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How to proceed, hobby then to buisness

crshdmy1 Jan 22, 2008 03:35 AM

I have loved snakes since i was a kid running around in the woods of mississippi. I have owned a rat snake for awhile and recently bought a 6 mo old 100%het albino ball female.I would love to own more of these beautiful creatures,eventually in a few years i would like to breed her,and others i can collect along the way. I am a disabled vet,so i dont have to much extra money lying around. I got my wife on board by telling her that they would eventually pay for themselves and could even be profitable. Now should i get a visual albino male next or would a het male be fine. My goal is to eventually own a pied and bumblebee. I would appreciate any info.
Thank you
Floyd

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Replies (2)

FatBoyBallPython Jan 24, 2008 12:53 PM

NP
Link

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KenAmelio Dec 31, 2008 03:44 PM

If you want to approach ball pythons as a business, you will need to learn a great deal about the genetics, invest a significant amount of money, and carefully plan and hold back your best snakes to produce future generations.

Specifically regarding the question asked, buying a visible albino is probably the best path for a business. By doing so, you will produce half albino and half het albino. You will know exactly what everything is, and will be able to sell the het albino males. The albinos should be kept for future breeding.

If you buy another het albino, only 1/4 of your offspring will be visible albinos. Worse, the remaining 3/4 of the offspring will not even be guaranteed to be albino hets, but rather will have a 66% chance of being a het and a 33% chance of being a normal. There will be no way you can tell them apart unless they later are bred and give birth to visible albinos.

Breeding two hets together is fine for a hobbiest (and can be a cheap way to get an albino), but will never make you much money. The reason is that each ball python morphs drop quickly in price as they become more common. In the time it will take you to produce many albinos by breading hets, the price will have dropped a great deal making it hard to make money.

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