hey guys today we're going to talk about breeding snakes so I've been kind of seeing
a lot on social media and I know a lot of other YouTube personalities and pet tubers and stuff
I've talked a little bit about it but here's my little two cents about it sorry it's a bit of a
rant video but these are some decent tips that I think from somebody who has made quite a few
mistakes of these tips so hindsight 2020 is all and all that good jazz we have Callie with me
today she's just a pastel ball python but her coloration is a little bit different I'm gonna
talk a little bit about that in just a minute so when I said that I've been seeing a lot on social
media lately I've been seeing a lot of posts that are kind of like hey I have this I'm looking for
another one let me know what you have where they don't really know fully what they want or
they're just kind of trying to you know put things together and so what I'm going to talk a little
bit about is three little tips or my opinion or I guess would be another way to put it about so
you want to breed snakes and we're mostly we're mostly going to talk about ball pythons because
I think ball pythons are the reason why there's kind of this overall mentality that's been kind
of taken over the reptile community in the last like 10-12 years it doesn't really matter like
what type of reptile or snake you want to bring general but like I said we're just going to talk
about ball pythons so for a long time when we were keeping reptiles it was more about you know I like
this species and even have one of this one of that one of this and then something happened
where I think the the ball pythons and all the genetics and the morph game showed up to where
there's now this thing words okay I'm gonna buy a reptile and I want at least two so I can make some
money which I will admit I did have a little bit of aspirations about that not at first but after
I got a couple species and I started getting to know a little bit more about the ball python works
and stuff I went I absolutely could make a little bit of money about this but let's all be real for
a second ball pythons are a total pyramid scheme that's just what they are I'm not gonna you know
throw anything down about ball ten beers I'm a ball python breeder not super successful I've
only had a few clutches in the last few years this year is probably gonna be our first big year which
I know for some people out there you know under 10 is still a small year but we're looking probably
between five and ten clutches based on the girls that we've locked and had confirmed mocks and
ovulations and stuff so sorry rambling a little bit tip number one number one is learning to keep
this type of snake that you want so like I said we're talking about ball pythons so obviously
they're super easy to breed pretty easy to keep once you dial in their exact husbandry needs but
if you're gonna want to breed these things first things first you need to make sure that you know
how to keep them alive and keep them healthy and happy in the first place which there is a bit of
a learning curve for really any and all Balls any anoles reptile or snake species ball pythons are
consistently bad shudders because they need a lot of humidity and a lot of people I mean especially
here in Colorado I see it a lot but a lot of other places too where it's dry or in the winter months
your heat has to go up and so that dries out the air too so they always have shedding issues
they're notoriously bad years well they'll just go on hunger strikes mine are no exception I've
had ball pythons go eight months without losing body mass and just going and turning their nose
up at literally every type of food presented to them and with exception of African soft furred
rats I've never actually offered those before but I still haven't had a snake really lose any
weight about that first so if you're gonna try to breed snakes number one get one sure if you
want to get a pair that's fine but make sure you learn how to keep it correctly make sure that you
have it for quite a number for quite a few years or a number a period of time so that way you know
how to keep it how to keep it healthy once that you get that dialed in you get some experience
on your belt more than just you know even just this one video or even just this one channel you
talk to your local breeders hobbyists reptile stores all the different YouTube channels out
there then you can move on so we've it week so you know how to keep snakes you know the
optimal conditions you know you've had you've had a few ball pythons for four or five years I
want to breed snakes okay cool totally fine I love breeding snakes there's nothing cooler than seeing
that little baby snoot just poop out of that egg for the first time it's amazing to see but that
being said tip number two is don't breathe just to breed so if you have you know I have this normal
ball python and this pastel ball python I'm gonna put them together and hung in a bit babies that's
I totally get that that's really cool but you need to kind of think about the long-term game
when it comes to breeding these snakes so say you've done everything correctly you know all
of your stuff has been dialed in your females at a good age instead of good weight your males
at a good age he's in a good way you've done everything correctly they lock up she goes to
the ovulation she produces you know nine good healthy eggs you've done your research you have
incubate the all goal for turns now you have nine baby snakes and they are all pastels or normals
because that's how the pastel gene works with normals it's that incomplete dominance are gonna
be one or the other but now you have nine you additional baby snakes that are gonna take some
time you need to get at least a minimum of this is kind of the general consensus is of at least
three good meals into most snake species before you can consider them healthy good to go and go
out and when you're breeding snakes you know they most of the time they won't eat until they shed
which is about you know five to 10 days depending on the snake species you know short tailed pythons
the exception those things will go months before they shed fresh out of the egg so they usually
won't eat and then once you have that they are like every other ball python in the world where
sometimes they just don't want to eat and you have to try a bunch a little thing tricks and tips and
ways and patience to do that so say you've already done that you have four or five ball
pythons already some of them are probably already finicky years then you have nine more snakes that
you have to take care of okay so that's a whole lot of time that's a whole lot of patience that's
more money putting into those snakes that you're trying to get I know that sounds kind of bad when
comparing snakes to money but let's be honest that's why a lot of people these days get into
breeding snakes is because they want a little bit of a return for their investment which I do get to
a degree I am a Python breeder I'm a snake breeder in general so I understand that but motivations
can be a little bit different we're gonna get to that in a second so you have now nine baby snakes
hopefully you get them all eating let's say you do get all three to four meals in them now you
have to try to figure out how to sell them this is gonna sound absolutely terrible because it is
kind of a messed up thing to say or think about but it is kind of true that normal and pastel
ball pythons in this current day and age and the reptile community are basically the most fiscally
worthless snakes there are it's horrible to say but it's kind of true you I mean people have a
hard time giving away normal ball pythons I still have quite a few because I've had them when I very
first got started there are my pets they're not going anywhere you know financial circumstances
whatever may have you but for the most part if I bring an animal in I want to hold on to that
unless I'm not able to anymore I want to hold on to that animal unless I produced it or I got it
to sell so you have these adult ball pythons and I have these nine ball pythons what are you gonna
do with them if you can't sell them I mean there's pastels out there for galore normal ball pythons
I mean it's a kind of a messed up thing to hear these days but I know a lot of people are selling
them for essentially feeders now for a lot of you know snake eaters there's people are starting to
very up diets of snakes other than ball pythons because they're picky eaters so they're starting
to do a lot of reptile inks in rats and mice and chicks and guinea pigs and snakes and lizards
they're very not the diets to more better recreate their natural you know prey and that's what they
eat in the wild which is a good thing but then that's I know it's kind of a weird thing to say
that you know snakes are worth more than a rat or whatever may have you that's what's happening
to a lot of like pastel and normal ball pythons or really a lot of single game ball pythons in
general are essentially being sold as feeders and I don't know if a whole lot of ball python
breeders very getting started are really okay with that so if you're gonna breed please don't breed
to breed and when I say to that is don't just say oh I have this in the let's put them together see
what I get because you have to think about the long-term care of all those animals that exist
because of you so if you're going to produce produce your pets or your ball python snakes
or whatever snake species you have make sure that you think about what you're gonna do with
that we're even for a high dollar or high valued animals you can still have to you may still have
to hold onto them for months and months and that's space to keep them time to keep them time to clean
expenses to feed the electricity bill to do that there's people that have sat there and like figure
out exactly how much it costs to actually produce a ball python I don't exactly know how that was
but it's a few it ends up being to where a lot of the time you're not gonna get money back or
you're not even gonna get what you put in to just producing that snake back so if you're gonna breed
breed because you like it so that mean the next thing and that is breed what you like so that
means so you want to bring ball pythons totally understandable they're very easy to breed but
if you're gonna start getting into that maybe you know you've already done research you know
that they can be worth some money find some some morphs or some patterns that you really like and
start by breeding those so say I really like the piebald ball python I really like the clown ball
python so invest in some of the animals and start with breeding those and then build from there if
you really like that concentrate on that and get known for that because if you start producing a
whole lot of you know specifically that one thing and you get it to where you're known from that
and people go oh pied ball pythons that's Joe Schmo over in Minnesota you know that's that's
him that's the guy that when I think of a pied that's who I want to go to you know that's that's
what you need to get known for and that's kind of tight in a little bit with the quality as well so
every single one of us me included have been that Craigslist role we're sitting there online looking
for used equipment different snakes and stuff like that but if you're trying to get known for
something you're trying to breed for something you should definitely try to get some quality animals
period so for instance Ozzie Boid's those guys are ball python breeder they do boas and other milk
snakes and stuff too but they are known and very specifically for the orange dream gene they also
do a lot of work with clowns some desert ghosts and a lot of pied stuff but they have taken the
orange dream gene which is in and of itself kind of a base looking animal they kind of brown out as
they get older and he's taken a toll whole other level if you look at Ozzie Boyd produced or Ozzie
Boyd lined orange dream ball pythons that's the whole other level and they end up being
worth a whole lot more and that's because he sat there when I really like the scene I'm gonna take
it to the next level I'm gonna breed the most orange snakes that I can and that's what he did
and that's what I think a lot of people should do too so I have Kali out with me for instance
for this reason that I talked about she's just a normal pastel Python but number one she is the
offspring of a very large sub-saharan bloodline ball python which means that in in Africa West
Africa where they're found there's this one region they call them sub-saharan I'm totally spacing on
the name of them I'll put it up here in just a when we when I put this video out but they are
known to be significantly larger like they're on average two-thirds to twice as large but they are
their heads a lot bigger they produce more eggs blah blah blah but her and a couple of sinks so
we have our offsprings of this one girl that's Brandi who I think I've brought up before but
we have another one of her kids that we held back Brandi junior who's just a normal but the reason
why we have them is because Brandi has produced over and over again really high quality looking
animals and hopefully the camera can pick this up we'll do a little bit of people she looks a little
different than some a lot of pastel ball pythons out there like there's a fair degree of variance
II when it comes to a lot of morphs but pastel a lot of times people just kind of forget about them
they're like a bit of a lightning gene and people are kind of moving away from pastel but if you're
gonna start into doing a project or something that really care about start with quality that's why we
still have Cali here because like just the look of this like pastels they're warm bright yellow
and then they turn brown as they get older she has this really cool like half-and-half color
her banding is really crazy which is a little bit of Brandis coming through as well and her attitude
is great she's very slow grown but she's managed to hold on to this color that I haven't seen on
a whole whole lot of bulb of pastel ball pythons and so if I want to do something with pastel and I
want you know those attributes to carry on further down the line once I produce more babies with her
and even if I start putting them into other genes that's gonna carry through as well that's why we
kept Brandy jr. BJ that we produced here because just as a normal ball python her her banding is
different for color ratios a lot lighter if she's really clean she's very friendly because brandy
is a very friendly snake and that's what we're trying to breed here is breeding for quality
and breeding for personality you know that and that's kind of what we've what we've done is
we've that's what we hear in the hobby do is we breed for personnel and we breed for color with
ball pythons a lot of time and ends up being just throwing morphs together but a lot of people are
starting in us included is we're starting to go back and start from the basics and say I want to
get into this and I want to do the best I can and so I'm taking even some just basic one to
gene animals and because there are a lot higher quality at least in my opinion and I'm going to
take those further and see what I can produce from there and that's why we have Kali here that's why
we have BJ who was our one hold back from one of our three clutches a couple years ago because she
was special she looked a lot different and that's why we hold her back and we want to produce more
things to see where she goes what that's for and that's kind of really what I want to get to so
you know if you're gonna breed breed because you care don't think of it as an investment because
this is kind of an expensive hobby too for a lot of reasons unless you have more than one
snake I mean if you're just getting one and just having as a pet the initial investments you know a
little pricey sometimes but after that they're pretty pretty easy pretty inexperienced in a
pretty inexpensive to keep but once you decide you want to start breeding then you're sinking quite
a bit of money just for the for the upkeep like if you want to say I want to be a professional
snake breeder your overhead is huge I've been keeping snakes for for six seven years now I
think actually were at eight years we're keeping some of these snakes and we're really only now
starting to breed more than one or two clutches a year and then next year hopefully we're gonna
start getting to Boas because we slow grow even more than we do the ball pythons and they're just
now getting up to size where I'm comfortable doing that and some of those girls were over five years
five six seven years old so that's kind of what I want to get across and we'll get more into those
videos later if anybody you know wants to know a little bit more details but you know breed what
you like get known for something pick something that at least to start with pick something that
you really like and go from there for like ball pythons I'm doing a lot of the blue-eyed leucistic
stuff for trying to get into some nice orange during product projects we're doing a lot with
like the yellow-bellied complex with like the highways and ivories and stuff like that and
that's really what we're working on and that's what hopefully we're gonna be moving for as well
and maybe a few pipe projects as well because let's be honest fine blue are those districts
those are like the the pinnacle of ball python snakes everyone likes them you can't deny that
they're great looking snakes and I want to take other genes and do stuff like that and take those
further to where I'm known for a very specific type of things so I think that's something that
a lot of people do too or hey I really like the Mojave gene I like it windows when they're little
when they're little ah slits are bright yellow I'm gonna breed for that and I think that's something
that really is something really cool if people really like the pastel gene I want to make an
animal that stays bright neon yellow kind of like what would happen with the jungle carpet
pythons or it's kind of this black and brownish animals and adults now they're highlighter yellow
and jet black as adults maybe some can take the pastel gene and do that further down the road that
I think that'd be really cool to see so that's really the only point that I want to get across
as you know just just take that take that into mind when you think okay I want to do that so
for anybody just getting out there or if you're watching this channel or really anybody else's
channel and you think I want to do that that'd be really cool make sure you do your research
and kind of think about the long term of things like these guys are gonna live you know if you're
taking care of them over 20 years and if you're producing a bunch of babies you have to think
about okay what am I gonna do these babies even for just that season until you can sell them or
them or whatever gonna do but let alone what about the longevity and the full lifetime of keeping
these guys and I think that that's something that's been lost a little bit and because you
know businesses of business unfortunately a lot of times but if ours is a little special because
they're living breathing animals and so that's kind of the big difference when people go from
hobbyists to business and I think there's a good amount of room of crossover to those two
and hopefully we can find some good crossover in that little bit sorry to stay a little ranting I'm
trying to keep these a little bit shorter this is probably gonna be a little bit of a longer
video I apologize for that but hopefully you guys could take away something from this and
move forward with your own personal ideas or projects I know she's just a regular pastel
it's not something oh cool really think about let me just like that kind of idea of where you know
she's already a little different maybe I can take something even further and I think that's
something that people can go for so just keeping that in mind I hope you guys enjoyed this we've
got something from it please like and subscribe if you can let me know down in the comments what you
thought if you have any ideas for future videos anything like that and I'll check you next time