Suggestions on Where to Start?

[BigIan]

Hey all,

I finally got down how the genetics work. This weekend I'll probably start building a rack to prepare myself as I feel myself getting sucked into BP collecting. I like the suggestion that I should get 3 females and one male come time that I have the chance to breed them, the problem is that I'm having a hell of a time making ANY kind of decision!

I know that I'm really drawn to the minimal pattern/yellows/albino/pied/BEL animals. If I'm going to do it, I want to do it right so I figure I can get some nice starter females in the $500 range on a couple of them and I'd like to splurge on the 3rd female. After a while, once I know what I have for females I'll know what kind of male I want to produce animals that I like but I can't for the life of me make any solid decision. I know I want to do either or both pied and albino though to get 2 animals that carry the gene, let alone both to produce animals with both characteristics is going to be expensive, probably more than I should spend.

Can I get a few suggestions on what to start with and why? Like, you should get 'X' female and maybe 'Y' female because if you get 'Z' to breed with them you have the chance of producing 'XZ' and 'YZ'. I've used the calculator for hours as well as browsed every sponsor and other vendor website I can find but my knowledge is only getting me so far.

If you don't want to suggest what I should get, maybe you can share what YOU started with and why. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and if you have one or 2 females that I might be happy to buy feel free to shoot me a PM

Thanks in advance, so far this is a great forum with lots of helpful people and to those that I've already talked to, a big THANKS to you, you help to make this forum a great place for someone like me to learn!!

[Eric Alan]

A lot of people go with pattern morph females and color morph males. That way, your males have a tendency to color up your entire collection when bred to all of your girls.

For your females, I'd have one with at least Enchi in her and one with at least Spider in her (no good collection is complete without a bumblebee female IMO). The third could be a toss-up based on your own tastes - Mojave would be my suggestion since you like the BELs. This would give you a solid assortment of girls to build your collection with.

For a male, I'd go with at least a two gene male - something like a Fire Lesser would go a long way towards making some hot hatchlings with any one of the females listed above and give you some nice BELs with your Mojave girl.

As for my own collection, this is pretty much the exact thought process I used. I say pretty much, because my first BP was my Butter Pastel, and she was the first morph my wife fell in love with while I was drowning her in pictures of BP morphs trying to make up my mind. Next came my Enchi girl, then my Sugar and Spinner Blast (my token Bumblebee with Pinstripe added in for good measure) girls came at the same time. And, since my wife wants a Butterfly, my male (one of my males?) will have at least Fire in him. A lot of people suggested I get a Firefly Yellow Belly to pair up with my girls. Since I have two girls with Pastel already, I'll probably get at least a Fire Yellow Belly. My dream male though is a Fire Orange Dream Yellow Belly.

Eric

[galequin]

Oh the can of worms you opened up!!! First of all I'd like to suggest to maybe try reposting this under the breeding section if u find your not getting enough feedback

Now for my suggestions! It seems we share the same interest in reduced patterns n BELs so these are some of my hopes for when I get into breeding. I have a normal female already but assuming I would get 3 girls n a sire here's my approach.

Female lesser
female fire
female ??? (Can't think of the name :/)

Male pastave (pastel/Mojave gene combo)

. every pairing gives the chance to turn out some very nice 3 gene bangers which will boast well for any future projects. I'm on my phone n can't say everything I want Cuzco connection speed but worldofballpythons has a great breeding wizard I'll post more when I get to a CPU

[BigIan]

right on guys, just what I"m hoping to hear! I'd love to hear from more of you!

[galequin]

Axanthic is what I was looking for, they do great things when reduced

[galequin]

Nooo not ax :/ ohhh screw it I can't think of it

[Pythonfriend]

there recently was a really good link to a blog article about it.... and i dont manage to find it

But i remember some things....

- buy hatchlings and raise them up to breeding size.
- if you go into a specific project, buy females first, and males 1 year later. That way they get ready for breeding at roughly the same time. Otherwise you would watch the price of the male go down for a year.... better buy it later when the price has come down.
- always breed a more valuable male to less valuable females. so, breeding a lesser bee to a pastel is good, but breeding a pastel to a pastel would be a waste. Breeding albino to het albino is good, or breeding albino spider to albino is good. But breeding a male het albino to a female albino would be a waste. Even breeding albino to albino would be a waste.

ah damn, never mind. Now i finally remembered the title of the blog post and found it.

http://ballpythonbreeder.com/2012/02...thon-breeders/

its really good, aimed at people that want to go professional, but still.... doing it cost-effectively and making the maximum out of what you have isnt bad for amateurs either

[liv]

Females- enchi, yellowbelly, lemonblast
Male- cinnamon spider

You get a nice spread of genes in there and can produce some really cool animals. You can even take it in a more 'ivory' direction after a season or two.

[brobertson]

If I was getting 3 girls and one male, I would get a fire female, yellow belly female, and lesser female, and a smoking pastel enchi male. Whatever morphs you decide to eat, make sure they are fantastic examples. I shop the snake, not the breeder or price(to an extent) If you buy incredible looking breeders, you will produce incredible looking babies.

[Eric Alan]

Whatever morphs you decide to eat, make sure they are fantastic examples.

I don't always eat BPs, but when I do, I make sure they're fantastic! Of course, you can't always judge a book by it's cover - I've had some incredible tasting normals too...