For me holdbacks boil down to a few things.

1. I breed the best possible examples of a morph together to try and produce babies superior to the parents. If I hit on a really stellar example of the morph I was trying to produce, it gets considered for holding back. But, if I already have one of that morph and sex, I probably won't keep the baby.

2. Producing double or triple gene hatchlings that can replace or at least supplement single gene breeders. If I have a male spider for example, and I produce a Spider fire male, I'll consider holding on to him to give me a jump on making my blizzard bees down the line.

3. Proving out dinkers and possible hets. If I have an odd looking female, and I breed her and get offspring that look a lot like her, I will probably hang on to one or more of them to breed out and see if it's genetic or if there is a super form. Same thing with possible hets.

4. The baby has special meaning to me. I lost my very first visual pied I produced. It was a severe blow to me. I had one other pied in the clutch, a boy. I already have one male pied, but the little boy who is my first surviving pied isn't going anywhere.

Gale