new too ball pythons

[brutus]

I am interested in getting into ball pythons. I love the pieds, but just can't afford one right now.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some good ideas for starting a collection. I live in Alberta. I don't want to just get normals, I was thinking about either het albinos, or a pastel male with a normal female.

My goal is to eventually within a couple of years, breed my own pieds.

Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated.

I love some of the pics you guys post here.

what is the best economical investment route? economical because I am a single dad looking for a hobby to share with my son.

thanks guys!

[Tim_Cranwill]

Get a pastel male and as many normal females as you can afford. :)

[brutus]

all this genetics is very confusing to me. But I have read that pastels, being codominant are the key to many morphs. how so? What can be produced?

[Tim_Cranwill]

Well, combos are going to be huge but that's a few years in the future if you're just getting started. The big thing with pastels is, you will get to see pastel hatchlings with your first successful clutch, (50/50 odds) assuming you don't get HORRIBLE odds! :D

Then you can sell the pastel males and maybe even a few females and have some money to invest in other morphs. And in the sort term future, when you breed a pastel to another pastel, you can make SUPER pastels! ;)

If you went the route of a pair of het albinos, in your first clutch, you "should" get an albino (1/4 odds) but you would want to hold back most or all of those (if you got more than one) for future breeders. Then you have longer to wait before you can invest more "snake money" in your hobby.

But that's just what I would do. ;) I did the pair of het albinos first and feel that was a mistake. With the pastel money I could have made last season, I could have bought a REAL albino and not just hets.... but that hind sight for ya! :D

[Asian Jon]

hey Tim that is really good advice, thanks for the tip

[mykee]

Pieds? Pastels? het albinos? Doesn't sound like a "hobby you can share with your son" at all, seems like you only have dollar signs in your eyes. If you're TRULY looking for a hobby you can share, buy a normal ball, and enjoy it. As for an investment, which it seems to me is what you are interested in, I'm with Tim and pick up a male pastel and loads of normal females. You'll have lots of pastels in 2-3 years.

[Vengeance]

I went the Het Albino route because that was the morph I was most interestead in. But from an investment standpoint what does the market look like for pastels?

As it is much easier to produce pastels as it is a dominant trait, when compared to a Het, is their any sign that the market for the pastel has begun to become saturated or is it pretty stable?

[brutus]

Originally posted by mykee
Pieds? Pastels? het albinos? Doesn't sound like a "hobby you can share with your son" at all, seems like you only have dollar signs in your eyes. If you're TRULY looking for a hobby you can share, buy a normal ball, and enjoy it. As for an investment, which it seems to me is what you are interested in, I'm with Tim and pick up a male pastel and loads of normal females. You'll have lots of pastels in 2-3 years.

who says that the 2 cannot overlap. I am more interested in the look of the morphs, than the normals.

[BoidKeeper]

I would suggest a pair of normals and start from there. What if you make a big investment and you they die, or you can't get them to breed that sort of thing. There is a learning curve in this hobby and trust me accidents happen. I recently cooked a $1000 ball python and I've been doing this for almost 4 years. My point is poop happens so maybe you should start out with corns or normal balls and if all goes well invest more captital. I'm not saying you are going to cook anything but if you mess up your first eggs it would sting as bad if they are just normal eggs and not pied eggs.
Something to think about,
Trevor

[brutus]

i will definately not be getting any corns, or kings, or rats. I like boas, but a little too big for me right now, thats why I wanted to go with balls.

but I do understand what you are saying!

[hhw]

If you want boas, but don't want to go too big, you should look at one of the dwarf locales. Quite a few people are working with Hogg Isle boas in Canada, so they shouldn't be too hard to track down. I know of some Nicaraguans kicking about as well, so ask around if you're interested.

If you just like boids in general though, ball pythons are a great choice. Some people would say they aren't for beginners but I would just say they aren't for uninformed beginners. Do your research and you should do fine with them.

Pastels are definitely a great start. If I were you though, I would just buy up some young normal females for now. This way, you won't have to lay down too much cash yet, yet get experience. At the same time, females in general take an extra year or so to be ready for breeding so you can hold off on the pastel for now. If you decide that a year from now ball pythons aren't for you after all, you won't have laid down the big bucks on a pastel yet and those females you've bought will be worth enough (provided they reach a good size) that your effort will be worthwhile. If you do decide however, that you're going to go ahead with the project, you will have your stock of breedable females to go with your pastel when you grow him up.

Now, if you're really willing to spend some bucks though you could perhaps buy mature breeding stock. There's a mature male pastel for sale in the classifieds right now.