Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If I was to invest in buying a pair of fire balls (which I believe are het for leucistic) does that mean that when I bred the two, they would produce leucistic babies? With all that said and I actually had a clutch of leucistics or het for leucistic, how much would they sell for and could I actually expect to sell them for that amount of money?

Just a question.

Thanks, Jon

My understanding is that fireballs are hets for a gene that when homozygous creates a line of black-eyed leucistics.

If that is the case, then your odds breeding fireball X fireball would be the same as with any het X het breeding. Each egg would have a 25% chance of containing a homozygous (leucistic) a 50% chance of containing a het (fireball) and a 25% chance of containing a complete normal for this leucistic gene.

The going price by the time you produce is anyone’s guess. As long as you had some big normal cb females and could get the fireball male to breed them you should be able to do well even if the price is 1/4 by then. However it would be a huge initial investment to gamble should things go wrong. Perhaps not the best first snake breeding project

Well said, Randy. I agree with what he said. With fire balls being 100,000 a pair you might talk them down a bit but still at 90,000 a pair you would have to wait at least a year to see a return. The you could make more fire balls and sell them for the going price...But 90,000 is a pretty large chunk of change to invest. thanks David

If you`re looking to make a white snake and you`re concerned about money.Then you should think about perhaps doing a mojave to mojave breeding.You`ll be into the project for alot less money, and you can produce a blue-eyed lucy instead of a black-eyed one. Less initial investment and a more desireable end result,kinda a no brainer. Mark Petros Ballpython777.com

But Mojave x Mojave doesn't produce a pure white snake does it, it produces a white, off-white and yellow snake, which in reality cannot be called a true "lucy".

For the amount of money Fireballs and Mojave's cost I would rather invest in the Platinum's, now they produce a 'Pure' white snake!

You are incorrect, the off-white snake you are thinking of is an ivory.The result of breeding 2 yellow bellies together, mojave to mojave produces a white snake with blue eyes.Morph king recently proved this out. Mark Petros

I dont believe I'm incorrect at all, the "white" snake produced from Mojave x Mojave and Lesser Platinum x Phantom have all produced a white snake with an off-white dorsal stripe and yellow markings behind the eyes, that is not a pure white snake now is it.

The only pure white snake produced is from Platinum x Lesser, no off-white dorsal stripe and no yellow.

Now am I the only one that see's this?

OK, forget everything I said. All I want to know is if I had a clutch leucistic ball pythons, how much should they sell for and can I expect to sell them for that price.

JUST MY OPINION, BUT............
WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH WOULD ANYONE SPEND $25k PLUS FOR A VERY AVERAGE LOOKING ANIMAL, WHEN YOU COULD EASILY BUY A PAIR OF MOJAVES FOR UNDER $20K, AND HAVE THE SAME 25% ODDS OF PRODUCING LEUCISTICS FROM BREEDING THEM TOGETHER??!! IN THE MEANTIME, WHILE THEY ARE BEING RAISED, (WHICH MOJAVES ARE WELL DOCUMENTED TO BE ONE OF THE VERY FASTEST GROWING MORPHS) YOU ACTUALLY HAVE AN ANIMAL THAT IS PLEASANT TO LOOK AT, VERSUS WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A NORMAL LOOKING SNAKE....... AGAIN, JUST MY OPINION! (PS......PLUS, WHEN BRED TO A NORMAL, A LEUCISTIC (SUPER MOJAVE) WILL GIVE YOU ALL MOJAVES!) NOT A BAD DEAL............STAN