Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why does a 100% het female cost more then a 100% het male. Like in albinos the female is much more then a male. Do you have a better chance producing an albino from the female then the male. I am trying to learn as much as i can about balls i would like to be able to breed next year. Any help would be great.

walt
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1.4 Ball Python
1.0 50% Het Albino Ball Python
0.1 Columbian Red Tail Boa
1.0 Albino Burm

If they were both cheap then there would be a lot more morphs out. It also takes the female a lot longer to mature, If she was bred to a normal male, her son could get her pregnant a lot quicker that a het male to one of his daughters. All these prices do is try to slow down breeding, hence the prices can be kept high longer. Thats just my understanding on it.

High prices tend to steer the valuable genes toward experienced breeders who then tend to work very hard at producing more of them. If ball python morphs started out cheap it would take forever to produce enough to go around.

See Jeff's explanation for why the females are more.

A male ball python can be bred with multiple females per season. In order for you, the buyer, to get a homozygous morph quickly you have to bred hets or a visual and het. It is in the breeders best interest to charge more for females because you are paying a lot get a homozygous morph in less time. The more het females you have for your male the better your chances. So by paying the higher price for females you are knocking at least 2 years off your project. Once you get your own hets and visuals you then are in competetion with the original breeder. This rule of thumb only works with recessive and codom traits. If you look at spider (dominant) and mojave (possibly codom) morphs the males sell for more because they can be hooked up with several normal females and spit out visuals in just a couple years. This is just my observations.
Brad

Its not that the breeders are trying to job you, or charge more to delay the production of morphs. That's not it. Females cost more because that is what they are WORTH TO THE BREEDER!! Again, females cost more BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE WORTH TO THE BREEDER!!! Why would a breeder keep back a het male, when he has a damn full-blown morph that MADE that male in the first place??!! LOL! It only takes ONE male. Therefore, those het males aren't really valuable to the breeder. However, het females can be kept back and further bred to produce more morphs. You can have 2 females, 8 females, 30 females, 200 females, whatever you want. They are WORTH more because production STOPS with the female.

ONE female EQUALS ONE clutch of eggs.

One male means anywhere from ONE clutch to MANY clutches of eggs. Why sell a female het albino for $200 when you can keep it back and in 18 months, breed it back to the albino that created it, make 3 more albinos @ $2,000 each? Exactly. Animals cost what they cost because that is what they are WORTH to take them from the breeder's collection.
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as always - great info Jeff.
BT

AS it gets later, I get more "on". LOL! More isane, yes, but more on!

Ha ha.

And the same theory goes for normals as well.....ladies are just more valuable then men...........

.....we really are the weaker sex.........

2.5 or 3.5 years is more like it... not gonna get a clutch of 6 out of many 1.5 year old females.

But its missing the point completely. Why not pick out spelling mistakes while you're at it??

relax.... I did not miss your point, I presented a new one... I've found it to be a common misconception among prospective ball python breeders that hatchling female ball pythons will be making their own hatchlings in less than two years. A newbie reading your post might easily conclude that it is reasonable to expect production so early (after all, an experienced breeder said so)... and then have his bubble burst later.... sure it's a minor issue, but I've corrected more than one newbie on this matter before.

actually the littlest clutch I ever got was 6 ..........I usually get 8 to 12...........

........yes.....alot of balls bred lay 2 to 4 eggs.........

and alot of balls are rushed...........

I breed at about 2 1/2 yrs old.....but do some at 20 months if they stop eating and are big enough...they choose........
actually only did it a few times....they usually will wait.........

............the one time I did it on purpose to prove I /they could....she laid 6..........then yr later 8 I think...then 10 at least then 11 or 12 I forget....this year she liad 10........

yep........

anyways........

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"I still hate snakes"
...........................KNOW

Hey, On the girl you gave me produced eight!!!!!!!
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!