Breed Your "Pet" Snake?

[Spitfire]

Hey guys, I'm gonna be getting back into herping this summer and I've decided completely on corns-- I was at first thinking of getting a ball or red tail, but it's corns for sure now. I'm gonna pick up my snake(s) from the Texas Reptile Expo in July but my question was: (It's pretty lengthy.)

Background:
I am really interested in the genetics aspect of corns and I've been doing some reading (and plan on doing more) so I think I'm going to breed some corns. Very small scale, needless to say, but it will be a first for me. I remember when I got my first corn, I got really attached to her and I know that there are some risks when breeding and didn't know if I could breed her if it meant putting her in any slight danger. Of course I never got to cause my mom just decided to go crazy and said I could no longer have snakes, which meant I had to get rid of my ball and corn, but she's no longer a problem. I've worked out a deal that she won't ever interfere with my snake business anymore. I want to buy one or two hatchlings at the fair but...

Question:
1) Do I buy one so I can spend more money and buy a nicer morph and just keep it as a pet (and become attached to it), and later on buy a couple of proven breeders to test my hand at breeding?
2) Or buy two and by the time I am ready to breed them I'll have at atleast 3 years of corn keeping experience and not worry too much? I still want the "pet" aspect of the snake, but I'm afraid if I get two at the same time I might not be able to be as attached to them. It was different with my past two snakes because they were different species and I got them at different times.

Any suggestions or comments would be great! Thanks in advance!

PS I'm actually leaving the country for a month and will have limited or no access to the net so I would love to see a bunch of thoughts when I get back.

 

[Jcapicy]

just let it happen naturally at the show. You might see one and just know its the one, you might find one that's cheap and then find a 2nd, you might not find any.

Never know.

hope you trip is fun and safe, and welcome back to herping!

 

[diamondlil]

I've got plans to breed some, but not all of my females. In particular my snow who had such a shaky start won't ever be bred. Personally I'm no more or less attached to any of the snakes, they're each beautiful and with their different 'personalities' it'd be just as hard to lose any of them for any reason.
(Not much help there, really!)

 

[Blue Apple Herps]

I say if you have plans for breeding them, go ahead and get a pair that you really like. With just two snakes, it'll be easy to get attached to them and it'll be really cool watching them grow up and then breed.

Also, if you every have any questions, I'm local, and would be more than willing to help out. Have a great trip!

 

[bitsy]

My thoughts are:

Buying proven breeders later, will be expensive, because part of their value will be in their ability to generate income from hatchlings.

My suggestion is that you buy three hatchlings now - one male and two females. That's a neat and managable little breeding group if you have the room. And remember that a stack of three adult-sized tanks has the same floorspace requirement as one tank, just a bit more vertical wall space (don't show your Mom this post - she'll hate me forever!)

If you get a selection of morphs/ hets, you could end up producing a range of different colour hatchlings - you'd need to do some research on that subject.

Have no fear about getting to know them as pets. I have sixteen and I know each one's individual habits and foibles. They're all my pets. Even though I bought most of them with the intention of breeding, some have decided not to co-operate with my plans and I still wouldn't dream of selling them on.

I think it's a good idea to have a plan of what morphs/hets to look for, but do go and look round the show. You might fall in love with something else when you see it "in the flesh".

Having said that, if you have breeding plans, I'd advise against impulse-buying a morph you hadn't planned on. You might get home and find out that all you'll be producing in three years' time, are Normals with a nice set of hets.

"Look at the hets on THAT!" is all very well, but Normals fetch the lowest price of all in the Corn world, which might be a consideration for you.

Keep us posted on what you decide to do and good luck!

 

[tom e]

I would actually advise against impulse buying at the show. But that's just me. Here are my reasons.
You'll probably be seeing very young corns and they usually don't look like they will grown up. I love bloodreds and now I have the pair of my dreams. But if I didn't research and plan ahead as far as which I wanted before I bought, and then picked out my individual snake as younguns and by sight, I would have never picked bloods cause of how they look as babies.. If I were getting my first pair or trio at the show, I would have a list of morphs that I would be looking for, and probably I'd ask the experts (of which I am NOT one-lol) what to look for on a baby to pick the best examples.. That way if you have like 3 or 4 morphs in mind that you like, you're probably more likely to not go home empty handed!

Just my two cents..