Aggression in high end morph babies?

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

I've always found that aggressive balls tend to start off as poor feeders--they're too defensive, and want to kill the rats with their teeth instead of constricting and eating them. <lol>

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actually i think the poor feeders that want to kill the rats with their teeth are more afraid of life than anything and aggressive hatchlings are more likely to take the prey offered to them everytime.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

I have some great eating and breeding non aggressive ball pythons so I'm working to cull aggressive animals from my collection as I don't believe it's needed to improve ball python feeding.

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but theres nothing wrong with an aggressive hatchling ball python as they usually calm down with age but whether it does calm down or not i dont think its necessary to cull hatchlings just because they are relatively aggressive in ones opinion.

"Aggressive" is a misnomer anyhow--the behavior is defensive, not aggressive. They are not seeking people out to bite. They are using their teeth and attitude to keep the scary things away.

Just my experience--the hatchlings that strike at everything aren't better feeders than the calm ones, and I've had more of them require assist-starting than I have the ones that are calm and docile. Perhaps there actually isn't a correlation at all, as some suggested.

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Originally Posted by bigballs

...but theres nothing wrong with an aggressive hatchling ball python as they usually calm down with age but whether it does calm down or not i dont think its necessary to cull hatchlings just because they are relatively aggressive in ones opinion.

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The ones I'm wanting to cull from my collection are hissy striking adults that come from lines where I've seen a strong tendency for aggression/defensiveness to be passed from generation to generation and for the hissy striking babies not to grow out of it. But I'm having trouble bringing myself to sell these adult females possible hets off before I figure out if they are het or not.

aggressive behaviour is not defensive behaviour in every single case as there are differences in behaviour between balls that clearly have a tendency for one or the other or a combo of both, misnomers or not.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

The ones I'm wanting to cull from my collection are hissy striking adults that come from lines where I've seen a strong tendency for aggression/defensiveness to be passed from generation to generation and for the hissy striking babies not to grow out of it.

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i see what you are saying and trying to do but i feel that there is also a perceived degree of aggression/defensiveness determined by the keeper and that some may not mind working with the animals that you may find aggressive/defensive.

i think its interesting though that you are working with the behavioural aspect of these animals and im not trying to argue that but feel that culling these animals may not be necessary.

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Originally Posted by bigballs

i see what you are saying and trying to do but i feel that there is also a perceived degree of aggression/defensiveness determined by the keeper and that some may not mind working with the animals that you may find aggressive/defensive.

i think its interesting though that you are working with the behavioural aspect of these animals and im not trying to argue that but feel that culling these animals may not be necessary.

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That was actually one of my points; that many breeders don't care about temperment or maybe even value and select for agressive temperment. As I don't have high end morphs most of my babies go to pet stores or pet keepers and both tend to value the "normal" docile ball python personality. I also personally don't enjoy cleaning cages for adult females that strike several times every cleaning.

But I accept that everyone isn't going to agree on what to selectivly breed for in ball pythons, I mainly wanted to point out that I've seen strong evidence for agressive genetics on the nature vs. nurture discussion. Given that I personally want to select for docile ball pythons in my collection I believe that not breeding agressive adults will be a significant step toward that goal.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

But I accept that everyone isn't going to agree on what to selectivly breed for in ball pythons, I mainly wanted to point out that I've seen strong evidence for agressive genetics on the nature vs. nurture discussion. Given that I personally want to select for docile ball pythons in my collection I believe that not breeding agressive adults will be a significant step toward that goal.

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What's interesting to me, however - is that my most aggressive/defensive hatchlings right now, came from my most docile pair.

However, as they are gaining weight, and I am handling them each time I go in to refresh water or change their tubs and working with them, they are becoming less aggressive/defensive.

I don't think it's fair to judge a hatchling's temperament until it's at least 4 months old. They change too much in that time frame.