Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I looked in the classifieds and didn't see any 66% Poss Het for Albino Ball Pythons. Does anybody have any idea how much they go for (or if you bought one, how much did you pay)? And also, I was curious to see what size mouse/rat you start a baby off with, and what size mouse/rat they eat as adults. Thanks a lot.

100% het albino are going for around $600 a pair right now so you should not pay any where near that for 66%. You should start off new borns with hopper mice.

Hope this helps,
Mohamed

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2.0 Piebald
2.0 66% Het Pied
1.0 Pastel
1.2 100% Het pied
1.0 Normal
1.1 Albino Nelson Milk Snakes
1.0 Pekingese
0.1 Himalayan

Just my opinion. If looking into buying any hets, if possible, buy the entire clutch. I feel hets are kinda a silly project unless you are getting a visual morph and a bunch of hets. Even then it seems to be a long road. On the other hand if you are just looking to have some cool pets that may reward you down the road they are a choice. I feel spend the cash for the morph you want. Even on credit cards , where you are paying interest, the visual will pay it self off if you just feed it for a year or two plus it is alot of fun going deep in debt. Point is spend everthing you can and get what you really want. Again, nothing against hets really. They are a good investment, but get that visual morph with them for some real satisfaction.
Oh, feed em rat pups or weaned rats if possible. A friend and myself found that if you take the time most all juvies will eat rats. We had hatclings that ate rats right away and some that after there first shed took rats if offerd nothing else. With a few it seemed to take almost to long. We had a few that held out for near two months but are now great rat feeders.
One more thing that is note worthy. I keep my balls in a rack system. Some of my older animals really seem to need a hides and are usually the slower feeders and shy in general. All the 05 ch that me and my friend are bringing up this year are feeding great and have little fear with no hides. I believe these hatclings when brought up in this fashion will be more confident breeders in the long run and better pets. Out of 200 ch females around 195 are feeding great and bold as could be.
Another idea while I am going. If you are a fan of Balls in general, ( just plain old normals even ) one of the best investments is buying females. Females are a long term investment but proably sell better than anything. Get a 10 lot of really nice hatchling and raise them. Spend the money for choice, high quality females and without a doubt you will eventualy have a very high return for a small investment. Visual morph females are worth more than alot of cars and small houses. They never go down in value from your puchase price. Even normal females that are adult and being sold for 500.00ea are a great investment. Honestly, nothing on Earth sells faster than quality adult female Balls. You could have the most sought after morph worth thousands or a ton of normal big girls and no doubt get money faster out of the normals. I wish I would have known all this 15 years ago and was sitting on a few thousand balls today.

If in any doubt buy more balls. Eat less, drive less, whatever saves money and buy balls till it hurts. Hopefully all involved will be filthy rich and have a ton of cool snakes. I don't know about you but I am going to buy one today just for [bleep]s and giggles.

Kevin

I start off hatchlings with large fuzzy mice, crawlers(large fuzzy but eyes are still closed) or hoppers. I move up in size after they can handle 2 feeders of the same size. Also, I try to switch to frozen thawed starting with their second meal. I offer it using tongs. Some will take, others will take after a few more meals, and some seem to want live only. That's ok, it's more important to me to get more meals in them than if the meal is live or frozen.

As far as possible hets, 50% or 66%, I am a buyer and seller of possible hets.
As a buyer, I am looking to get 3-4 female possible hets for the price of 1 definite/100% het. I like these odds and feel that I have a better chance with more clutches. When buying 3-4 females from the same clutch, there is an excellent chance that more than 1 will be a het. 100% het males are relatively cheap and available. If you can use a male that is a visual and not a het, your 3-4 females will give you a bunch of definite hets. That's the worst you can do and would only happen if all your females turned out to be normals which is not likely. Also, very important to me, is the price of the possible hets. I don't want to pay more for a possible het hatchling than the price of an adult normal female. This way I can always get back what I paid and my loss is time and feeders. This limits my choices when buying possible hets. Some female possible hets are selling for more than $400. I'll wait until the price comes down before I invest in these.

As a seller, I'm looking to offer 3-4 possible het females for the price of 1 definite/100% het female. I'm also offering them from the same clutch. Some breeders say that it doesn't matter but every buyer that has ever contacted me about possible hets ALWAYS ask if they are from the same clutch. I price possible het males in the range of $50-$100. The same price as a good looking normal male. They are not worth more than that in my opinion. Especially since definite het males are generally cheap and readily available. You can even wait an extra year before buying your definite het male. Females take a full year longer to get up to breeding size, most of the time. In that year, the price will come down and the availability will increase. The big difference in selling as opposed to buying, I don't concern myself about the price of a possible het female being more than a normal adult female. That worst case scenario where you end up with an adult normal female instead of a het. My personal guideline is just that, my guideline. Some buyers don't want to be limited in what possible hets they buy.
Just my opinion
John Q