Getting Started

[TexanLady]

Hello, I have kept reptiles as pets for the last ten years and have finally decided to take the plunge into breeding ball python morphs. I'm not looking to break the bank here because I do have a job that I love. I'd be happy if I can get my breeding business to the point that it not only pays for itself, but will support my reptile addiction. Snakes and cages are expensive as you all know. Though if I could turn it into a business that could better my situation that would be great too. I was hoping to get some critiques of my start up process, and maybe some pointers on where to go from here. I'll start off by assuring that I made sure I didn't buy any animals until I had the necessary housing. I bought about $3,000 worth of stackable caging and racks for my pet reptiles, and to house my new breeding projects. Once I had all the caging/racks and supplies I decided to buy breeding groups. I bought 1.4 Pastels, 1.0 albino, 0.3 het for albinos, 1.0 high white pied, 1.3 het for pieds (got the male for free), 1.0 spider, and 0.1 pinstripe. I decided to start with this group as a good foundation to expand my breeding business every year. Though if all goes according to plan I will be buying 1.2 lessers, 1.2 mojaves, and 1.2 fires over the next four months.

So that's what I have so far. I might try buying two or three adult proven breeder normal females to try my hand at breeding my males next year or the year after, and to get a feel for the breeding process, but I haven't decided. I'm hoping that some experienced breeders will weigh in and let me know if I am taking the right approach, or if I'm just wasting my money and time. I have been researching this for some time, and have bought several ebooks on breeding and care, but I thought hearing from other people that were once in my shoes might also provide some valuable insight.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Meltdown Morphs]

I wouldn't call myself to much experienced , I only have one real breeding season under y belt, but I have been keeping ball pythons for a decent while.
I'm just commenting on your selection, you could do to combine/reduce those males.
Your Albino +hets and Pied +hets sound pretty solid, you just need to condense your codom plans a bit more.

Instead of having a plain pastel male you can find a super pastel male for very good prices now a days, or maybe find good bumble bee instead of having seperate pastel and spider males. You could even take it a step further and get a killer bee if the funds are there.

Also instead of getting seperate lesser and mojave males just get a LesserXMojave Lucy and not have to worry about getting normals in clutches he's sired.

You could also do to ...maybe find at least 1 combo female; like instead of having 4 plain pastel females make one of those a PastelVanilla or a PastelEnchi...it would be good to have at least one slightly less common gene floating around,but its nothing wrong with starting with the bare basics either way.

Its just that many of the base single gene co-doms are already flooded in the market, seems that only really high qualitiy animals will remain in the breeding trade while the poor quality end up flushed down the pet trade or wholesale. If your looking for your collection to be able to just hold its own then you should aim to produce combos just be sure to still keep them centered around what YOU want to see out of your collection.