When it comes to breeding, I’m sure it matters but can someone explain to me how it matters or why it matters? When you breed, say I’m breeding a DG Leopard het clown and a DG Het clown. Does it matter which one of the morphs is female and male. I would think the one with more genes you would want female, because the female seems to be really important from videos and stuff I’ve watched. But also I would think it wouldn’t matter and the odds of the hatchlings would be the same no matter if the mom has Dg leopard het clown or just dg het clown.
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So… For this pairing it really doesn’t matter which sex is carrying which genes. The only time it may actually matter is when breeding coral glow / banana gene animals. That gene does have sex determined factors to how it passes.
As far as for long-term breeding, it is technically better to have a powerhouse male to breed than a powerhouse female. A female can have one clutch a year IF she goes. Some skip a year or two between clutches…or can slug out. But that male can still be bred to multiple females each year. So he can sire more than 1 clutch a year. Having good genes on that animal is much more important.
Having a powerhouse female is still GREAT. I have a CG enchi super Mojave Orange Ghost pos fire that I’m raising up as a hold back. She’ll be great for my Super vanilla DG het OG next year. But that male is also still good as a stand alone because he will be breeding 2 other girls as well.
Overall having a good project to work for and a plan for it is the goal. That way you aren’t raising animals that may not be producing what you would want to see or taking longer to produce it.
For example, I have 4 major projects right now:
Orange Ghost BEL group
Cinnamon Pied group
Striker VPI group
Dinker group
I have a couple of animals that can float between groups. But knowing the way combos work and which genes are problematic is important. My ideal goal is to never produce a normal from a clutch. I want at least one visual gene and ideally 50% or better het from every hatchling. So pairing the right snakes is important for that.
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Do you know why then females tend to be more expensive, even for animals carrying the same genes? I’ve been wondering this myself!
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In my very limited experience, I believe it can be because you can use one male to breed several females. That’s what I’ve learned with breeding goats, a single buck can breed several does, reducing the need for them.
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So they are more valuable for being able to breed several females but at the same time less necessary since you may only need one? Confusing, but I get what you mean!
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It’s a weird way of working things. In the dog world you can get stud fees or ask for pick of the litter sort of thing. But having your own female means you won’t have to split the costs that way. But females can definitely still cost a lot.
For the pricing on female BPs…they will also take up more time and resources, so the older a female is, the more work was put in to raise her. They can take 3-4 years sometimes to produce their first clutch, but some males are ready to go their first year. For proven breeders this is especially true. Especially if a female is proven with a large clutch size of 10 eggs.
I honestly don’t understand why some breeders will charge a huge difference in prices on hatchlings based on sex… My only personal exemption for this would be in the case of a new morph or maybe in CG/Banana morphs. Otherwise for established genes it seems silly. But it definitely is a consideration when they are yearlings and older.
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This is a really concise answer, thank you!
I was thinking about it similarly with horses, where the owner of the sire gets a stud fee while the owner of the mare gets…well, the baby.
For snakes, owning both and getting clutches instead made things more confusing for me, bc its easy to see both ways how males are more powerful but less valuable (in some ways?)
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Okay I understand, I wonder the same thing as cmill why females tend to be way more expensive sometimes almost double in price as a male🤦🏽♂️
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I’m coming from corn snake world (at least as far as reptiles go, lol) and it is usual to see young females offered at about 25% higher price than males of the same age with identical genes. Once an animal is proven, prices shift. At that point they’re influenced by anything from the size and health of clutches to the disposition of offspring to any extra genes which may have been proven to how quickly and easily a female recovers from laying, and other things.
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