Why Morphs?

[danthesnakeman]

Hey, I'm curious what peoples intentions are when buying morphs, especially the expensive ones. I imagine most of the real expensive ones are bought for breeding, but do any of you just see a cool morph and think you'd like to keep it for it's own sake? Or do any of you keep them for any other reasons? This isn't to criticize reasons behind your choices, but like I said, I was curious.

[kat_black181]

Hey, I'm curious what peoples intentions are when buying morphs, especially the expensive ones. I imagine most of the real expensive ones are bought for breeding, but do any of you just see a cool morph and think you'd like to keep it for it's own sake? Or do any of you keep them for any other reasons? This isn't to criticize reasons behind your choices, but like I said, I was curious.

I plan on breeding, but bottom line for me is just the simple fact that they are beautiful animals.

[Trackstrong83]

I plan on breeding, but bottom line for me is just the simple fact that they are beautiful animals.

Yep. I have a few morphs, but first I just got a normal because I love snakes, and she was strictly a pet. Then I got my dumerils boa because they get bigger, have different personalities, and are just a change from ball pythons. But when I started I wanted to breed, I got my morphs. But some morphs people get just as pets because they like the way the look. My friend has a piebald as just a pet because he thought it looks awesome. So morphs, outside of breeding, are a way for people to get a generally calm well handling snake, that looks really really cool. That's th great thing about ball pythons, cause some really cool looking snakes aren't good with handling

[Daybreaker]

All my morphs (and all the species I keep) are pets first, breeders second. I'm enjoying them on a pet basis right now and breeding really isn't on my radar for a long while down the road so I consider all of them (inexpensive to expensive) "cool to own for it's own sake" (though I don't own them for any "cool" factor: I own them because I'm passionate about them and their care). Honestly, most of my snakes are pets only with no breeding plans.

[SteveySingle]

Although I breed, I just like the way they look. And I think its awesome that two different looking balls can produce one that resembles neither parent, and two snakes that look the same can produce something absolutely nothing like the parents as well...it's just overall fun with cool looking animals.

[Pythonfriend]

its the optics, they are just really nice and fancy and there are so many different morphs to choose from.

but what also plays into it is that these morphs are guaranteed to be captive bred.

i mean you see it in all pets that are above a certain critical mass. it just happens when enough people keep and breed something, and its most extreme with the most frequently kept pets.

just for the beauty, check some high-end discus morphs: http://www.diskuszucht-stendker.de/g...s,index,0.html just ridiculously beutiful. with iridescence and opalescence and a high amount of traits and morphs, quite comparable to BPs 10 morphs are just more interesting than 10 normals.

so, really, it just looks better and keeps things interesting

[satomi325]

I like morphs because they are gorgeous animals and the genetics are amazing!
I wouldn't buy them if I didn't like them.
They are my pets. Some of them are/will be breeders, but some of them are strict pets.
I have no interest in breeding the pet only ones simply because I have no desire to work with those genes. They are just my beautiful pets. My first ball python was a morph. My fifth ball python was my first normal. They're all great.

For example, I have an albino. I don't want to breed albinos, but he is one of my favorite snakes and is gorgeous.
I don't want to work with pied genes either, but I'd love to have an albino pied as a pretty pet.

[anatess]

It's all optics for me too. I have 6 of them all different. Well, the yellowbelly and the normal is only different to the experienced eye but I won the yellowbelly on Murdoc's annual contest! W00t!

I want other colors so that's the only reason I bred my pastel to my spider so I can get a normal and a bumblebee which is drastically different from any of the others and I got them for free.

Now I want an ivory so I'm going to attempt a multi-generation breeding project for the very first time to hopefully, land me an ivory... something drastically different from what I already have. Yes, I'm thinking about what I can do with the babies that are not ivories that's why I haven't started the project yet. I can't keep all of them as pets! I only have room for 2 more snakes in my display case.

Yeah, my parakeets are also different colors and my gouramis too.

And so it sounds like I'm "collecting colors" not caring about pets. Not so. These guys are my kids' companion animals. They are the Kings in their battleground table. But their most important job is to educate the other kids about how snakes are cool and you don't have to chop off the head of the snake you see crossing your yard.

So yeah. That's where I'm at.

[AlleleAllureReptiles]

I think you're going to be hard pressed to find anyone who is just in it for the breeding, on this forum anyway. I have morphs for future breeding, but we also keep them because they are beautiful. Also when your educating people about snakes and they see something completely out of the norm, I like to think, it changes how they think of them. I love animals, and reptiles have always been cool to me and after I started to see all the colors and combos, it sealed the deal. They're all different, for the most part, in each morph but even more in their personalities. Another thing that attracted me to them is the genetics, it amazes me every time I see combos and how much they can change each other, and what you can all get just from breeding two genes. I was a bio major when I was in college and genetics has always been very interesting and the genetics of ball pythons borders infinite. I hope this makes sense, I started typing and got caught up in how much they really mean to me, lol.

~CRR

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I think every customer buys a specific animal for various reasons, with so many morphs out there there is something for everyone and while some chose to breed there are also customers that will spend $1000, $1500 for a snake just because they like it and want a NICE looking pet.