What is your preferred ratio of make to female when it comes to your projects? Currently getting back into BP’s and picking out my future projects to start after our move to Texas.
We currently have 9 BPs, 5 females and 4 males. Males are obviously ready to breed prior to females.
So, what is your preferred ratio? Build up more males than females?
There are ton of factors to consider but would love to hear anyone’s choices they have made.
I would like to go at a 1:2 ratio at the very least. 1:1 is so energy intensive when you’re raising males who mature faster and just waiting for the females to catch up. It makes me impatient. Lol.
If it’s a hobby it isn’t too bad, but when you actually get down to looking at breeding seriously then you need to reevaluate.
I started very male heavy. My first original male and 2 male rescues. Then I finally got a female. Lol.
My goal is to always have half the number of breeder males to breeder females I own AT MOST. Right now I’m doing okay with 1.3 or 1.4 ratios.
And I’m still doing things as like, a hobby but slightly more focused on what I want to produce.
@armiyana pretty much said everything that was needed lol.
I personally think that 1.3 is the perfect ratio to aim for as sometimes your clutches will be male heavy and you will end up holding back 5 males and 1 female for the whole season. It also allows for if the opposite happens.
I’ve had spectacular failures with both extremes. Even breeding like 5 males to one girl last season she still gave me some slugs. And in the end the 4 eggs that did hatch turned out to not be from my first choice of dads but I thought I was at least going to get good eggs trying a bunch of males after she was slow to start locking early season.
There was also a couple cases where I dedicated like 5 females to a young male his first winter and even though he was big enough he didn’t breed and none of them went. Then 2nd winter got clutches from 3 out of 4 girls from each.
I got burned last winter trying to switch males mid breeding season based on late test results but the earlier males I no longer wanted always ended up fathering.
Still waiting on some test results this winter but might end up only using 3 or 4 males on around 25 girls. Probably will not go great but maybe in this market fewer better clutches is ok.
It’s tough to keep the numbers when I’m just getting started again and currently trying to purchase babies or juvenile so they are closer to size after we make or move to Texas. Currently I pretty have my pairings kinda set 1.1 for 8 or the 9. However, I have a new Black pewter Clown that def has 1 or 2 other genes that I’m waiting on test results. Its here I’m trying to decide a male for. I have a Patel black head calico yellow belly male that I am thinking of putting to my enchi Highway but pondering different females for her and we have a show next weekend so I’m going crazy lol
I prefer a fairly low ratio of males to females (1:3 at most, ideally closer to 1:4, 1:5) just to prioritize space. For me personally I do try to limit the number of snakes I have just so I can prioritize space, husbandry, care, things like that. So I’ve tried to build my collection based on the idea of a “capsule wardrobe” and have a limited number of animals with a variety of compatible morphs that can be combined in various ways to create 3-5 morph combos. In order to keep my number of males low, I keep a steady state number of females and will rotate out males by selling ones I no longer need and bringing in new ones