breeding plan

[armison89]

im planning on getting these ball pythons to start my collection.
Males:
spinner
lesser pastel
vanilla
enchi
fire
cinnamon
Females:
orange ghost
11 normals

i want to breed the spinner to the orange ghost and a normal. (really want a honeybee) i will breed the rest to two normals each.
what do you think?

[Ezekiel285]

Sounds good but I think 11 normals is serious overkill. Especially if you've never bred before you want to have a few clutches at the MOST at first. IMO nobody should start out with 12 clutches their first season (I'm assuming it's your first). Even if it won't be your first time breeding, 11 normals is way too many. You would be better off with maybe 3 or 4 normals and then buying a few female morphs. And yes i know you can produce females but keep in mind it takes another 2 years before you can breed them.

[armison89]

my first breeding will be the the male spinner and lesser pastel to 4 female normals. that will be a possible 4 clutchs. all the other balls i will have to wait for them to grow up.

[Ezekiel285]

my first breeding will be the the male spinner and lesser pastel to 4 female normals. that will be a possible 4 clutchs. all the other balls i will have to wait for them to grow up.

Gotcha, I still think 11 normals is overkill, that's just way too many, you are gonna have more normal babies than you know what to do with.

[Bigfish1975]

I would tend to agree with Ezekiel285 that the 11 is a big number to start with. Although I just saw your follow up post. You may want to invest in a spinner het OG and pick up a couple of het OG females as opposed to just normals. I'm not sure if you have the snakes yet but that may be an idea if you really want to make the Honeybee...Hypo Pinstripe and hypo spinner are really nice looking too. Otherwise you'll only create pins, spiders, spinners and normals all het for ghost when you breed to the OG female. Its all up to you and your goals. Good luck.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Arnison, do you have the funds to feed all those mouths until they're grown? You'll have to save every penny you make from those 4 clutches. If one or two of your females doesn't go, will you be able to feed your snakes for the year?

Make sure you have figured out the economics of this. That's a lot of baby ball pythons to raise before you have a bunch of breeders going.

Apart from that, the plans seem fine.

Keep this in mind--each female will consume roughly $144 in rodents (at discount prices) to reach 3 years of age/1500 grams. Not to mention bedding and time. That's quite an investment.

You can usually pick up 1500 gram normal females for $100 to $150 apiece, plus shipping.
Is it WORTH IT to get babies?
Those had better be some SPECIAL babies, for it to pay off.
Otherwise, you are better off not getting the hatchlings--and just using what you make from your first 4 clutches to buy some more adult females for next year.

Raising up a few babies to breed later is fine, but the numbers you are talking about represent some loss of money, and it does sound like you're trying to make a business of it, correct me if I'm wrong.

[armison89]

if i can find a spinner het og that would be great. i will trade some of the babies from the 4 clutchs to get some female morphs instead of normals.

[Ezekiel285]

if i can find a spinner het og that would be great. i will trade some of the babies from the 4 clutchs to get some female morphs instead of normals.

Yea, i think in the long run you will regret it if you go with 11 normals. This sounds like a better plan.

Edit: 11 normals is a good way to jump start on breeding if you dont have money for female morphs, but its gonna take you a long time to get the females big enough to breed (female morphs i mean) from their clutches. and then you are probably gonna wanna get rid of the normals after you have female morphs, which is also a hassle.

[armison89]

out of the 4 females im going to start with 3 are all atleast 800 grams 1 is 1100 grams. i would like this to be a 2nd job for me i have a night job now so i will have time and money for the snakes.

[Andrew00]

Keep in mind it's a second job that you won't be paid for doing for a long time. And you can't count on being able to trade some lower end morph babies for specific things in the future. Who know what their worth will be.