Head shapes

So I've seen some photos on various sites with ball pythons with short heads, fat stubby heads, or skinny and concave looking heads. This may be my background in horses but to me it irks me to see people using these animals for breeding. Anytime I've seen a snake with the genes I like but an odd head shape I move onto the next one. If by just glancing at the photo the head just makes the snake look off I don't think it should be bred. Does head shape just not matter bp people (not trying to blanket people)? Or is this a case of someone choosing the morphs over the "conformation" of the snake? With horses conformation also determines function and longevity. But since these are snakes we don't have to worry about that. To me it's about the looks and keeping with the normal "conformation" of a ball python. Do you think it's ok to breed snakes with abnormal head shapes?

What exactly do you mean by abnormal? All bps look slightly different. Comparing horse confirmation to the way snakes look is not comparing apples to oranges here. With snakes, there is no "confirmation". There will be a little variance between individuals.

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Conformation is the shape/structure of an animal. Every animal/person has conformation. By abnormal I mean like what I described, short and wide head, or narrow, sometimes have a concave shape to them where there's a more pronounced dip from eye to tip of nose. I know each snake is different but I'm talking about the ones where it's not just a slight difference but that is very noticeably different. I won't post photos as examples because I didn't save photos of them, and also I feel that wouldn't be very nice to their owners. I was just wondering about whether people take into consideration the shape of the head (because the rest of the snake is cylindrical so there's not much variance there) when choosing/keeping breeders. It's something I notice/care about so was just wondering if others feel the same.

I know what your talking about. I see ball pythons with skinny, long heads and others with short, wide heads. I like my snakes head to be somewhere in the middle but the long skinny heads irk me the most because it looks sort of deformed.

Narrow heads are common with hatchlings that come out a bit early and generally goes away fairly quickly.

Small heads can be a result of overfeeding when young and will also go away with correct feeding and snake growth.

The duck billing can be a result of super black pastels and cinnamons - don't think that changes much with age or growth.

Head shapes do vary and there is no established "best shape" really, as long as the animal is healthy and able to breathe etc I can't say it bothers me.

I agrees with the OP. If I see an animal I live but the head looks "off" I skip over it. If I think it looks like something looks wrong with the animals I'm sure others are thinking the same thing.


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actually i am glad that people dont pay attention and just let head shapes sort of float around randomly.

otherwise we could get the madness that has befallen dog breeding, where they mess with head shape so much that they cannot properly breathe, or thermo-regulate, or chew. in some dog breeds the head is too small for the brain on a regular basis.

nothing wrong with paying attention, if its just to make sure the BPs have a healthy and normal head shape.

i wonder if weird head shapes may be somehow linked to inbreeding and can be avoided with outbreeding? when you try to hit a recessive or super via inbreeding, you will also hit recessives and supers in all other genes of the snakes genome, including those controlling head shape.

To add to what Dr. Del posted, even plain black pastels have a different head shape than a normal ball pythons -- they have a sharper look to them. Pastels seems a little different to me, but I can't say for sure that it isn't something about the color scheme.

Another thing to kinda keep in mind, is their head shapes change a lot with maturity. This is just a personal observation, but lot of the animals we breed are really breedable subadults. Just from my own critters, it seems like head shape changes around age 4 or 5 and is most noticeable in females. And especially in females who have successfully bred. In other species, carpets for instance, it's way more pronounced.

Head shapes differ, males generally have a wider triangular shape while females have a narrowed triangular shape

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Originally Posted by dr del

Narrow heads are common with hatchlings that come out a bit early and generally goes away fairly quickly.

Small heads can be a result of overfeeding when young and will also go away with correct feeding and snake growth.

The duck billing can be a result of super black pastels and cinnamons - don't think that changes much with age or growth.

Head shapes do vary and there is no established "best shape" really, as long as the animal is healthy and able to breathe etc I can't say it bothers me.

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Spot on. Some Sub-Saharan babies have HUGE heads out of the egg. Those are the ones that grow to be 5k-7k grams (females) and lay 20+ eggs. So... head shape is nothing. Even babies with really small heads... their heads catch up quickly.