So after years of having & caring for BPs, my first breeding season is finally coming up! Im so excited & terrified lol!
I have never had passion for anything like i do with BPs. I am absolutely enthralled with them. But im so used to screwing things up in my life that im so anxious that I will inevitably do something wrong, so i hours reading and researching. Everything van get a bit overwhelming, so id love some experienced hobbyists or breeders to leave some tips or advice for me. I think it will help me understand things much better if i am more or less learning from people that I can interact & ask for clarification with rather than trying to retain information dumps lol
Any advice is welcome please!
Oh, especially with understanding genetics & how to more easily learn to recognize morph identifications lol
Two big things for me when I had my first clutch last year:
Have a plan for your breeding project. It’s exciting! But remember that there can be things that go wrong…or finding homes for the little ones can be tough. Normals can be difficult to home at times, so I try to avoid the chance of it.
Have your incubator up and running ahead of time so you know what the temps even out as and such. Don’t wait until the last few days because the temps may flux way too much before you get them keyed in properly.
My suggestions may seem a bit on the lesser side, but I assure you they’re some of the primary mistakes that I see people make that are also the most easily avoidable.
The first is to breed what you love. Look through the genetic combos, see what genes are out there and have a plan for what you want to work toward. When you produce clutches, it’s your responsibility as a breeder to care for them and find them good homes, however long that takes. It’s easy to get lost, feel overwhelmed, etc. if you aren’t passionate about what you’re doing. So find combinations you love, and go for those. So many people buy into this hobby and get out within a couple of years because they just don’t have direction or expect a quick buck.
In the same vein with genetics, my biggest recommendation is learning gene identification. When I first decided I wanted to breed, I spent months searching MorphMarket and WOBP and looking at new animals until I was incredibly comfortable IDing the majority of genes, even ones I didn’t plan to work with. Being able to ID your animals is imperative for breeding (to avoid lethal or problem combos, and to know what to expect out of a clutch), for selling (you lose a huge amount of credibility if animals are frequently mislabeled), and in my opinion it’s an overlooked part of the responsibility of being a breeder. If you want to breed a particular gene but you’re not confident you can ID it, don’t breed it until you’re confident you can. This will also help you getting scammed - I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched for a gene I’m wanting to add and decided against getting a particular animal because I could tell, despite the label, that the gene I wanted wasn’t present or was a less than stellar expression.
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