Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I currently own a normal phase BP and am thinking about starting a small breeding program in the future. I'd like to breed for either pieds, leucistics, or both. What is the best way to start - hets or poss. hets? What percentage het? I know just a little about genetics and color traits in BPs, and Im working on a very tight budget.

Thank you for any help.

Not many people jump in that high for their first snake. The best way to do it is either get a het. pied pair or even a pied and some possible hets. It is hard to say without knowing how tight the budget is. Pieds are from $4000-10000 and lucy I would never consider possible on a tight budget. I would hope for a 100% white pied over that high market. It isnt very common to start with a recessive trait besides ghosts and albinos. I dont know...I have no clue why I am posting...this doesnt help at all. sorry

If you are working on a very tight budget, than I can guarantee you that you will not be working on a Lucy project. I was say a Lucy is out of the question on a small budget, so I would go with the Pieds. How long are you willing to wait before producing a pied? If you don't mind waiting a few years (or more), you can always buy a 100% het male pied and breed it to a normal female. Then take the female offspring (which will be 50% het for pieds) and breed them back to the father. Again, it all depends on your budget and your time frame for producing pieds. Good luck.

Thanks for replying. I'd like to be producing pieds in about two years. Could I get two adult hets for pied and breed them, what would that produce? The BP I currently own is a normal female, but still young (about a year old).

To produce a pied (or any other recessive trait)within two years would require a minimum purchase of a sexed pair of het for pied.(or,getting lucky with some possible hets).

Research the subject more and you will find....

Females are much higher in price than males.
Females can take 2 to 3 years to mature to breeding size,(over 1500 grams).While a male born this year should be ready to breed next year,(500 grams or more).

The bottom line is.
The sooner you want to produce them the more you will pay.
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3.12 Ball Pythons
0.1 Viper Boa

Also keep in mind that it looks like all the leucies so far appear to be co-dominant so there shouldn't be any possible hets available. No cheap way into a leucy project for a few years.

On your time schedule you would need a het pied female at least a year old to have a good chance of producing with a male from this year in two years. Several thousand dollars for your first ball python breeding project!

OK looks liek I'm going to hold off for now. Thanks for all your replies.

Been hanging out at Nekomi's house today. Looks like I forgot to switch out from her username when I used her desktop, I had been using my laptop. Sorry, just wanted to clear any confusion about the above post.

I myself am starting a breeding program involving pieds. I currently own 2 het pied males. they will be ready to go next yr if they keep up feeding like they are now. I already have 4 females that will easily go next yr and probably 2 more that have a good chance. I am purchasing every 500-700 gram cb female that is affordable to me to hopefully get 10-15 breedable females next yr. when i produce my first clutches of eggs i will hold back every female and sale the males basically as good looking normals even though they will be 50%ers. with luck and plenty of every 4 day feedings i will have a few of the 50% females ready to go in 1.5-2 yrs. witch with luck some of the females will actually be hets and i'll have pieds in 3 yrs. my investment in pieds will probably come to about 2k with all the females and the 2 males. one pied in 3 yrs will still be more than 2k so i should make a profit of some sort by at least 3 yrs (power feeding isn't cheap). so basically every year after that is gravy so to speak and you get to have one heck of a time proving out all those 50% females. one thing i will advise, don't throw all your money on one snake, it may go off food and take 3-4 yrs to mature. also get into some of the other lower priced morphs to keep it interesting, i'm working on producing albino's, picking up a pair of citrus ghost this weekend and hopefully getting some pastels this spring. god balls are fun. hope this helps some

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2.0 het pied
1.1 het albino
0.8 normal
1.0 american pit bull terrior
1.1 taco dogs (ankle biters)
1.0 grey cat

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrior as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!