The journey to Ball Python Madness

[Desi morphs]

Hi,

Hope everyone is having a great time!

I am from India and this is to highlight the difficulties into the crazy journey to Ball Pythons!

This is my first post here and I apologize if any forum rules are violated, which i have tried my best to avoid...

I have been a passionate nature lover doing lots of field work in the western ghats with local species and also help with reptile rescue locally as a hobby.
Have been keeping various pets all my life...

I have been a member for long but only as a visitor while my addiction into BPs grew!
Here the ball python hobby or actually any hobby with exotic herps is non existent, as the laws here are primitive, unclear and nobody cares to rectify anything...they prefer to keep it like that so they can get something under the table!

Getting a normal ball is a massive challenge, things like super high cost, bribing officials, getting cheated by scammers and lot more...

But after major perseverance, I have managed my way through!

But the journey has been interesting...

After ogling through images of the net and seeing how the ball hobbies has grown, I thought of getting a pair, searched for almost a year by asking all local pet shop guys and exotic fish dealers, later got a link and the only one available was a normal pair, based in opposite end of the country, took a flight then a long bus ride, reached the shady town, the cost for the pair was six fifty usd, and imagine this is like full on discreet...super shady...(like buying drugs or something)

Waiting on a lonely street at 10pm, its dark, an unknown car pulls up, seeing the person for the first time, dont know if he is about to arrest you or rob u!
Then in dim lights he pops a bag with two medium sized normals, they looked nice, counts the cash while we drive around and then drives off after dropping me back on the street..all took like 30mins. I head back to the room in the new city as I cud not wait to see them properly. Gave them water and kept the bag in a wooden closet.
Comes morning, I rush to open the bag and check out the beautiful specimens!
To my horror one is dead and stiff, this is bad.... other one is having weird head neck twisting.....and these are my first ever ball pythons, So i dint know much and had never witnessed such violent behavior by a snake, it was almost if the snake was about to break his own bones, like twisted bad and rigid!

Internet was bad, could not find any reference or solution, asked my girlfriend to look up for the possible causes, meanwhile called the dealer, he said you must have done something to them, later said dont worry we will sort this out and stuff, the other normal also died after like an hour! Done..nothing after that....its been years the dealer just kept postponing saying shipment is delayed, shipment got caught by officials, balls not available, etc etc. basically just dragging it.

I had to let it go, no Bps with me, all money gone, total loss!
After research based on the symptoms, I found they mostly had inclusion body disease, Sad!
not sure if the dealer new of the diseases or the shady transport stress caused the balls to get the IBD attack...
Few months later, I convinced a friend to bag a baby normal discreetly on his way back from Thailand! And luckily it came trough...
kept it well raised it to a nice fat female normal!

Meanwhile the addiction sets in...

I get another exotic fish importer in a far away city who agrees to get some balls back based on what was easily available.
The pics came in for approval and the available stuff was a super pastel pair and a male albino, I dint think much about morphs etc, as I wanted to get whatever I could get my hands on..... its crazy how the ball python temptation works!

Cost was as usual high all three were rounded of to nineteen hundred usd after much bargaining, anyway it was a Rip off!
The funds are wired in advance(shady deal alert), snakes land in another city and are traveling by road to me, on reaching me... super pastels have not made it through, they were dead, stiff with dark green blackish puke all over. This was very disheartening! This dealer as well said, dont worry we will adjust it on a later shipment etc, nothing after that....$$$$ gone in the wind!

Luckily the Albino, made it well, initially they all came in almost as hatchlings, now the Albino is around 650gm.

Then after a few months found a reliable guy who gets birds and stuff!
Through him I got two pastel over time, all doing great....

Later a friend's friend who also happens to keep balls as pets, had a pair and asked me to keep them for a few months as he was traveling around.

This week a beautiful lesser has joined my small yet growing collection....who is now kept in other room for quarantine, cant afford to take any chances!

My then girlfriend and now wife is equally passionate about BPs and is from the biotech background, helps me with understanding the genetic ball game, slowly I am getting a hang of morphs...

She helps with funding as well and we spend hours looking at images of crazy morphs and planning a wish list of sorts, deciding what next morph shud we look for, its real fun!

Now my collection consist of
Albino male
Mojave Pewter male
Pastel female
Pastel female(looks on the ghost lines)
Normal female
Lesser female

All Morphs are guess work here, because they change so many hands that there is no confirmation on the morph as such.

All doing great, but its was crazy reaching here....

Also breeding balls for fun is the key here, because nobody here will pay anything for a fancy morph as many are old-school types, scared of snakes, lots of myths, legal issues, no feeders available, no racks, etc ...actually nothing related to the hobby of exotics is available to buy.....and already ppl are troubled by local species everywhere, for the hobby its all DIY...!

However, I and my wife are really happy to be part of this beautiful community!

Cheers...

Have a great Day...

Some low res phone pics below...will share good pics soon...

PS: Any and All feedback on the ball images will be helpful, thanks!

[Reinz]

What an amazing journey indeed! And Welcome to the Forum!

Thanks to your desire and perseverance you now have a very nice BP collection! It is sad those snakes had to die in the process due to careless and uncaring people.
And may I add that you were quite brave in those shady deals as well!

Thank you for sharing your story and your collection.

[DVirginiana]

You have a nice looking collection!

[Shamri]

Do you think it's right to import a snake when you know that there is a good chance it will die in transport? Are you okay taking partial blame for their deaths? It seems like a high price to pay just so you can expand your collection...

[Desi morphs]

Do you think it's right to import a snake when you know that there is a good chance it will die in transport? Are you okay taking partial blame for their deaths? It seems like a high price to pay just so you can expand your collection...

Thanks everyone for your replies!

Yes Shamri, what u say is right, I totally understand the responsibility and is very very sad indeed!
But I was never expecting any snakes to be harmed or die in transit, I always hoped that things would work out for the best.

These snakes come from Thailand, that's just a small flight back, hence the chances for mortality due to long journey seemed seldom...these snake were indeed sick, purchased from middle men who got the cheapest snake available, mostly snakes with problems... These are for sale in open Thailand market were snake hygiene is not at all optimum... But I had no other source/option and try my best to get them.....

Also, if I had given up considering the initial mortality, I would have never reached here....

I have been around wild snakes all my life, and I know how hardy snakes can be....but this was totally unexpected.....hope U understand!

Cheers!

[Reinz]

Sameer, I really enjoyed your photography pages. You do such a great job of igniting the natural colors and making you feel that you are there!

Great link! Thanks for sharing.

[DVirginiana]

Do you think it's right to import a snake when you know that there is a good chance it will die in transport? Are you okay taking partial blame for their deaths? It seems like a high price to pay just so you can expand your collection...

I have problems with transporting any animal in unsafe conditions, however you realize the mortality rate for typical pet-store reptiles and amphibians is pretty bad here in the US too. There have been several big whistle-blower incidents with big exotics dealers in the past few years with the most notable probably being Global Exotics.

I don't think it's fair to criticize this person when we don't jump down the throats of people who come here with pythons they bought from pet stores known for sub-par husbandry and high 'merchandise' mortality.

[PinkPixie]

Being three times removed is just as bad as being twice removed from the problem. The op couldn't add one more stage of removal by going to the pet store. there are plenty of us that contribute to the problem unintentionally, by doing just that. I chose to look at it as those snakes were saved by an avid ball python lover. The snakes they managed to get live were what we would call a rescue if someone here bought up the snakes in deplorable conditions to "save".

I feel horrible for the trouble and heartache you must have dealt with, lycodon, and I hope you treasure your collection for what they're worth as amazing and intriguing animals. Your babies are beauties and I look forward to reading and seeing more pictures in your posts.

Sent from my SM-G386W using Tapatalk

[Mysnakeislong]

WOW I didn't know it was so hard to get a ball python in India! That is crazy!

[Lynchman18]

I really enjoyed reading your story and how you got into the hobby. I'm sorry for the losses in life and money along the way.. if your like me money can be tight and when your trying to save for a hobby and something goes bad its really frustrating and depressing. It sucks that you have to go thru so many hoops and basically get robbed. Sorry those poor snakes didn't reach you in better condition i'm sure you would of got them back up to par. Again thanks for sharing and keep us posted on your current collection and any future adventures.