Hi! Two years ago I bought a female hypo pastel butter ball python to keep as a pet. Recently i’ve been interested to start a small scale breeding project more for fun than crazy profit. She is 2yrs and 800g (maybe breedable 2024 or 2025). Should I go ahead and get a juvenile male to pair her with in the future? Or should I get another juvenile female to start raising up and later get an older male when they’re both about ready? Not sure I can afford the upfront cost of both snakes with good genes right now. Any tips and opinions welcome.
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So here is something to consider before you invest your money in a breeding project down the road, and that is do you have buyers/ adopters lined up for the animals you may produce? There are thousands of bps for sale on MM alone as we speak so are you prepared to care for the animals you produce if you don’t find homes for them? A “fun” project may turn out to be an expensive long term commitment.
If you weigh all your options and then decide to go ahead with your project then I wish you all the best for success! 
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I don’t have any buyers lined up, that’s a good point. I would be fine keeping babies. I definitely do want more snakes for pets at the very least. I think ideally I would like to make a enough money selling babies in the future that it can pay for the food I feed the snakes I keep. So they support themselves, you know.
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Well to be honest, unless you can produce animals that are lucrative/high end or animals in high demand that no one else has and everybody else wants, you are probably not going to make a profit to offset your expenses/food etc given the shape of the economy now and it’s forecasted future, Given a choice, people will put food on their table before they will buy an animal/another animal. In my opinion I think you should consider just buying another animal or two for pets instead of producing 8 or more unwanted animals.
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I think you are correct about 1-2 more years for her to be ready. So I would look around for a male(baby or older) with whatever genes/morphs you are interested in breeding to your female. I would try to get a very high quality male, spend what you can afford of course. The best quality male for your female future paring would be the way to spend your money in my opinion. Good luck, breeding is fun and addictive😄 just saying!!
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I mean…
This sums it up pretty well:
But, in all seriousness, it’s very difficult to make a profit breeding snakes, if you are very smart about it it’s possible, but for a new seller in this economy, it’s extremely unlikely. If you want to breed, go in with the expectation of losing money, so you’re prepared and so you are doing it primarily because you enjoy it.
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struggled to find good genes for my female tbh. thinking of buying a mojave pied so i can make blue eyed lessers and double het pied hypo on every baby
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Lesser/butter x Mojave do make some very nice blue eyed Lucys, and you are correct they would also be double hets. It would be very hard to say which would be pastels in the blue eye Lucy’s though. That would be a good pairing for someone looking at future projects for sure! Good luck!
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