New to ballz...

Ok, ive been mostly dealing with Boas the last couple years and decided to get into balls.My question is, what is a good investment quality ball to start with?Im working with about 5k, and would like to get into some morphs...anyhelp would be greatly appreciated.

As I tell everyone, work with what you like...

Recessives are great, but so are combos.

Set a goal, and work for it.

Buy good stock, and have a great time with it, and it will be all worth it in the end.

Josh please understand I am not THE AUTHORITY on balls. There are people on here with more knowledge and experience than I do. LadyOHH is right though. I think you need to set a plan in place. When you want to be able to breed? What kinds? Just like in boas the price of 06's are much cheaper than 05's and obviously adults. Also are just interested in direct lines or are you interested in trying to eventually breed higher end morphs than include combining different morphs? These are questions you need to answer. Also, with 5k to work with you got some room to play with. spider, mojaves 06's right now you can get for 800-1200 or so. 05's price goes up to about the area of 2k etc. Albinos 06's about 1000-1500, 05's 1800-2500. You could buy 1 of the sexes of these as adult and maybe breed them to a normal het for albino and hope for the best on the outcomes and maybe get an albino or two babies, sell them and put the money into higher morphs such as super pastels that can run about 3-4000 for 06's. Now remember these prices are just guesses and the quality of the snake dictates where they are in these ranges. Females of the morphs sometimes cost a little more than the males. Remember good quality birds make good quality bird doo doo. So buy quality. Pastels, granites you can usually find a quality pair of 06's for about 900-1200. Do some research and pay attention to prices on here and what they are selling. Best advice though from LadyOHH is you have to like the product to sell it. So pick a morph or two that you like. I hope this helps. Just my 2 cents worth. (not much and it won't help you get any balls at all)

Whatever you do, BE PICKY go for the best stock you can, less is more. A few outstanding animals trumps a bunch of average everytime. 5K is a nice sum to get you started. Now time to do some homework.

Look at different Breeder's photo galleries, projects etc BEFORE you look at for sale ads. Pick a few morphs you like & read up on them- here's a good guide to help you pick the best animals for your projects: http://www.nextworldexotics.com/hg.htm

If you doing a recessive project : go with het females from a trusted seller & unrelated homozygous male. This give you some genetic diversity & you should produce your morph & hets- no guess work. You may even find some well started 1-2 year old girls to work with. Some recessives that fit your budget are, Hypo/Ghost, Albino, Pied (THE most popular recessive morph at present) & I believe Axanthic. Recessives hold their price the best.

There are great Co-Dom projects out there, Jungle Pastels, Mojaves & Cinny/Black Pastels when crossed are quite the powerhouse! They will launch you straight into the designer morph scene. Any combination of a male & 2 girls will set you up nicely. Again, just make sure you get the BEST examples you can.

Go with what you like, pick the best, have a plan before you shop & I'm sure you'll enjoy.

I completely agree with working with what you like....if i didnt it wouldnt be as fun.I love the way the spiders look, aswell as clowns.I dont want to start out with babies....possibly a year or two older.Which i know means more cash...I currenty have a friend who may possibly put down a couple few grand to go into this with me.He wants me to put together a "presentation" and we'll go from there.I just figure if i do this i want to start a little higher on the totem pole if i can.I just have to get my understanding of genetics down a bit more before i jump into anything.BP's arent too awful different from boas as far as the genetics go...theres just so many more morphs at the moment.I need to find out which is dom, co-dom and so on.Thanks for taking the time to repy, really appreciate it.Josh

that is different between balls and boas. In boas, hypomelanism is a co-dom morph...in balls, it's recessive. Also, whereas you can get a superhypo in boas, in balls you just get hypo...which is also called ghost. Something to think about.

Scott Nellis

Hypos that is EXACTLY what confused me lol.Hit it on the head.....

Originally Posted by jmkhet

Hypos that is EXACTLY what confused me lol.Hit it on the head.....

Exactly, it'd be lovely if P.Reguis had a co-dom hypo... some rumors about that but only time will tell.

Hypos brighten EVERYTHING! A very cool recessive morph in the BP world. There are only 2 strains I know of that aren't compatible with the others.

Study the market carefully in terms of price. This will ensure that you get the most for you money. Be warey of deals that look too good to be true.

At times the ball morph market seems like the stock market in terms of price vulnerability. That being said - ball morphs are always in demand, so a downward trend in price only increases the number of the people who can afford to add unique animals to their collection.