Affordable morphs

[mainbutter]

Gerardo, some things to consider:

From a strictly financial position, it's difficult to come anywhere close to breaking even on the costs of keeping your animals if you are breeding the most common morphs.

Keeping a single snake is pretty affordable.

Keeping six is considerably more expensive, with six times as many chances for vet bills.

Breeding is even more expensive.

Here is the thought process you should have when thinking about getting more than one ball python with the intention of breeding: Thermostats, housing, feeding, electricity bills all add up fast, and when you can only spend, for example, $200 on a snake, how are you going to afford to buy that $100 thermostat? How about the $50 shipping on bulk feeders? A single adult ball python could run $50-100 a year on feeding alone. A pair of $200/ea hatchlings may have the traits to potentially produce offspring that could run $500 today, but two or more years out and that value will shrink considerably. Two years out, a couple hundred dollars on feeders, who knows how much on heating, housing costs, substrate, vet bill, thermostats, incubator... and then you produce a clutch of 4 nice eggs. Maybe you hit the odds exactly even, one nice snake, one normal, two "average". Then you need housing and food for the hatchlings, and maybe you attempt to sell them. Maybe you keep one back. What have you gained? What have you lost? Was it worth it?

We all support keeping snakes as a hobby, breeding for fun, striving for profit, and building the community. However, when someone comes looking for the least expensive morphs and expresses a desire to breed, I feel its worth adding a few words of caution regarding the costs of all this. When people are looking at a tight budget and are looking for the "least expensive morphs", it usually means there is a tight budget, and I just want to encourage you to do the math to make sure that any project you pursue is the right one for you

Stick around. Don't buy anything soon. Take your time. I bought a home for my current pair of ball pythons 6 months before it got filled, and I would have waited another 6 if I hadn't been lucky enough to find the right ones to fill it.

I will say that I have spent plenty of cash on keeping, raising, and breeding crested geckos. I haven't come anywhere close to breaking even and I don't care. I keep them for entertainment purposes, and get great pleasure out of hatching out babies, raising them up for a number of months, and giving them away to caring homes. There is nothing stopping you from doing the same with ball pythons, just know what you are getting yourself into.

As to your question of what morphs are affordable, the answer is: LOTS. Stick around, browse, and find what you like. I could rattle off "pastel, spider, cinnamon, fire, yellowbelly..etc", but there are so many morphs around these days and prices have fluctuated so much that I don't even know whether or not to include piebalds in any list I would give. Ball pythons are a real morph extravaganza at this time.