Breeding with only homozygous snakes.

[WingedWolfPsion]

I just got rid of a bunch of my normals to make room for more morphs... I figure why spend $75 or so per year on rats for a ball python that will make me less than that in babies each year?

Well, it's simple...she'll make you a lot more than that in babies each year. Unless you're breeding a normal male to her, in which case you may only get $150, which is still twice what you stated. Unless she's laying 3 egg clutches, but if that's the case, you bred her too small. <lol> Or maybe you mysteriously got 6 males and decided to wholesale them, I guess you'd only get $48.

But if, like most of the folks here, you paired a morph to your normal female, the minimum you would expect to get would be $249--if all the offspring turned up male, and you wholesaled the normals. That's from a normal 6 egg clutch. So not only did the female pay for her food for the year, she paid her purchase price, too--just in the very first year.

Now, if you were to pair her with something nicer than a yellowbelly or pastel, you could expect to get a whole lot more. Pair her with any co-dom, and half the clutch will be co-doms, remember? That's 3 morphs, and 3 normals, on average. Estimating next year's Lesser Platinum prices, you could expect to get $960 for the clutch, assuming an average split and $20 price tag for the normals, which is what most of us are charging (and getting). That buys some seriously gourmet rats.

So, don't knock the normal girls. For an investment of $200 and a few rats, and an introduction to a nice boy, you can make over $900.

[trott]

So from what you just said when I sell 3 normal males at $25 each that does not equal 75?

Sorry to be rude but your wording could have been better. You could have compared that normal to any morph and it would have been a lot better wording.

I was at one show this year and normals were going for 1 for $12 or 2 for $20.(Males or females).
Sooo many BPs at the shows now. My brother who breeds Beardies laughed and said they should just have a BP show .

[Mike Schultz]

If you breed that normal female to a double or triple combo, she's more than earned her keep in offspring.

But i'd rather breed that combo to another morph or combo I don't want to keep tons of snakes so I'm making my choices count.

[Mike Schultz]

Well, it's simple...she'll make you a lot more than that in babies each year. Unless you're breeding a normal male to her, in which case you may only get $150, which is still twice what you stated. Unless she's laying 3 egg clutches, but if that's the case, you bred her too small. <lol> Or maybe you mysteriously got 6 males and decided to wholesale them, I guess you'd only get $48.

But if, like most of the folks here, you paired a morph to your normal female, the minimum you would expect to get would be $249--if all the offspring turned up male, and you wholesaled the normals. That's from a normal 6 egg clutch. So not only did the female pay for her food for the year, she paid her purchase price, too--just in the very first year.

Now, if you were to pair her with something nicer than a yellowbelly or pastel, you could expect to get a whole lot more. Pair her with any co-dom, and half the clutch will be co-doms, remember? That's 3 morphs, and 3 normals, on average. Estimating next year's Lesser Platinum prices, you could expect to get $960 for the clutch, assuming an average split and $20 price tag for the normals, which is what most of us are charging (and getting). That buys some seriously gourmet rats.

So, don't knock the normal girls. For an investment of $200 and a few rats, and an introduction to a nice boy, you can make over $900.

This is all true, but again i want to keep my collection smaller (less than 50) so i'm making my snakes count for a little more. I'd rather have a bunch of morph females taking up space than normals in the long run.