Hello! I have 3 females that are working on getting up to breeder size, 2 that are sitting at 1500+grams. I’ll list my genetics, just wanting everyone’s opinion on a strong male that would pair well with them, no right or wrong answers!! I have 2 pastels, queenspin, normal het pied, and a pastel piebald!
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I like recessives for some reason so would suggest a piebald male or at least het piebald with some combination you like and can afford. Like maybe a mahogany het pied perhaps with GHI. Or maybe something that goes well with pastel too if you want to go lighter.
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Because of your two pied based animals I would get a newer gene attached to het pied. With multiple females ready to go you’re going to want to put as much into the male as you can and get desirable/newer genes to ensure there is a viable market for the offspring. Something like a Confusion/Acid/Static het pied comes to mind. Desert Ghost het pied would be another solid idea. For the non-pied animals you could use genetic testing to determine which are het pied from the het pied father.
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And nice thing about pied is sometimes it shows strong enough in the hets you can save the testing fee.
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First welcome to the community 
have fun.
Just a suggestion,
What ever morph male you choose,
what if he fasts too much during breeding and starves and cant do the required, or cant handle 3 girls.
I would just suggest a second male of similar genetics as a back up.
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I was considering that as well! I thought about picking one specifically for my pied girls and then another that would pair well with the pastels and the queenspin. I would love to make BEL’s so I thought about getting a male with one of those gene complexes as well!
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Young males are riskier for either not breeding or not having enough weight to weather a breeding season fast. On the other hand they can be the best bang for the buck genetically. I’m an insane risk taker so would go with only one of the fanciest young males I could afford.
I saw pictures of a couple really nice pied combos today. Blackhead Mojave pied and also super blackhead pied. Looks like a blackhead Mojave het pied male will set you back $500 to $1,000 and those are babies.
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I just looked, those look amazing! I’ve always loved the Mojave gene!
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We’re at a point where there is a bit of market over saturation for lower valued ball pythons. There’s not a lot of demand unless they are multi-recessive combos or newer dominant genes. This is definitely something to consider when you’re deciding how much to invest in a male and whether you should get 1 vs 2.
Putting all your eggs into the “1 male” basket is certainly risky. I’m in a similar position right now. I have one primary very powerful male that has been breeding but he went off food and has lost too much weight. My backup male has never successfully locked up yet. Outside of that I have nothing ready except young and upcoming males that are very close. I should have had additional high power males to fill in for this situation but I do not, and it could end up really hurting my season.
Having said that, in your situation I would still recommend putting all the funds into one powerful male. If he ends up not breeding then worst case scenario you wait until next season and your females would be even more built up for breeding. The alternative of getting two lower power males yielding numerous hard-to-sell animals that you may have to keep or give away would be less desirable. Plus getting something more cutting edge will set you up long term.
A lot of people end up failing because of operating costs. This also happened to me with boas long ago. A ball python costs the same to maintain whether it is a $10 snake or a $10,000 snake. I would recommend striving for producing the highest value animals you can produce. With so many options out there you’re sure to be able to find a higher value direction that aligns with your interests.
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