Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What do you really get when you buy a 100% Het. Pied female?

She costs you between $1500.00 and $2000.00 and you have to wait 3 years for her to produce Pied. offspring.

If you buy a 2 year old 100% Het. Pied male $500.00 (you can find these on Peter K's site now.) and breed him right away to one or two of your large females, you will have offspring by next spring (6 or 7 months) and then wait the 3 years to produce Pied. offspring. (With this method you may get several female Het. Pieds and the potential of alot more Pied. offspring in the end.).

The way I see it your 2k only buys you 6 or 7 months.

Alan

(p.s. I know they will be 50%)

Yes but what happens if you don't get any females? Or the one or two that you do get turn out not being hets. How many years will that set you back. For your $1K more you get to not have to worry as much about the odds not being there. And if you dont hit it on year 3 with a het female you can try again in year 4 but if you don't hit it with your possible hets you are back to square one.

Or you could get really really lucky!

I guess you can look at the $1K as insurance money.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi - yeah I know but my kids love the book)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.2 frogs rescued from pool skimmer

The odds are in your favor that, if you breed a 100% male to two normal females, you will get a percentage of 100% Pied offspring.

Alan

Sadly there is no guarantee that you will get any females or that any females will carry the needed genes. I'd rather spend the money but I can see why others would rather take the chance.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi - yeah I know but my kids love the book)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.2 frogs rescued from pool skimmer

I'm in this for fun, playing the odds (and they are not the worst odds either) and winning to me is the diddy.

I would rather use the money on something else and have a second cool project simmering at the same time. This was just an observation, I am thinking in terms of getting the most bang for the buck..

I am 37 and I expext to be doing this when I am 87. I am not in any rush.

I can see if someone is in it for quick cash...that it would make a difference.

Alan

You look awful young for 37 ;o)
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With a name like Scrotbelly, it has to be good ;o)

Out of my first two clutches of ghost to normals this past season I ended up with 12.1 hets. The odds may look good on paper but don't count on them.

George Knaack
GLK HERP

Hi Tosha

You bought a 05 Male Ghost right?? Any pic's of him?? How is he doing??

Thanks
DragonDavy

Yep - and I've got to give props to Morton Wright for producing such an awesome hypo - he is a jewel! I have not taken any photos of him recently maybe I'll pull out the camera later today. He's doing great - I couldn't be happier with him!
Thanks for asking!

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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi - yeah I know but my kids love the book)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.2 frogs rescued from pool skimmer

You breedin him to a normal gal??

Just had to ask

Alan

Naw I got a het for him - when they are ready.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi - yeah I know but my kids love the book)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.2 frogs rescued from pool skimmer

So you bought a pair to save $$$ right?

Nope I bought them separate - the female is older than the male.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi - yeah I know but my kids love the book)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.2 frogs rescued from pool skimmer

Thats great! We'll be lookin' forward to seeing pics. of the little babies when they arrive!

Alan

DragonDavy

You can buy all the 100% het males you like, but until you get a 100% het female (or piebald female) from some source (perhaps paying $1500, or a poss het from your $500 males), you wont ever produce a piebald. Thats why the females are worth so much. You can breed one male to 3 females. The males are not worth as much because you have a hard time telling someone they need to buy 3.3 het pieds.... they will want 1.3 or 2.3. There are almost always unwanted/unmovable het males.

You will find your self in the same boat trying to get your poss het females. What are you going to do with all those poss het males?? When you can buy a het male for $200, who would waste their time on poss het males? I know they are out there, but on piebalds, by the time you prove one, statistically you will have to have 2, breed them out, raise the offspring, and then breed them back, by this time, you will have put so much money in housing and feed, you will have lost money. Your poss het males are just about worthless as a project to make money... now the fun is always there.

Ben

Ya know what I'll do with all the possible het males left over? Ill sell them as normals, trade them with my rodent guy for frozen mice, or give them away.

I just gave a Ball to the local school for the science class to enjoy.

Whatever...if having too many poss. het. pied males is my biggest problem in life I'll take it.

Alan

I agree its a nice problem to have, but it still does nothing for the project, and will not help make much money. Normal males usually cost more than they are worth. I have 3 from this year I still havent found homes for. Going looking for homes for a few males can easily cost alot more than they are worth unless you have shows close by. I had a table full of BPs last month at a show (unsexed) and didnt sell even one for $20. Even had the feed cards attached, and had one bad feeder and marked it as such. Now thats a problem.

Ben

I trade the ones I dont want at a local pet store. Or give them to pet stores. It really isnt a problem.

...on that table of "unsexed" balls, was there really any chance that a female was there???

I wouldnt have bought them for a dollar if you were running that spank my way. Just on principal.

Regards,

Alan

Yep! I hatched them, grew them for a month and too them to the show, just never bothered to sex them. I am not as female greedy as most breeders. I even told some people they could sex them if they wanted to. I was sharing a table with a friend and he sexed several of them, found 1.1 on the first two animals which was that the person who asked wanted and he sold them. That was the only sale. None of mine sold. We sexed a few more and wrote it on there... turned out I had 3.2 CB on the table, and 0.2 CH. None sold.

BTW, the friend was the owner of the local pet show who is going out of business, he had about 30 CH babies to sell. If you live in the right area (such as Denver, where I used to live) you can sell them to your choice of tons of local petshops. In Huntsville, Alabama, pet shops are a long ways apart. I will likely give them away, taking a loss on the time/bedding/heat/meals/gas/etc I have wasted on them. All I am saying is that poss het males really ar not worth much and can be a pain to move. For some its not a problem, but for me it is.

Ben

Ben

Ben,

So now your telling me that the CH females are hard to move??

Funny, I can find about 15 ads on this site and CH babies are like $150.00 each?

Why wouldnt, in your original post, you have mentioned you let people probe them and there were 3.2?? You gave a ton of detail..but left that out?? Come on....

Alan

I did not probe mine until several days after the fact. My friend probed several on request. Had I taken the time to probe them, I would have never brought them. I have pleanty right now, but a little voice in my head would have not let me sold the females if I knew they where females. Not everyone is dishonest. I know that cones as a shocker. I had already picked over a bunch of other imports and have pleanty of females. Why would I care about a few fresh born babies??? I just threw them in a container, put unsexed $20. One person actually stopped and said, yah right, and thats when my friend probed a pair for him, he bought them, and thats it.

Sheesh.

Ben

Oh yah, $150?!?!? for a female?? I hope that comes with a gold coin in the box. I know they are worth alot to some people, but thats the older ones ready to breed. These where just over a month old. Nothing special. Could get them by the hundreds for $6 each 6 months ago... you mean to tell me they went to $150 each in 6 months??!?

Ben

This late in the fall as long as they are established, eating and all they easily sell for $150.00 or more.
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Nita Hamilton
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Ball Pythons
ballpythonworld.com

If you have the space to raise up a bunch of 50% het females,
and the time to maintain them, and the funds to feed them, then
you will likely end up WAY ahead with your approach. If you
buy 2.0 het pied breeders for $1000 and get 4 6-egg clutches out
of them this next year, you statistically will end up with 6 het
pied females to raise up. Yes, you are 1 year behind where you
would have been if you bought that female het pied, but you will
likely have 6 times as many het pied females! You are also
spreading your risk (...what if your 1 het pied female dies...
you would be out everything).

I happen to know someone that did just that a few years ago with
several mutations and next year they will start seeing the
benefit

Good luck!
Chris Simone
www.SimoneReptiles.com

Thanks for your honesty Chris.

I was not trying to be controversial when I posted, just callin' em like I see em.

I know alot of people have alot of money invested in their snakes here, but that doesn't mean that someone else shouldn't have a right to their opion or be afraid of being "Ganged up" on or shouted down.

Alan