"Good" Snakes

It seems that anytime anyone mentions finding a "cheap" <insert morph here>, people comment that just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's good. What does "good" mean? The comments never suggest to the person what they should look for to find a "good" snake, rather than focusing on price, so the comments don't really do much to help the person make a good decision. What makes one snake better than another? Personally, I've seen people say "awesome looking snake" in a comment to a picture, and I find the snake to be ugly. "Unusual" or "novel" doesn't automatically mean "great looking" to me.

To refine my comment, I'm considering a pastel or an albino (or maybe a fire or some few others, depending on how much money I have available when purchase time arrives). I'm 100% willing to pay for quality, but how do I know what "quality" is? For the most part, one albino looks much the same as another to me (I can tell the high contrast from the regs, and lavender obviously is different). Pastels I can tell a bit more, if they're more yellow than yellow-brown (assuming that's a marker of quality and not just my preference).

So...how does a novice know what characteristics determine quality?

It all really boils down to buying the snake that "you" like, especially if your talking about a pet.

If your going to be breeding that morph "Good" would really be dependent on if you are breeding to sell or to make a snake that you want.

You could start here: Hunters Guide To The Morphs to get an idea of defining characteristics of some of the morphs out there.

Its all personal preference. THe nicer examples of the morphs call for higher price. But if you see an animal and you like it then by all means go ahead and get it. My first pastel male was ugly in some of my friends eyes because he was slightly browned out as a baby and really wasnt all that great looking. But now when they see my pastel YB they are amazed at how good he looks because he is such a bright yellow.

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Originally Posted by 2Devious

It all really boils down to buying the snake that "you" like, especially if your talking about a pet.

If your going to be breeding that morph "Good" would really be dependent on if you are breeding to sell or to make a snake that you want.

You could start here: Hunters Guide To The Morphs to get an idea of defining characteristics of some of the morphs out there.

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Thanks! This is exactly what I was asking. It is for a pet, I have no intention to breed, so of course personal preference is the biggest factor for me. I have to say, blue eyed lucys are my fav, but the price tag is beyond my reach.

It boils down to like others said, if you are doing it to breed or just to keep as a pet. Some lines may give you better patterns, but if you're not intending to breed then you can spend a bit less and get something else. Then you can look at the person you're getting it from. If the person you are getting it from is shady, and keeps them in some pretty bad conditions, you could risk bringing things into your collection.

I would pay a bit less for a morph that's not as higher color/pattern quality, but I would pay more then I would even as just getting a pet.

its all about personal preference, let me give you a few well known examples :)

The spider morph -- will you even purchase one? they're known to be associated with wobbling and spinning and even corkscrewing in some cases therefor, it doesn't matter how "nice" a spider looks, they're still "worthless" to you.

More with spiders -- some like high white, some like no white, some like super busy pattern, some like super reduced, it all depends on what your preference is and if you see the animal that meets your standards you'll likely end up paying more than average for it.

Clowns, pieds, cinnamons or black pastels and all morphs are the same way. I have an exact idea of what all the morphs i want to acquire are going to look like. Might i settle for something different? Sure, but thats what makes its personal preference :)

For me - quality is two things. Most importantly, the overall health and general appearance of the animal. If it's not healthy looking, alert, interestedly flicking its tongue, the rest is irrelevant at that point, because I'm not buying. I also look the animal over for mites, etc (especially at shows).

After that, I'm looking for MY ideal pattern and color.

Pastels are probably the easiest to define quality. You have the pastels that have resulted from the "get rich quick" years when people were just throwing their pastels at any normal female so that they could produce more to sell, without any regard to whether the female was going to compliment the pastel gene, or just "dirty" it up. When shopping for pastels, I look for the most blushed out head I can possibly find, as well as - as little orange as possible (orange turns brown). I want my pastels to scream.

With albino's, it's the opposite - if you want intense yellow, look for the most orange baby albino you can find - that orange will turn to amazing yellow as it grows into adulthood. For me, I only like the completely reduced pattern albinos, so for ME, that would be my top quality albino (reduced pattern, screaming yellow).

With all other aspects being equal...
Sometimes a "good" animal is one that has been taken care of better than others. So, if you're comparing two snakes that are the same morph, I would ask the breeders some husbandry questions and then go with who I thought had the best knowledge, even if that price were higher or lower than the other snake.

For me, a 'good' snake is docile and friendly to handling, curious, a good eater, and healthy. I spent a bit more money and got a six week old established hatchling who loves to wind himself over my shoulder and into my hair, eats like a horse, and is just full of life and his own little personality quirks. I absolutely adore him and I'm glad I spent the extra money on him.