This is so true I think that it needed to be in this thread again!
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As someone who has and still is going that route, I can honestly say it is expensive. Been breeding for 5 years starting with single/double genes for the most part and have not made a profit to date. All income from selling hatchlings goes right back into rodent, substrate, enclosure, cleaning supplies, shipping supplies, water and energy costs.
There’s also the challenge of changing tastes. The genes or aspects of genes you enjoy tend to shift over time (heck knows that’s been the case with me lol). Not to mention a copy of a gene that looks phenomenal alone might not interact with others in the manner you’d hoped. Though true for any reptile breeder, sinking a ton of time/effort/funds into a project and still winding up disappointed can feel especially rough when you ‘started from scratch’ so to speak. The sentiments others have expressed about difficulty finding good homes for the little ones definitely rings true as well. Now this isn’t meant to deter you, rather to warn about some of the aspects I’ve struggled with and help you make an informed decision. There are absolutely many benefits to this method! Not to mention tips/tricks, as others have laid out. I’ll echo one and say recessives are your ally. Also if you find a multi-gene animal that fits your projects perfectly it can be worth it to make an exception. Ask the breeder to see the parents/clutchmates/close relatives in case any single gene examples are around to help you decide.
The difference a hand selected copy of a gene can make is phenomenal. If you have the passion, patience, expendable income, and genuine love for the hobby, it can be a really rewarding endeavor 
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I just wanted to reiterate how grateful I am for all the good advice here. You all have given me SO much great stuff to think about and consider. I really, REALLY appreciate each of you taking the time to add your words of wisdom to the thread!
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I’ve been producing BPs since 2015. Each year I hatch between 80-120 ball pythons. I have an established reputation in the reptile community, a fairly large IG account, and I do reptile shows as well as selling on MM.
This is not an advertisement and these animals are not available for public sale, I just want to share a little bit of reality. I have the following single gene animals still in my racks after doing several shows, and offering them to several wholesalers. 1.0 Lesser, 1.0 Pastel, 1.0 Mystic, 1.0 Pastel Enchi, 0.1 Genetic Black Back, 1.1 HGW, 0.1 Normal. These animals are all 6-10 months old.
The reason I’m still sitting on them is due to market saturation at that level. They’ve all eaten a sizable chunk of their value, some have already out consumed their market value. This is a normal part of a breeding cycle. People have a very damaged expectation that there is a quick buyer out there for every animal. Even when it comes to higher end combos, you’ll often have to sit on them for 3-6-9 months. It’s really not unusual for animals to hang around for a full year before they sell. Some years are better than others, but it happens. All of these animals were in my display at the Super Show and 10,000 people chose not purchase them. The wholesalers there, who I know, wouldn’t even buy them because they had already bought so many single gene BPs that weekend. I couldn’t even move them for $10/each this year. Animals that are less than $150 never sell online either because of shipping costs, so that wouldn’t be an effective avenue to move single gene animals, they really only sell in non shipped transactions.
While I applaud the energy, and you really are halfway on the right track, I would suggest not buying single gene females. Even with the idea to gene smash a ‘powerhouse’ male over them. I’ve done it for many years and you end up with a lot if ‘byproduct’ 1 and 2 gene animals. These 3 males generated all of the single babies I’m still sitting on to give you an idea of what you get gene smashing; Enchi Soul Sucker, Banana Silverstreak Spinner male and a Leopard Lesser Pewterblast male, are responsible for all those single gene snakes I’m still sitting on from early last year 
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That makes a lot of sense, and I can see that this could become a very expensive endeavor if I’m sitting on unsellable babies for a year or more. What would you recommend doing instead? I really want nice lines of each morph in my projects - is there a better way to go about this that won’t produce so many one or two morph babies?
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Start with 2-3+ gene animals that look to be excellent examples of the combo, ask for pictures of the parents, and religiously stalk breeder’s instagram/Facebook/MorphMarket to get a good idea of how their lines of various morphs look in different combos. For example, if you want an excellent example of pastel in your lines, look for breeders who have aged pastels in their collection that still look yellow and vibrant without browning out, and then lets say they have a pastel leopard mojave something or other for sale that you might be interested in - look at other snakes in their collection with leopard and mojave to see if you also like them, etc and so forth
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All the successful guys I have spoken to, while gearing up to start breeding (other things tho) talk about recessive, recessives, recessives. Justin Kobylka said the same too. In boas, single gene recessives still sell because people like to plug the visuals into projects, plus they vary in price and can even just go to homes as pets etc. The amount of co-doms/inc-doms in BPs is insane, single genes seems to be a byproduct. There’s some of that in boas too, but they still sell because the breeding cycle is different and a hypo baby Boa is a decent price for someone who just wants a pet etc. Where a Lesser BP is like 1/10 the price of the enclosure and supplies you need to house it lol.
Just wanted to chime in as an aspiring breeder too, this is a fantastic thread so thanks from the sidelines lol
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Sounds like you have experience with boas, I love them too lol.
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Haha well I have one and am obsessed, and want to breed locality/locality morph stuff at some point. But I may do something a bit easier/with less time investment too considering after collecting raise ups, it’ll be 3-5 years before my first litter of boas anyway lol. But my boa is my favorite of my current 3 species or other species I’ve ever kept, personality is hard to beat.
Discussing breeding boas is a whole other ball of wax considering the time frames involved, but this thread is still great info and insight from BPs to Leopard Gecko’s to Colubrids or anything else!
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Don (ballornothing) answered this in a fairly recent thread here:
I completely agree with his assessment there.
It’s fairly straightforward economics. Higher value per animal has more of an effect offsetting per animal cost. The more you invest into logical pairings the higher your chance of success (either offsetting costs and/or making a profit). Lower initial investment can work but will take more time to reach fruition.
I bred boas exclusively in the 2000’s and was part of those initial waves in the market. There are some similarities to the ball python market but it is much more difficult. I still have many high level contacts and the insight I get is that it is much more difficult to find buyers at all price points for various reasons. On top of that the cost per animal (bigger feeders and space requirements) is much higher so optimal investment is that much more important comparatively. I still love boas regardless and plan to get back into them when I expand and have the space.
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I think most of the “high quality” examples are not tied to the gene itself, but come from multi-gene expressions from the many many other non-morph genes. So you can still for the most part select for these things in multi gene animals, and can breed to strengthen/lessen these traits by consistently selectively breeding examples of combos that you think look “best.” So you don’t need to get a “best” Leopard gene for example, but just the animals that look best to what you’re aiming for that also carry the Leopard gene if you follow what I’m saying.
Personally I wouldn’t recommend starting from only single gene animals specifically for breeding unless you are working with really untapped morphs, which may actually be even more expensive than starting with combos of more common morphs. Going this route can be extra exciting though since you’ll quickly find yourself trying out combos that have never been tried before. Examples of what I’d consider untapped are if you search the gene on MorphMarket and less than 50 or so of any combos with the gene come up for sale.
IMO, Single gene animals are best as mainly being a pet, or used very selectively for a specific need in a larger breeding program plan.
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You could begin by seeking out people who specialize in certain genes. For example @ozzyboidsllc has selected for high quality Orange Dream examples for many years. Just like @morganhillmorphs has been selecting for the highest quality Enchi’s in his projects, @jdconstriction does it with his TSK Axanthic stuff, @morph_jungle does it with GHI & Super GHI stuff, etc.
Identify the morphs you like and then start looking for breeders who work with them heavily. Once you decide what genes you really want to work with maybe we can guide you to people who have refined them already and can set up with those genes, in more economically productive 2 or 3 gene combos.
People get upset about involving economics in the life of an animal but with the way the hobby is cranking out snakes, at least snakes with a solid monetary value will have a better shot at being well cared for long term.
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Something else I think it’s worth adding is, most of us are and have been selecting consistently for what we most want to see. What we consider the highest quality. My idea of color/contrast quality is going to be different than the next person’s. Not only that, with experience, you’ll see a lot more than you see now. To a degree that also means that someone who’s been staring at ball pythons in the flesh for 10+ years probably has a bit more experience determining what a ‘quality’ specimen is, than someone who’s just starting out with them.
If you stick to buying from breeders who’ve been working with their animals for a generation or more and you’ll be a lot more likely to end up with high quality examples than buying from someone who purchased all of their breeding stock from other breeders.
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Interesting stuff! From what I see, with Morph Boas being as big as they are, locality boas/locality morphs and sub species/CBB BCCs are becoming more.popular. breeding for size etc - litters of Tarahumara Mountain Boas sell out instantly (when pure) same with smaller BCCs and Crawl/Caulker Cay, even some specific CA Boas that have locality specific morphs (like Pure Nicaraguan Sunglow as opposed to CA Sunglow or something) though the latter is less true, people like playing in lower risk/investment markets, especially if there’s some upward momentum and visually pleasing animals (Adult Nic T+ Sunglows are beautiful, same with pure Sonoran Hypo Leopards or pure Costa Rican T+ or tons of other locality stuff)
Hence also the “Hypo Hogs” all over MM not selling like the pure Rio Bravo Hog Island boas.
Thanks for the insight! BOAS def take more time and everything else, but the color and pattern variation is much broader, along with the size. Dwarf Boas are getting more and more popular, especially now that people realize not to feed babies weekly large meals with their slower metabolism. Seems from what I hear why we had so many huge monster boas that now can stay much more manageable and muscular.
I’m rambling, told you I am obsessed! Haha
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I’m really interested in working towards Freeways and Freeway combos to begin with. I especially like Leopard Freeways and Pastel Freeways, so I’d like to try to produce some of those eventually for sure.
We purchased my girl, a Banana Mystic Yellow Belly, and my husband’s male Pastel Enchi Asphalt, from Zach Melton Reptiles. He works a lot with Freeway stuff, and seems very knowledgeable, though I don’t remember how long he said he’s been breeding. Hopefully we got some great snakes from him to start our Freeway stuff with (I sure think they look like great animals!). What other breeders focus on Freeways? I haven’t seen a whole lot of Freeways for sale. Just a few here and there.
If I’m not going to start with single genes, I think I would really love to find a nice Leopard Yellow Belly or Leopard Ivory female to put with our male. Any suggestions? Ivory would be spectacular, but the white snake combos make it extra hard to really see what kind of genetics you’re working with. If I could find someone with Ivories willing to share pics of the snakes’ relatives and such, that would be ideal I think.
Also thinking about getting two Leopard Yellow Belly somethings, and crossing them to try and get a Super Leopard Ivory something. That would be SO fantastic for making Leopard Freeways in the future!!
I do still really like the idea of working with single gene animals to produce my own from-scratch combos, but I think in order to do it well I’m going to need a lot more racks (and rats!) and I’m going to need to plan on a lot of holdbacks. So for right now, while we’re still sort of testing the waters, I think I’m going to go with just the best 3-4 gene combos I can find, and maybe I’ll revisit the single gene project in the future, once we’ve expanded a bit.
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@slimeballexoticz Im not too much off from the OP as far as staring off with single genes. I have a FB page I started a while back for this reason. On here like you said more people want more genes where on FB I can find people more interested in pet only types.
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Personally… this is just my opinion. But what we did is decide what we want to make (Batman’s, clowns, blackheads, etc…) kinda like end results and those are the snakes we purchased. We tend to lean towards darker colors, however we do love brights as well.
Most of the time a lot of people will like the same things you like. One of the best pieces of advice we were given was don’t skimp out on your snakes. If you have a type of snake you want to make buy that snake, it will get you where you want to be much faster. Again all this Is my opinion based on our experience.
One thing you have to keep in mind is females take typically 2 years to reach the weight and maturity to breed, and even then some might take longer.
If your not wanting to make any normals, I recommend getting some supers. I might even recommend getting a breed ready female as one of your first snakes and a male that’s a year old 600g+(males can breed less than this, but I wouldn’t recommend it)
Another thing is to make sure you have a good food source whether it be asfs or rats (rats preferably. We have both) our food bill for snakes we’re getting expensive, like 60 a week. And make sure to feed your rats or asfs good food. We feed mazuri pellets and give mealworms as well.
We went from 4 snakes to 11 in like 4 months. I’m sure anyone here will vouch that it escalates quickly lol.
So to sum it all up
- Pick what you want your end result to be
- How many snakes do you want keeping in mind it will probably escalate from what you have original number set at
- Secure a rat breeding colony and build/ buy rat rack.
- Secure a snake rack or some Rubbermaid bins while your racks come
- Get your snakes
- Have a blast doing it.
Again all this is my opinion based on our experience.
We kind of went backwards because we got snakes for our kids, and it became something we as a family all enjoy doing. We didn’t have rats or asfs at first or Snake racks. Picked up our first on Craigslist for 300 bucks (animal plastics 5 tub rack, and a 10 bin hatchling rack.) and we have 2 Cserpent racks on the way.
Here is our rat/asf racks. We need another one already to better wean asfs and rats
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I wish I did, my official first was pastel to what we thought was Cinnamon. Nope he was gargoyle and I sold him for 50.00 thinking he was Cinnamon. I have his daughter now I bought from the person I sold the pair to. At first we thought she was just a weird pastel. My second clutch was a 4 gene combo. and throwing yellowbelly into it made it a nightmare to ID them all.
Im personally going the single or double gene route with my females but all het for a recessive(clown in my case). That way i can pick out the quality of my incomplete dom genes and still work with recessives. Then get some quality visual males. Im going this way cause even if you get a normal at least its het for whatever recessive you’re working with.
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