Hey everyone, I’m looking for breeding project recommendations. I used to breed back 7-8 years ago but got out of the hobby completely, I’m wanting to get back into breeding now that I have the stability to do so. I just don’t know what to get, there’s so much new stuff out there and the market seems to be oversaturated so I don’'t want to be producing a lot of common morphs.
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Honestly, just spend a few hours poking through MM to find combos that appeal to you. Working on a project that appeals to you is much better than just picking up whatever is the hot new trend or something that you aren’t excited about. (Although any little snoots poking out of eggs is adorable and exciting)
You would most likely be producing common morphs regardless because many of the combos today are using them…unless you’re sticking to projects with the newer morphs. Traits like grim, gorilla, dark sun, zebra and such.
Special was not really getting much popularity outside of it’s BEL combos (Crystal, lesser crystal and the like…) but now it’s picking up popularity again because of the high end breeders using it in their projects. This is also something you’ll see with Blk pastel, orange dream and calico. So that’s why I say you may be producing common morphs.
The market is extremely oversaturated, so regardless you’ll need to be prepared to possibly look at keeping hatchlings and such for a longer time. Even if you are producing similar animals to the popular high end breeders, you might not sell at their prices and need to undercut by alot to move any.
The explosion of breeders during Covid really helped create the mess that is the BP market now… And there are a good amount of keepers selling collections as well.
As long as you’re aware of the downsides though, I hope you find a project to work towards.
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Would need to know what kind of budget you’re working with to give best advice. In my opinion paint is a great recessive to work with, it’s existed for a long time and looks really cool, but still has a pretty limited number of combos. Gives you the possibility to take it into a unique direction. That’s the way I’d be going if I was starting fresh.
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Thanks for the well thought out response. I’m aware I’m gonna have “common” babies no matter what I just mean I don’t want to be breeding producing 1 or 2 gene (Co)-Dominant’s, I’d rather them be the result of breeding some recessive with multiple genes if that makes sense. In regards to what I like thats where things get hard because I just love BP’s—all snakes for that matter—and to be clear I’m definitely not pursuing this for the money—not that is inherently bad.
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If I’m being honest I wouldn’t mind spending a couple grand or so even if its just a duo or trio, I’d just like to keep the collection smaller—relative to the average hobbyist/small-breeder—and have more higher end BP’s.
Some morphs that have really caught my eye are; banana leopard clown, Banana Fire Leopard Red Stripe Clown, hypo leopard clown, Super Black Head Yellow Belly Pin, ultramels, puzzles, stuff like that.
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Paint /sentinel are really slept on. To be fair, some combos can be very lackluster. Pastel for example is just boring…but when you mix the right genes they’re beautiful. OD, hurricane and enchi are genes that really make it pop.
Do be careful cause super BH can get a nasty wobble. It’s part of the spider complex. Even though it can help mask the spider wobble, that doesn’t help itself much.
Checking in on the BP morph issues or the allelic BP combo posts here may be handy for you.
Another thing to consider is how long you actually want to be breeding for. I think bananas are great for creating a few clutches, they make beautiful animals, but not the best for long term projects, because as you start adding more it kind of takes the spotlight away from other genes or washes everything out. You have to sometimes be particular with the genes you put in banana combos.
Of the genes you mentioned puzzle is my favorite since there are so many directions you can still go with it. The main drawback is that it mixes poorly with clown which still dominates the market so heavily.
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