Can a Recessive Spider Gene Make a Snake Dingy?

My ball python, Hurly, has always been rather different. I have a picture of him hanging on to my son's wrist upside down, for example. And if he is hanging on to something and decides he wants to go somewhere else, he just lets go and falls. We've learned to keep one hand on him at all times because it's inevitable he's going to let go and fall sooner or later. Someone told me he might have a recessive spider gene that causes him to be so not all there. Is this possible? If so, what is this going to mean for him? Are there any health risks associated with this? He doesn't have a head wobble and the pet store sold him as a normal.

Spiders are dominant not recessive. And he may be acting dingy due to being dropped, depending on how long it took you to learn not to let that happen, what kind of surface he was dropped on, the height he was dropped from, etc...

Find someone else other than the person that said recessive spider. SMH

Is your snake a BEL or one of those multi gene monsters that got so much going on you can't see anything? Because those are the only situations I see where a DOMINANT gene like spider wouldn't be visually expressed.

recessive spider gene? world's first! :salute:

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Is your snake a BEL or one of those multi gene monsters that got so much going on you can't see anything? Because those are the only situations I see where a DOMINANT gene like spider wouldn't be visually expressed.

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normal...."and the pet store sold him as a normal."

Ball pythons are not concidered arboreal or even semi arboreal for a reason. It's not being dingy at all.

Basically, it might not be a good idea to be hanging your ball python upside down hanging from a wrist for long enough for him to fall, because they are just not very good at hanging to begin with. :s They're terrestrial snakes.

We had to take all branches out of his cage. He really likes to climb, but doesn't do too well at it. And in four years he's only been dropped five times, from about the height of our neck or waist to the ground. Most of those times he was a baby. One of those times, we were supervising him and we thought a one inch clearance from the edge was enough to keep him on, but he rolled off. Seriously, he rolled off! What snake rolls off? Now we keep one hand on him at all times holding on to his tail. We shake his tail as a signal and he knows to tighten down most times now but we still keep a hand on him. But he has problems eating-mostly because he's stubborn and wants to do what he wants to do. He'll insist on eating the rat backwards or sideways, then thrash around because he can't eat it like that. We are working on calling him "original" rather than "dingy" but we've never had these kind of problems with our other snakes. He is smart. He can get out of a cage with snap-on cage locks, push the screen out, and do all sorts of things to escape before we finally found a way to put a stop to that. I'm afraid I don't know much about genetics (obviously) but I was just hoping there was something I could do about his originality. You just never know what wild hair he's going to get and when. Is anybody else's snake like this?

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Originally Posted by marya1962

We had to take all branches out of his cage. He really likes to climb, but doesn't do too well at it. And in four years he's only been dropped five times, from about the height of our neck or waist to the ground. Most of those times he was a baby. One of those times, we were supervising him and we thought a one inch clearance from the edge was enough to keep him on, but he rolled off. Seriously, he rolled off! What snake rolls off? Now we keep one hand on him at all times holding on to his tail. We shake his tail as a signal and he knows to tighten down most times now but we still keep a hand on him. But he has problems eating-mostly because he's stubborn and wants to do what he wants to do. He'll insist on eating the rat backwards or sideways, then thrash around because he can't eat it like that. We are working on calling him "original" rather than "dingy" but we've never had these kind of problems with our other snakes. He is smart. He can get out of a cage with snap-on cage locks, push the screen out, and do all sorts of things to escape before we finally found a way to put a stop to that. I'm afraid I don't know much about genetics (obviously) but I was just hoping there was something I could do about his originality. You just never know what wild hair he's going to get and when. Is anybody else's snake like this?

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5 times in any amount of years sounds like too much. Shouldn't drip your snake at all. Once accidentally ok it happens but you should've learned the first time. You're lucky there isn't a bigger problem here.

Smh

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