Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello All, I guess you could say that I have it bad and to say that it all started with one little normal ball python.

I was wondering what people thoughts were on purchasing Het's and then breeding them with their offspring. Is this a cheap way to get the ball rolling for a hobbyist?

1) Buy a 100% Het male, and breed him to your normal females. Sell/give away all the males produced from this breeding, and keep all the females, that will be technically possible Hets for whatever morph your 100% Het male was, lets just say Hypo. So, now you have several 50% Possible het female Hypos, and your original Het Hypo male. Sell the male, buy a Homozygous male Hypo, a visual male Ghost, and breed him to the 50% Possible het females you produced. You have unrelated breedings, and should produce some visual ghosts, and all your offspring will be 100% Hets.

2)Buy two 100% Het females, and buy a het or homozygous male later on.

Dave

do not buy a male het.........

buy a bunch of female het for whatever you want....after a year buy a het if necessary or the homo of the morph if you can afford it....

hets are cheap.....no need to buy male and make 50% possibles......unless you want to take an extra 2 or 3 years and have an extra 20 balls around.....

........we all start with a bunch of hets.....

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the bottom not only fell out of this market......
it sucked the top down with it......
.........screached to a stop

If you are looking for the "cheap" way, I would say Balls are not for you. There is nothing cheap about housing, heating, feeding, placing ads, marketing...

Buy a Het pair, unrelated, if that is what you want to do. But I would not breed siblings unless you absolutely have to, to prove out a new morph.

Dave

I am not looking to take the cheap way, however I do not want to spend my life savings and watch it blow up in my face. This will be strictly a hobby for me.

I have read multiple posts that say you need to be very careful when purchasing het's from breeders. Do you know of any small guys around Indiana that I could speak with.

Thanks,

Nick

Nick, contact Rick or Rusty at Rustys Balls. They are in IL which is not too far away.

http://www.kingsnake.com/rustysballs/

Cheers!

You can also try www.bcherp.com. Cory is a great guy and is in Indiana.
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Tim and Monica Bailey
Bailey & Bailey Reptiles

Thanks I'll give them a shout

either way you start, hets are a great way to get going in the hobby. one harsh qualifier, make sure you get actual hets. try to get references from people who not only had a nice buying experience, but have proven out the animals they bought. nothing worse than raising up animals for several years, breeding them, and producing brown snakes. bummer. that fifty bucks you saved at purchase can bite hard. i can personally vouch for millenium morphs, bill lubak, allen lloyd, cv exotics [ 6 poss hets! ]cypress creek, and the snakekeeper. good luck. kurt d.