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To Breed or Not to breed??

G

ghengistahn

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hey guys i have a normal female. 2200 grams and a normal male that is 1000 grams.. i was wondering if i should breed her with the male or not?? The thing is that i have a pastel.. that wont ready till next year.. Should i breed these two for practice?? Or wat should i do?? Just let her grow until next year?? Also how hard is it to get rid or normal balls? if i do breed them? I am new to this as you can see... so any advice would be greatly appreciated
 
Well honestly its kinda half and half with ball python normals. As far as male offspring, your kinda stuck. Everyone is buying males in high end morphs, so your males will usually end up being sold as pet stock basically. Your females however will raise in value the longer you keep them and the more weight you put on them. Female normals are always in demand, and usually if they are over 1000 grams you can find a pretty penny for them.

It's really up to you if you want to breed. I'd ask yourself if you have room for hatchlings and food as well as an incubator available. If you think you have the time and space, go for it! Otherwise wait until next season.
 
I agree with raiquee male are very hard to get rid of you practially have to give them away. But the female should make up some of the difference. Plus they are both ready to go and you might want to see how the female will act for next year.
Tommy D.
 
I have no trouble selling well started normal looking (mine are generally possible hets) males to my local pet stores. I don't get tons of money for them ($25 - $40 depending on the time of year) but their alternative is to pay shipping on imported animals which may or may not be in good shape and feeding. If it’s a small store the shipping will add considerable to the individual cost of a small order and many of those stores have been burned with emaciated improperly cared for imports. If you can demonstrate that you have a healthy feeding animal they will likely be interested in it.

Is your 2200 gram girl long and skinny or short and fat? How often are you able to feed her?

If she is stocky and you do a good job of obtaining feeders for her I would be tempted to try breeding her this year. I had a couple of big fat girls not go last year and after a recent thread on another forum I get the idea that they can get too fat to be good breeders. Laying eggs will loose about 1/3 of her weight so you will have to feed her well to recover for next year but if you can do that she might actually have a better chance of going with the pastel next year if she gets in the grove this year as opposed to getting even fatter. Better yet, see if you can find a morph stud male with a local breeder you trust to breed her to this year and then maybe you can have some 05 het or pastel etc. females to start growing up a year earlier than otherwise.
 
Well I don't know but where I live there are only 3 pet stores that sell reptiles one is in my town and two are 40min. away. They are flooded with balls every year at breeding time and will not take any. So there is alway the chance just cause they are captive breed doesn't mean you can get rid of them. But you may have plenty of pet stores that are in need of ball pythons. Tommy D.
 
Well, I work at a petstore, and they'd take any normals I produce, just because it is hard to come by CBB babies around here. We usually have 500+gram CH or WC males... So, any babies that are CBB are taken if produced by someone the store knows.
 
silly question....

I've been reading the posts in this section.... what makes a female over 1000 grams so much more valuable? I realize that is when they become sexually mature and able to breed, but is that the only thing that makes them valuable, or is it that it is difficult to get them to that point? My female normal ball is 1400 grams and in the middle of a winter fast right now, but I have no males to breed her to or even anyone around here to even consider anything of that sort with, as this area is not the greatest for finding herps. When we got her, though, she wasn't being taken care of at all, so we aren't sure if she could produce fertile eggs, as we have never tried to breed her, even though she is healthy now.
Thanks,
Melanie Brown
mom to Osiris, Isis, and Akasha
(1.1 columbian bcis and 0.1 ball python)
 
In my experiances, they cost so much more than babies because the buyer is saved a few years raising them, and they can be immediately bred with a male, and have all their money made back, plus a bunch more with the babies. So, for the breeders with morphs, it is worth spending 200-300 for a CB female that will breed NOW.
 
that makes sense...lol

Okay, that makes sense... I guess I never thought of it that way, in business sense that would be the smart way to go rather than putting all the time and money into the food, etc. duh! lol
Thanks,
Melanie Brown
 
I suppose the local pet store market varies a lot from area to area and probably also between stores.

I know it varies a lot by time of year. I wouldn't even try selling in April or May when the wild bred (i.e. ch) babies come in but of course I don't usually have babies that early anyway because of the cb season generally being later (June – Aug).

The last few years some large operations have started holding the ch babies and some actually even feed them (a little) and take decent care of them and then sell them for more later in the summer and fall so the competition is still there. However, after they have invested time and feeders in them they also want more for them.

If you have a big local distributor who can deliver ch babies to your local pet stores so they don't have to pay shipping on small orders that will make it harder too. Also the really big specialty pet stores can make there own big orders of ch so the shipping isn't such a big thing to them.

If you happen to be a bit out in the sticks though (like me) and have a moderate sized pet store with a good reptile department but without the volume to order 100 ch at a time then you have a reasonable opportunity to compete, at least in the off season. If nothing else I'm sure you could adopt them out but I bet you could sell normals to offset at least some of the feeding cost of the parents. The only real paying proposition though is the morphs because they are intrinsically differentiable from the tens of thousands of normal imports each spring.
 
cool thanks guys.. ya actually she is a really good size.. i took her out with my male just to see howd they act and he took to her really quickly.. he immediately started to try to lock her.. i stopped them when i opened the cage.. so they wouldnt go foward with the mating.. they were locked up for like 2 hours my sister said.. is she gonna be pregnant?? She is 2218 grams to be exact.. she is about 4 3/4 feet long.. she is very thick... twice as thick as my 3 1/2 foot male.. I guess im thinking about saving her for next year but im scared its too late..
 
and ya im not sure if i have enough room.. i was thinking about getting rid of my male.. becuase i dont find much need for him especially with the pastell male on the way (next year at least).. also i have 3 other females(they are a little young though 300 grams).. and one unknown.. i probed it and it was 4 scales.. so its a toss up....but as for my adult male..i might get rid of him.. not to much need for him... i dunno how right now not to many people want a male adult ball. But if hes gone im sure ill have enough room..
 
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