I keep coming back to spider

[Velrys]

Hey guys,

Just a quick wondering...

I'm looking for a male for next season. I really want it to have two pattern altering genes since I don't have any right now. I guess there is a pattern altering aspect to cinnamon but nothing drastic.

I'm not really excited about dealing with the neurological problems that Spider brings to the table, though I thinks spiders are great, so I keep looking around for pattern altering morphs.

Ghi looks cool, when it looks cool. The same with woma and enchi, the extreme cases look cool but not reliably. Just not a big fan of pinstripe, its too... color eliminating? I don't know just not interested. Leopard again, can be cool but is so in extreme cases.

I got excited about the Red Stripe for a while and still sort of am... but more because there are relatively few combos out there right now than because it is a drastic pattern altering gene.

I think Calico is leading the list for me right now. It seems to do the sameish thing spiders do to the side coloring which is why i keep coming back to spider.

Of course I love clown but I intend that to be a project a few years down the road when I can better afford it than to start with a clown male now. For the same reason not interested in any of the recessive pattern altering genes



I will be breeding on cinnamon females and already have a Pastave male for next season so am just interested in adding this one animal.

I'm not look at anything over 500 right now, just wondering if I was overlooking something, any suggestions?

[Mr.Spence]

I really like calico, but I like spider too. We produced a male cinnamon calico a couple weeks ago that just took his first meal today and while a simple combo I keep looking in that tub.

[ladywhipple02]

Spiders are great! When I first started collecting, I honestly didn't really like them. Then I picked one up with a group purchase - and she ended up being my favorite of the entire bunch She had a great personality and was just beautiful - way different in person than what I was seeing in pictures online. She had the wobble and got really wonky sometimes when she was eating (got all upside down and crazy) but she hit hard every time and was just a complete sweetheart. I miss her a lot.

My second favorite is the pinstripe - don't discount that color. It's a different brown/tan than you see on normal - just real smooth.

Never had a calico, but it's climbing my charts lately (actually leaning more towards Sugar).

[Eric Alan]

You keep mentioning that you only like certain morphs "in extreme cases". I think what you're actually saying is that you only like good examples of the morph. That should be the case with everyone! If you don't like the particular GHI, Woma, Enchi, Leopard, etc that you see, don't even give it a second look. I know it sounds simple enough, but honestly waiting and then suddenly finding that perfect example of an animal that speaks to you is the best feeling in the world.

Also, with Spiders, the wobble isn't really something you "deal" with. It just is what it is. The incredible combos that Spider brings to the table more than make up for their quirkiness (maybe the quirkiness even adds to them?).

Finally, why are you looking to pick up another male? Right now, you've got 5 males and only 9 females. Balance-wise, I'd be looking to pick up another lady if I were in your shoes.

[Velrys]

Oh, heh, because...

The het pied male is actually my wife's for her pied project and the paints are a pair. I thought about using the paint male on more females but would rather add some more variety also the story with him is a little iffier than I'd like so I'd like to prove to myself he is a paint before I start counting on his genetics. Since paints can be tricky I am hoping that pairing him with another paint and maybe getting a super will prove him out definitively. The fire and cinnamon male are out of the picture next year it is what I am swapping the perspective male and the pastave out for. Assuming we get what we want out of them this year.

Or maybe if we get enough fire girls to justify keeping the fire male around and plopping out some BELs that is also a quick money option.

Indeed everyone should like the good expression of the genes but since that can take several generations to breed for, and an operation far larger than mine. This is why I'm steering towards a morph that expresses well reliably, like the spider. Which I really do like.

And looking at the sugars, good suggestion hadn't thought of those, they have that similar side patterning that calico shares with spider. And yes, I have only ever heard that spiders are fine, I feel like if I just GET ONE, maybe at a show my entire internal argument will be resolved.

Out of curiosity have sugar and calico been proven to be different genes?

[Tigerhawk]

Spiders are ok. The wobble is not bad in all of them. Just pick one with very little wobble, and you should be fine. They always look good when combined with other morphs.

[Eric Alan]

Indeed everyone should like the good expression of the genes but since that can take several generations to breed for, and an operation far larger than mine. This is why I'm steering towards a morph that expresses well reliably, like the spider. Which I really do like.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. All I was saying is that you should only purchase incredible animals to begin with. What makes you think it will take several generations to produce high quality animals if you start with high quality animals right out of the gate? Quality in = quality out. That's about as reliable as you can get. If you need an example of this, check out the results of Travis's (h00blah) first two clutches ever from earlier this year: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...=enchi+calider and http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...pastel+special. You'd better believe that those babies have some hot looking parents.

Out of curiosity have sugar and calico been proven to be different genes?

It's not definitive either way.

[Velrys]

Oh, I just meant that I would argue the fact that pretty parents lead directly to pretty babies. There is a lot of variation in the genes that isn't being eliminated in a single generation. The calico separation made at Constrictors Unlimited and the Pied project at JKobylka are examples of breeding for certain traits that have resulted in a more reliable offspring result. But I don't believe, sorry, that buying a pretty snake from some guy at a show will necessarily produce pretty offspring.

Because of this I look at the variation of a gene as well as what a good example of it looks like.

[Eric Alan]

Oh, I just meant that I would argue the fact that pretty parents lead directly to pretty babies. There is a lot of variation in the genes that isn't being eliminated in a single generation. The calico separation made at Constrictors Unlimited and the Pied project at JKobylka are examples of breeding for certain traits that have resulted in a more reliable offspring result. But I don't believe, sorry, that buying a pretty snake from some guy at a show will necessarily produce pretty offspring.

Because of this I look at the variation of a gene as well as what a good example of it looks like.

OK - I'll bite. What exactly are your qualifications for buying a snake? What makes you believe that a good looking example of a morph is a fluke and not the result of several generations of breeding? There are many smaller breeders that produce amazing animals consistently - just at an obviously lower volume than Mike's or Justin's businesses.

[h00blah]

First of all, thanks Eric !

2nd, I'll address 4 things that stood out to me in this thread, that I believe we can help Velrys with .

1 - You want a POWERFUL pattern-changer male to breed to females.
Calico and Spider are both awesome choices, and they're on the cheaper spectrum of ball pythons . It should also be noted that Calico changes not just pattern, but can definitely alter COLOR of some of the awesome morphs out there. These 2 are definitely favorites of mine.

2 - You're concerned about the spider wobble.
That's fine! Some people get turned off by things that don't necessarily affect the quality of life in ball pythons. Example: duck-billing in super cinnies. Some people think it's cute, and others deem it a genetic defect, and avoid it. As long as it doesn't affect the snake's eating, shedding, pooping, breeding, and ball-python habits (mostly sleeping and biting), then I would deem it worthy of consideration for breeding.

I have a granite female that seems to have smaller than regular heads, but it isn't really noticeable unless you're used to seeing 100s of BPs a day lol. She's still a great feeder for me, super tame, and is one of my problem-free snakes !

Spider happens to be my favorite pattern-changing morph, and most of my snakes have that gene. I would definitely not ban yourself from adding spider. I hatched out 2 spider combo babies, and both of them are eating great, already shed and pooped once, and are growing like weeds . You only notice their wobble when they're stretched out, trying to reach for something.

3 -

Or maybe if we get enough fire girls to justify keeping the fire male around and plopping out some BELs that is also a quick money option.

There's no such thing as quick-money with ball pythons. I don't mind if you're in this to start a business and make money, and at the end of the day, that's what you're hoping to make. But you simply must ditch the fantasy of pairing 2 snakes together, having eggs, hatching babies, and selling them all in a set time frame. If there's one thing I learned after only 1 season of breeding, it's that nothing goes according to plan ..

4 - You're skeptical about quality snakes producing quality babies because there's so much variety in each morph.
I really like where you're coming from with this, because I think it's exactly how I felt when I first started really getting into morphs. When I decided to start breeding BPs, I wanted the best quality snakes regardless, because I want to be excited to clean my tubs knowing that there's a top-shelf animal in each one. I really started paying attention to different traits and quality of each morph after I noticed certain breeders' morphs looked similar, and it's because of the line they're working with. Ed has THE coolest looking enchis in the biz, Blue Apple Herps and Jimmy Ma have my favorite kind of patterned lessers, and Rick Schossler has the flamiest HGWGYBs I've seen. Susan Hardy has some of the nicest pastel and enchi combos as well (which may be because she has a bunch of secret stuff she mixes in with everything !). Desert Dweller Reptiles also has some of the highest-yellow pastel calicos I've ever seen, with great pattern!

Regardless, there's definitely quality in some morphs, and then complete randomness in others. Spiders, pieds, calicos, and bananas seem to be completely random. Clowns, enchis, pastels, and fires are definitely morphs that I'm convinced have inheritable traits that you should pay attention to, if you want to make the best looking examples of that morph.