Quote Originally Posted by Sammy Shadow View Post
Hello, I plan on getting in to breeding BPs in a few years, I would like any tips for a first time breeder. I plan on getting some nice base morphs soon like a Spider, Mojave(s), maybe even a Fire(s). I don't really want to get in t huge projects I just want to breed a few for my self ;p

Some questions I have are..
What are some books to buy for breeding BPs ? I have a book on genetics I got from vmsherps.
Rack Systems? How and Where can I find a decent one? Can I make my own?
Heating for all of your snakes? What kind of heating do you use?
How?where do you sell your babys?
Bringing up babys?
Incubators? Homemade vs Bought?
Where do you buy your supplies from?
How to tell when your snake is mature enough to breed?
Should I invest in female or male morphs?

If there is anything you would like to add that I didn't ask I would love to know!

I'll start this off with a disclaimer: Be prepared to spend all of your money (and more) on these snakes. This hobby is addictive and however many snakes you decide to have will never be enough!


My favorite book is the VPI book on ball pythons. "Ball Pythons of the World Vol II". It has everything (and I mean everything) about ball pythons. Every single detail you could possibly imagine. breeding, housing, problems, pictures, morphs, I could go on forever.

You could buy a rack, but if you are handy I would build one first. I build my rack and it works perfectly fine Heating kind of goes with this. I think almost everyone here uses flex watt heat tape for belly heat. You can buy this stuff by the foot for next to nothing... 3-4$ a foot. You can heat a rack for about 20-30$ which is about the retail price for one large heat pad at a pet store.

Selling babies, that is something I have not had to do yet. I'm lucky there are a lot of reptile lovers in my area, but I would have no problem shipping snakes through Shipyourreptiles.com if I needed to.

Bringing up babies is something you should probably try to do first before you start breeding. Get a few baby snakes and raise them up for breeding. Then you will know how to do it

I think most people use home made incubators. It's really easy to convert a mini fridge to an incubator with some heat tape and a thermostat.

I buy a lot of my supplies locally at a reptile show, but when they don't have what I need I buy it online. reptilebasics.com is a popular place to check out.

You don't "tell" if a snake is old enough to breed, you know. 1,500g is the minimum weight for females, 700g for males. Males have a little more wiggle room but for females, the heavier the better. It usually takes about 2-3 years to raise a female up to a breed able age.


Females or males... Well females are more valuable because of their ability to produce eggs. If you want some cool morph combos they are going to be expensive. A male will bring down the price a bit so if you want a double or triple gene I would go for the male and get some single genes or normals to breed with him. But that is my opinion. You can do whatever you want.

Hope this helps!