Can low Quality Pythons produce High Quality offspring

[snake lab]

Pieds are the perfect example here. I have produced high white pieds from low white parents. As a matter fact my first ever pied clutch years ago was from a low white ugly male bred to a het female and i produced 3 pieds in the clutch. 2 were about 50% white and the third was about 80% white so yes you can produce better quality from lowet quality. Now with that said when your talking vibrant colored morphs such as pastels its always better to have as good as you can get with the breeders to try and build upon what your doing. There are subtleties in every morph and you will build upon your quality as you go. Just remember most of us started from scratch and built our collections up. Only a small percentage of people have tens of thousands of dollars to built a collection fast. So keep at it and happt herpin

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I guess I will be the odd one here

So like most people new to the python hobbie, I opted for the cheaper route instead of the expensive and High Quality python.

Even when I first started my collection I never settled for the lower price lesser quality animal, that's not how I wanted to start my collection.

I wanted still want the best example of a morph I can get and am even willing to pay more for what I want, sure cash doesn't go on tree however when I want something I will save the money needed to get it rather than settle for something I will be displease with in the future.

I believe in selectively buying animals, selectively holding back animals and selectively breeding animals.

I don't believe in buying an mutation just to say I have it or to breed it to just anything.

Selective breeding take time (took me 2 years to find an female albino, and 3 years to find a male enchi I wanted) and money but in the end it will pay off.

And it's even more true when it comes to pastels.

[mainbutter]

Your question is a bit generic, so I'll split it up into two parts:

With two low quality individuals, if they bred, would you get a variety of offspring ranging from ugly to beautiful?

Doubtful, but within the realm of possibility. Yes, two short people can have tall children. Two dark haired people can have a blonde child. Two ugly snakes can have a pretty snake offspring. It's unlikely, but it can happen, you never really know how the genetics that each parent contributes may line up, but genetics are powerful. That means two things:
1) offspring can be fairly predictable
2) selective breeding can create drastic change

In general, both parents' quality will be apparent in the offspring. In particular for ball pythons, color/brightness seems surprisingly easy to pass on and predict.

With two low quality individuals, and a few generations of line breeding with offspring, can you produce high quality individuals?

Quite likely. It will probably take multiple generations to isolate the "good looks" genetics and cull the "bad looks" genetics from a line (or at least get some combination that works in a way to produce a nice looking snake), but I've got confidence in the power of selective breeding, whether it occurs in nature or in a human's basement, to make changes.

[rabernet]

I guess I will be the odd one here

Even when I first started my collection I never settled for the lower price lesser quality animal, that's not how I wanted to start my collection.

I wanted still want the best example of a morph I can get and am even willing to pay more for what I want, sure cash doesn't go on tree however when I want something I will save the money needed to get it rather than settle for something I will be displease with in the future.

I believe in selectively buying animals, selectively holding back animals and selectively breeding animals.

I don't believe in buying an mutation just to say I have it or to breed it to just anything.

Selective breeding take time (took me 2 years to find an female albino, and 3 years to find a male enchi I wanted) and money but in the end it will pay off.

And it's even more true when it comes to pastels.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[mainbutter]

IEven when I first started my collection I never settled for the lower price lesser quality animal, that's not how I wanted to start my collection.

Ditto.

- We shopped for MONTHS and MONTHS before finding our first BP pair that we actually wanted to spend money on. We paid well for them.

- I put money down to be the first pick on a waiting list for a pair of carpet pythons from a particular breeder whose animals I spent well over a year drooling over. That pair's clutch hadn't even been laid yet.

- I'm currently waiting at least two seasons before my next planned carpet python purchase. I know the animals that will produce offspring I want to purchase, but they won't be bred any time soon

- I have more than enough animals in my collection to keep me entertained for decades. I'm probably going to wait until not only do I have four figures to throw down on my next breeding project, but also until the right animals are available, to make any more pickups. I just don't have the "need" to get anything new, I'm too busy with my current projects!

I just wanted to chime in with a thought:

The first thing that people think of when it comes to causes of a collection of ugly snakes:

"Well you didn't spend enough".

While that can be true, a more common cause is probably a LACK OF PATIENCE. Beautiful, 1 in a thousand individuals aren't available any given day of the week, and they get snatched up in a hurry. Impulse purchases, especially if you aren't familiar with a given species or morph, can result in the purchase of low quality individuals without realizing it.

That said, I have a few animals that are certainly not top quality in my collection. In general, they were purchased with them being pets first, and the question of breeding to come later.

In addition, once you start looking at the actual costs of breeding snakes, you'll start to see those "big dollar" priced animals seem relatively less and less expensive than you see them now. A $1000 snake may seem crazy until you look at costs of housing, heating, and feeding a small collection. Don't forget that the more expensive of animals you work with, that a relatively smaller percentage of your costs are in husbandry. Husbandry costs are a flat fee regardless of what morphs or what quality you work with.

[kitedemon]

Well said!

the costs of owning a snake quickly amount to more than the costs of buying the snake in the first place if you are talking of breeding seriously you need high quality animals to 'stack the deck' so to speak.

[Salamander Rising]

Your question is a bit generic, so I'll split it up into two parts:

With two low quality individuals, if they bred, would you get a variety of offspring ranging from ugly to beautiful?

Doubtful, but within the realm of possibility. Yes, two short people can have tall children. Two dark haired people can have a blonde child. Two ugly snakes can have a pretty snake offspring. It's unlikely, but it can happen, you never really know how the genetics that each parent contributes may line up, but genetics are powerful. That means two things:
1) offspring can be fairly predictable
2) selective breeding can create drastic change

In general, both parents' quality will be apparent in the offspring. In particular for ball pythons, color/brightness seems surprisingly easy to pass on and predict.

With two low quality individuals, and a few generations of line breeding with offspring, can you produce high quality individuals?

Quite likely. It will probably take multiple generations to isolate the "good looks" genetics and cull the "bad looks" genetics from a line (or at least get some combination that works in a way to produce a nice looking snake), but I've got confidence in the power of selective breeding, whether it occurs in nature or in a human's basement, to make changes.

My nearly 6 foot, fair-skinned, blonde, blue eyed parents produced me, a 5'3" red head with green eyes and tawny skin.

I look exactly my 3rd cousins who are the Welsh side of the family.

Sometimes, recessive genes will have their way....*big time*.



Having said that, I'm saving my pennies for a nice pastel female for my fire male.

It seems like a good starting point.

[but better ideas will be welcomed cheerfully]

[mainbutter]

Yup it certainly happens! There's some village in Asia somewhere, where the typical body type is sort of "mongolian" (while I can't remember the exact details I read, I don't think that it actually was in Mongolia).

However, every now and then, blond hair and/or blue eyes pop up in children.

Some genetic testing supposedly links to some ancestry similarities with people in the area that is currently Finland.

There is some historical evidence of a Finnish (or whatever they called themselves when they lived there) group of families packed up and left, headed east, never to be heard from again. It is theorized that perhaps this little footnote in the history books may link these families to this Asian village.

[Salamander Rising]

Yup it certainly happens! There's some village in Asia somewhere, where the typical body type is sort of "mongolian" (while I can't remember the exact details I read, I don't think that it actually was in Mongolia).

However, every now and then, blond hair and/or blue eyes pop up in children.

Some genetic testing supposedly links to some ancestry similarities with people in the area that is currently Finland.

There is some historical evidence of a Finnish (or whatever they called themselves when they lived there) group of families packed up and left, headed east, never to be heard from again. It is theorized that perhaps this little footnote in the history books may link these families to this Asian village.

My mom just claims that Gypsies stole her "real daughter" from the hospital and left me in her stead.

[and I'm totally okay with that].....

Google "The Ainu".

They're a real puzzle.