Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had a bunch of reptiles throughout my life but have never breed any. I'm going to start breeding ball pythons so I'm doing as much research on the topic as possible. Can anyone recommend a web site or book that has accurate information as far as the genetics go. I'm thinking about buying a pastel male and breeding it with a normal female so that some of the offspring are pastel is that worth doing? I'm trying to spend about 200 tops for the male and then work on getting a female once the male has matured. What are the most popular affordable morphs and what breeder do you recommend? Thanks

Do it in reverse! Get the female first! She needs to be older/bigger than the male! A male can breed at 500g. whereas the female a min. of 1200gm.

Agreed. Get a female first and when she reaches 1000 grams prices on a multi combo gene male will be more affordable. If you're budget is still only $200 right now save it and get something nicer when you have more money. $200 isn't going to buy much. If I were you I'd at least try to buy a double gene female like a bumble bee, spinner, butter pastel, lemon blast or something you enjoy looking at. There are also breeders who will offer payment plans if you can commit to paying the deal off within the time frame agreed upon.

Yah, I'm thinking about getting a nice spider female first then eventually breed it to a pastel. I could probably go up to $300 just on the female and then just wait and save for a male pastel or something. I was thinking about starting with a platinum lesser too those are beautiful, what would be a good morph to breed that too?

I agree with the others. get the female first. as far as what to get. figure out what you want to ultimately make and buy the genes needed for that. personally I would recommend shying away from a single gene spider due to the wobble. if you're going to make snakes with neurological issues you might as well increase the odds that they are as pretty as possible. I love what the spider gene can do when combined but due to the neurological issues linked to the gene I will only keep 1 breeding size female in my collection to limit the number I can produce. I won't dare holdback a male with spider in it but thats my choice
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1.0 firefly(pos het pied) 1.0 enchi 1.0 super reduced clown 0.1 bumblebee 0.1 mojave 0.1 butter pastel 0.1 spotnose 0.1 pewter 0.1 pastel 0.1 pied 0.1 het pied 0.1 vanilla 0.3 het clown 0.7 normals

I just ended up finding a couple of nice two and a half year old ball python's. The male is a beautiful pastel and the female is a nice looking normal. I'm planning on breeding them pretty soon. I'm going to start building a rack and an incubator.