imports??? whats your thought?

I dont think that the importation needs to be stopped completely. But i dont see a need to be importing them by the thousands. It would be a dream of mine to travel to africa and check out all the bps there and try and discover a new morph. That would be the coolest!

Without imports, this hobby would not exist.

In my personal opinion, I would like to see the importation of CH baby bags reduced, and as Robin mentioned, see the end of importation of gravid WC females. In a perfect world I would like to see CH animals offered only to breeders and serious hobbyist. There are plenty of CB Normals produced every year that can go into the PETCO and PetSmart display cases.

We have so many options right now for projects with just the proven morphs we already have, and honestly, the chance of you finding a Blue Ghost in an "unsorted" bag of babies is absolutely zero. The guys in west Africa who are putting the babies in the bags see more ball pythons than all of us will ever see in a life time. It's not likely they're going to put something very different in one of those bags.

The truly special BPs, either CH or WC are held back, and deals are struck. Deals you and I rarely ever know about.

When breeder XYZ proves out something really special or different, you regularly see the parent BP described as, "an animal I imported from Africa a few years back." Notice they never say, "This was an animal that I was made aware of by a broker, and after seeing pictures, won in a bidding war against every other big breeder in the business." They also never say. "Yeah, I found it in a bag of babies."

So, while you may find some interesting females, and a few things that look kinda' like Fires, YB, or Granites, you are not going to open that bag and find a Toffee waiting to make you rich and famous.

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Originally Posted by Slim

So, while you may find some interesting females, and a few things that look kinda' like Fires, YB, or Granites, you are not going to open that bag and find a Toffee waiting to make you rich and famous.

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This is pretty much what I gathered from reading about people importing ball pythons. The people over there who are catching these ball pythons and bagging them know all too well what is what. They know when they've caught something completely different. They WILL hold those back and sell them to a breeder who will try to prove them out for big money.

All the BPs in the bags that you buy will be dinkers at most. If you're luck, they will carry some hidden gene that blends with mojave, fire, or yellowbelly lolol.

I agree with Slim and hooblah^
which is exactly why i wanna go to africa myself and hand pick my own babies! :D

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Originally Posted by h00blah

This is pretty much what I gathered from reading about people importing ball pythons. The people over there who are catching these ball pythons and bagging them know all too well what is what. They know when they've caught something completely different. They WILL hold those back and sell them to a breeder who will try to prove them out for big money.

All the BPs in the bags that you buy will be dinkers at most. If you're luck, they will carry some hidden gene that blends with mojave, fire, or yellowbelly lolol.

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There WAS a time, when the ball python craze was in its infancy that you could get pretty cool stuff in the yearly imports - that's how Kevin first discovered hypo's. Lots of breeders didn't want anything to do with pieds, because they thought that they were sick, that the white was some sort of skin problem. It wasn't until Pete Kahl proved them out that the real value was realized.

Once the exporters caught on, they learned quickly what the big breeders were willing to pay top dollar for.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

I agree with Slim and hooblah^
which is exactly why i wanna go to africa myself and hand pick my own babies! :D

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Lots of people want to, but the political unrest makes it unsafe to do so. And it's a very tight community over there, they're not going to let some American come traipsing through their land and take food away from their family (by finding the cool stuff before they do).

A friend of mine bought a baby bag and it was full of pastels and mojaves on top of the regular normals.

Just wanted to say they're not only full of dinkers and the vague looking morphs.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

A friend of mine bought a baby bag and it was full of pastels and mojaves on top of the regular normals.

Just wanted to say they're not only full of dinkers and the vague looking morphs.

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I want a grab bag... :)

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Originally Posted by satomi325

A friend of mine bought a baby bag and it was full of pastels and mojaves on top of the regular normals.

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While I find that interesting, I don't see the point in going to the trouble of dealing with CH bush babies just to find a BP morph that is already well established in the hobby and not very expensive. Some PETCOs are even carrying Pastels.

Was your friend able to prove these animals genetic? Are they compatible with existing lines?