Some questions

[bman123]

I want to eventually breed ball pythons for hobby, I have been reading alot on here. I am young 25 so I have alot of time to dedicate to this. I just have questions.

I love alot of different morphs but they are too expensive to buy outright so I want hets first.I understand Het x Het gives you a 1 in 4 shot for a visual. Do you think it is wise to get 0.2 100% hets??

I think this way I have a very good chance of a visual the first year breeding. I know it is a game of odds but I would think that 2 breedings at the same time I should get at least 1 visual.

Now for the female size. Would it be wiser to try and wait til the 0.2's are around 2,000 grams? Maybe producing bigger clutches? I can wait til the 3rd winter for the girls to breed. Another question. When to get the male?? Should I wait til the girls are 1 or 2 yrs old??

[bman123]

I am interested in breeding albinos first then going from there. If I wait 2 yrs for the girls to grow I can afford a male visual albino. Then my odds would be 1 in 2 or 50% with visual x het. I would like to keep the visuals that I produce. Would be nice for 2 girl visuals then I could just do visual x visual from there out.

What is your avg clutch size and how big are the females and age when you bred them?? I just dont know if it may be worth it to wait on the male til the girls are 2 or get him when they are one.

I really appreciate the help guys, if I have more questions I will surely ask..

[CoolioTiffany]

I love alot of different morphs but they are too expensive to buy outright so I want hets first.I understand Het x Het gives you a 1 in 4 shot for a visual. Do you think it is wise to get 0.2 100% hets??

There are some morphs on the cheaper side, such as Spiders, Pastels, Mojave, Pinstripe, and Yellowbelly. I think for now getting two female 100% hets would be great because you would spend your time raising them until they are the breeding weight.

Now for the female size. Would it be wiser to try and wait til the 0.2's are around 2,000 grams? Maybe producing bigger clutches? I can wait til the 3rd winter for the girls to breed. Another question. When to get the male?? Should I wait til the girls are 1 or 2 yrs old??

The recommended weight would be 1500g, but if you would want to wait for your females to get 2000 or heavier than you have a more likely chance of getting more eggs (or just larger eggs depending).

You can get the male at any time, but if it were me I'd get the male as soon as I can. If you are talking about getting babies, it wouldn't be too bad to get the male a while afterwards.

IMO, age doesn't matter. It's the weight that really matters, because you don't want them losing too much weight if they are already small enough. I would personally wait till the second Winter for my girls to breed. This is one of my girls' second Winter and she's around 1100g, so by the end of the year she'll be well passed 1500g.

[bman123]

Well the females will be either 09 or 10 hatchlings. Don't know if I should just get the male in 2011 or 2012. I guess it really depends on how the girls gain their weight. I love all the albino morphs. I dont know what I would get next to breed to the visual albinos.

Need to look at the morph sheet again and play with the genetic wizard. I really like ghosts and spiders aswell.

[snakesRkewl]

Starting with 2 female hets and raising the first year and saving for a male albino the 2nd year makes sense.
It's nice to know your animals for awhile before breeding them.

Also during the 2nd year of raising it makes sense to get prepared with incubation and a rack of some sort to hold those babies you'll have.
Lost to do to prepare, and it never hurts to be ahead of the game

[jjsnakedude]

I would do the albino thing. A really REALLY cool loking morph is the spider albino. Think of the spider pattern turned white on a neon orange/yellow backround. Look for pics on NERDs collection site.

[kc261]

Getting 2 100% hets females is an excellent start to your project. That way if one is a slow grower, you should still at least have 1 ready to go when you expect it. Also, if you do get them both up to size, you'll have a better chance of actually getting eggs, and if you are lucky enough to get them both to lay eggs the first year, an excellent chance of getting a visual hatchling.

I'd get the male either when you get the females, or 1 year later. You don't want to wait too long, because although some males can and do breed when they are less than a year old, others take a few years before they show interest. It would be frustrating after waiting so long to get the females up to size, if your male wasn't ready yet.

Getting a visual male does double your chances of getting visual hatchlings, but it also costs more, and takes away the fun of hatching a visual morph that you've never owned before. You have to decide what works for you. Another option would be to get something like a spider het albino male, instead of a visual albino male.

[bman123]

Yeah I will buy a incubator way before I need it. They are cheap in a sense lol.
I have been looking into albino morphs lately and there are some real nice one.

Albino pied, Al spider, Al cinny, Al ghost. There are alot of choices after I get started. I just have a ways to go before I get where I want. I really like the al pied those are sweet.

What do you think of the caramel albino and caramel glow?? Those are bad looking

[bman123]

Going with hets is cheaper up front but more expensive down the road. I mean with het x het thats 2 years min. Then 2 more years for the visual to grow up. Thats alot of feeding alot of mouths depending on how many visuals I get. I know if I get 0.2 visuals I will keep them just for future breeding reasons.

I'm glad I have alot of time to do this lol cuz I sure don't the money for 2 or 3 visuals up front

[bman123]

Thats the nice thing with breeding ball pythons. You have a cheaper way up front with doing hets if you want and it can take as long as you want it to in most cases. As long as your not going for 1/16 or 1/32 odds you should be ok.

I know I would be ecstatic to see a albino pip out a egg. I should do good with 1.2 het albinos. Hets it is