These are the questions, and the answers are most of the time very difficult. The longer you do it, the more things get complex.. I can attest to that.
The thing that really is important to figure out is... Is it worth it anymore?
Is it worth it to feed that animal and use it next season for breeding? Males or females? Large or small?
Things floating around thru the community and in my own mind as well.
For example...
Are normal breeder females not worth the effort to have anymore?
They are still females producing eggs, but is it better to sell your breeder normals and het stuff that isn't easily create a morph, or do you keep them? Do you keep all of the newest and coolest females that you produce and replace the normals with them this year, or next year, or at all?
For me, every year is a bit more difficult... I am moving out some of the last of my breeder normal females, and it pains me to see them go. The same with my breeder males... It's one of those things that I feel guilty about, although it is a difficult decision, it is the best thing for my space and my collection.
And of course, the feeling that some people do not appreciate the breeders I am selling doesn't help the situation. This is not to say that my customers who get my breeders don't appreciate snakes.. That is not what I am saying at all. What bothers me more is the market for a breeder anything seems to be not much more than that of a hatchling... and this is the norm. So why buy hatchlings at all? (Another topic for another day)
But, it is part of the equation of being a breeder. Things loose value, other things are more interesting, and things change often.
The market is finicky, but the snakes are awesome. That is the bottom line.
So I clear out space for more snakes, more awesomeness, and next year the problem will again be where to put what I want to keep so that I can keep progressing in my goals as a breeder.
How bout you?
Have a great day, my friends!
6 comments:
Personally, I think letting go of your normal females is a good decision. If I have that size of a collection, I'll be letting go of my female normals and single gene males. It would be nice not producing normals anymore.
good and bad idea to move out normal females. honestly, sometimes its better having large older 2000-3000g normal females that drop 8-10 eggs regularly compared to younger visual morph animals that may slug out or have smaller clutches. also producing some lower end animals to have at shows and attract first time bp owners is always a good thing? they can start with a single morph gene, then slowly buy more from you. it's a delicate balance, but sometimes when space is needed u have to do what u gotta do!
Having just hatched my first clutch, I sympathize, because I'm going through this trying to find "suitable homes" for my new babies. My husband wants me to SELL THEM ALREADY and get them out of the house, but I also want to do right by the little lives I've just created. And I don't want to just treat them like a product I'm trying to trade for money. I want to get a few meals in them, I don't want stress them shipping them across the country in the heat/cold... etc.
It makes me feel much more sympathetic towards the jerky dog breeders and dog rescue people that have given me & my friends the third degree when we inquired about their precious puppies.
Well the thing is the term "normal" when it comes to ball pythons is INCREDIBLY subjective. If the animal passes on any sort of trait that you desire makes it worth it. Brian Gundy has his Gold Blush female that allows him to make mojaves that he can sell for at least twice as much as "normal" mojaves. I am I big advocate of normal females as they can pass on traits that you may want.
It's an interesting question, and I think it's different for every person. Myself, I have an extremely limited amount of space and time, so at the very beginning, I made up a breeding plan that minimized the total number of snakes I needed to accomplish the projects I was interested in. I also wanted to produce as few normals as possible since males tend to be difficult to sell/re-home. Thankfully, the former creates the latter, so that's good. As of right now, I have two normals (both females) out of 17 BPs, and one is a dinker that I think has a good chance of having something genetic going on. I plan on buying only visual morphs in the future--not even hets--to keep my snake numbers down.
But I can easily see how others would love to have normal females, single-gene males, etc. As someone else mentioned, first-time breeders usually start small and work their way up from there, so they have lots of use for normal females. Also, if someone is mostly interested in producing more co-dom or multi-co-dom snakes, normal females with multi-co-dom males are a great way to go.
As with choosing morphs, it's all about what the breeder's goal is and how s/he wants to accomplish said goal. :-]
(Oh, for heaven's sake, this is ridiculous! Blogger, you suck sometimes. I'm sorry if this comment has shown up fifty gajillion times. It's taken me this many times to get Blogger to actually publish my comment!)
It's an interesting question, and I think it's different for every person. Myself, I have an extremely limited amount of space and time, so at the very beginning, I made up a breeding plan that minimized the total number of snakes I needed to accomplish the projects I was interested in. I also wanted to produce as few normals as possible since males tend to be difficult to sell/re-home. Thankfully, the former creates the latter, so that's good. As of right now, I have two normals (both females) out of 17 BPs, and one is a dinker that I think has a good chance of having something genetic going on. I plan on buying only visual morphs in the future--not even hets--to keep my snake numbers down.
But I can easily see how others would love to have normal females, single-gene males, etc. As someone else mentioned, first-time breeders usually start small and work their way up from there, so they have lots of use for normal females. Also, if someone is mostly interested in producing more co-dom or multi-co-dom snakes, normal females with multi-co-dom males are a great way to go.
As with choosing morphs, it's all about what the breeder's goal is and how s/he wants to accomplish said goal. :-]
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