect and will be once she starts taking f/t rats. And of course make projects out of anything interesting that pops up.

Oh, and like mykee, I'll be breeding for me, and just be lucky to sell what I can.

[bsash]

I keep what patterns I like, I also usually sex them and keep the ones of the sexes that I need. When something really nice pops out, I will keep it regardless of whether or not it will fit into plans, or is the wrong sex.

[Blue Apple Herps]

I start the season already knowing what I will keep back. For example, this year I'm going for a cinnamon mojave (savannah) and will hold back one. If I get 1.1, then I'll just keep the male and sell the female. If I get 2.0, I'll keep my favorite and sell the other. And so forth.

I used to hold back a lot, and next thing I knew I had no space for anything new! So I have to go into the season knowing what I'm hoping to produce and knowing what I want to keep back.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Before I even have all of the clutches in the incubators, I decide how many of what I am going to hold back for the season. It's important to do this, because you need to be sure you have room to house them all!

This year, I get to hold back 3 females of each morph, plus a woma-lesser male, a trio of lessers het OG, a pied male, a pied female, and 1 het pied female.

Of course, I have no guarantee I will GET that many of each of those...but if I do, they will be kept. The only deal-breaker for me is a hatchling that fails to feed readily, or a hatchling that displays remarkably bad temperament. Those will be sold with full disclosure. (Bad temperament isn't always permanent, and when a snake is really gorgeous it can be bred out over subsequent generations, but it's just not something I personally want to deal with in my collection).

Now, provided I have some choice among the holdbacks (an excess of animals that meet those criteria), I select the ones I feel are highest quality visually.

If I have multiple clutches on the way, then I pick my holdbacks from the first clutch...after the later ones hatch, if I decide there is something better in them, I will keep the better one(s) and put the others up for sale at that time.

One advantage of this is that you have some very nice animals going up for sale after they are a bit larger and have more developed color. It's generally not too difficult to sell those!