Baby KSB had bare spot on head

[Autumn2005]

I recently had a litter of 9 KSB normals in August. One had a bad kink in the spine, and so I culled it. The remaining 8 appeared healthy, however now that they're a couple months old, one of the babies is noticeably lagging behind the others in size. It sometimes refuses to eat, or will take an extra day before it eats. I've been feeding live pinkies at 1 week intervals. I noticed recently that it looks like it has a bald patch on the top of its head, where there is skin but no scales. I will try to get a picture but it's so small I don't know how it will turn out on my camera. I'm wondering if the snake has developmental issues. I tried to do a search online for the bald patch, but couldn't find anything.

Has anyone here heard of something like that? Either a baby snake that will not eat, or one with a bald spot on the head? How long should I coax the snake to live before deciding it is more humane to cull it? The other babies are for sale, and I will keep one baby for myself, but I will NOT allow a baby with a deformity to go into the pet market.

Thanks for your answers!

[Raven01]

Uhhh you should check out the Snakebytes videos on the scaleless ball python.
They started out with some BP's with missing head scales, raised them up and bred them proving out a recessive(or actually more of an incomplete dominant) morph.
It might bust or it might prove out but, I would definitely consider trying it.

[ball-nut]

^^^^^^ what raven said.

[bigt0006]

yeah its worth a shot

[rascal_rascal_99]

Even if it is in some way deformed, why should it not have a chance to be a pet? There are a lot of people out there who have soft spots for special needs animals or for snakes with kinks, missing eyes, etc... that will give an animal a great home. Even if it doesn't feed as regularly as the others and isn't growing as quickly, if it does feed on its own, the cost of one pinky every week or two or three is pretty insignificant until the right person comes along to send it home with. Even with the recent scaleless bp's though, I still would not be trying to inbreed this one (or breed it at all) with it not seeming to be a very strong animal.

Ask a hundred people you'll probably get a hundred different opinions and ideas here and I'm not saying what I do is more correct or anyone else is wrong for doing things differently. With me, when I do get the occasional kinked or deformed baby, you will probably never know I have it or see it on my table. I don't want people picking it because it's cheaper so I don't put it out on display, but when I feel like the right person comes along to give it a good home I usually pull it out and offer it to them for free.