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!