Question about normals

[alan12013]

I've seen a couple breeders that seem to have upwards of 30 normals in their collection for the first couple years. To me it wouldn't really be productive unless they were imports and you were hoping to hit on an undiscovered gene. The only other thing I can think of is if they wanted to get a really top dollar male with several genes and breed it into several females to get a good range of morphs to start with. I could see that as a plausible start if you then incorporated some serious quality programs and continued to bring in new quality animals into the programs. I could also see using them if you were not already using top quality animals to get some reduced patterning into the mix or maybe some other unique things. I can't see any other possible reasons but like I said I have seen it happen. Just wondering if I'm missing something. Ethically I would be oppose to it myself just because of the high number of normals I would produce and I don't think I have enough of me to go around with 30 pet normals to look after for 40 years.

[Bigfish1975]

My first year breeding I picked up 7 Proven breeder females and a few single gene female hatchlings to grow up. I had a couple of double gene males and I wanted to start breeding a small number of animals. i managed to get 4 clutches which was a nice start to get my feet wet and figure out pairing, breeding, egg setups and incubation, hatchling care etc. My first clutch got me hooked with 12 perfect eggs and 0 normals. 1.1 yb, 2.3 pastels and 0.5 pastel yb. I kept 4 of the Pastel ybs which will be bred this year. I've gotten to the point in which my collection has grown with more morph females and so now some of the normals are moving to new homes. I will of course hold on to a few of the big girls 3600 and 4100 gram females are always nice if you want to try and prove something out like you said. Also nice when you pick up a beautiful male Banana Mojave Yellowbelly too. Maybe 30 is on the high side, but everyone's collection is different.

[Soterios]

Any female is useful as most of the time a male can impregnate more than one female. The worst they can do is make normals and what ever the sire is. If they breed they'll at least pay for themselves and probably make money.

I just picked up a big unproven female normal for that reason. I'll throw one of my two gene males at here this fall and see what happens.

[alan12013]

Ok good information thank you! I can't believe that first clutch you had that's amazing. The amount of pastels and pastel bs you has is awesome. I MIGHT be able to breed a couple in year one too actually which is completely unexpected. I'm going to an expo august 23rd to see what I can pick up but my ghost girl is eating good so she might be ready by November but I'll need her bf to get up past 600 grams so we'll see. I also have some young ones I'm raising up too. My spider actually is eating really good, I caught her cruising 3 days after she last ate so when I caught her cruising tonight (night 4) I fed her again and I barely got the F/T in the tub before she struck at it and coiled. I'm also feeding them smaller than what I should so once I run out of the FSM that I have I'll move them onto whatever sized rat I can get that makes sense for them.

From your experience how hard is it to sell your normals and single genes like the pastels? If I had some normals that I hatched I would like to think that I could find good homes for them as pets for people. I'm also looking at yellow bellys and might pick one up here soon. If I can ever get my custody situation out of the way and all my finances straight I'd love to get some sort of banana combo or other really high end morph to throw in the mix. I can't readily find many snake breeders in my area either so I am really hoping that I can fill that void over the next 5-10 years as long as I really work at it. I guess the answer to my question though is basically like what you're saying. It's good when starting out and to get your feet wet especially when you don't have the cash to jump right into only doing high end.