Where'd yah start...where are ya now?

I got my first ball python late 1995. A little normal female. My first pet. Definitely didn't have the best set-up or record keeping. She only lived around 8 years. I didn't get any more ball pythons up until November of last year. I happened to go on the ball python section on fauna....I saw the most beautiful spider and it was instant love. I HAD to have him. A year later and almost 40 bps, tons of rats, lots of cleaning/work later...here I am. And I absolutely do not see myself going any time soon. I'm here to stay.
I know I have learned a TON since my first bp. And a lot of the thanks for that have to go to this site.

Got my first ball python in July 2011 --about 4 months ago. She was a normal female from a reptile expo. Since then I've gotten some morphs locally; my Pastel Lesser, Bumblebee, Pinstripe, Spider, etc. And ordered the other the others online from breeders; Lesser, Spider, & Mojave.

I'm only 17 years old, and the only reason how I am able to feed, buy, take care of these snakes is because of my dad! He has helped me a lot, and he himself used to hate snakes but now he likes ball pythons. His favorite morph is bumblebees! (reason for getting mine :P!)

Looking forward to adding some new ones, and breeding for fun. :)

about 30 years ago i started catching snakes in the yard. had a few turtles and had to sneak wild caught snakes into the house. i'd keep them for a couple days then let them go and catch some more.

my first bp was around 1990. had him for a few years till my mom found out. :rolleyes:

freshmen year in college i got a normal bp and a hogg island boa. a couple years later i was working part time and breaks at a reptile zoo. worked there for a few years caring for all sorts of reptiles and weird critters. some experience with hots but not enough to keep one...enough to know i SHOULDNT keep one without more experience.

i have also worked with animal shelters around pittsburgh, philly and now at my local shelter.

now i have a pair of pastel bps (poss. het for piebald), a male bumblee and a huge normal "dinker" female... and i'm currently caring for a rescue burmese python.

who knows what the future will bring? :D

I love reading these. Keep them coming!
I can't wait till I can get more.....it kills me that I don't have mine anymore....I was developing such a bond with my frisky little pastel. ;p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kevinb

1.) When starting with bps what did you have?

---

The first Ball python I acquired is a normal female from Petsmart. Didn't acquire my second Ball python until a year after. Meant to get the little male Ball in hopes for breeding and for another Ball to add to the growing collection as they were and still are my favorite species of snake.

Quote:

---

2.) Where are you now/feel you are now (what's your collection like, do you know more than you did, what do you see in the future?)

---

I have acquired another normal female who is being bred this season along with my first normal female (who also bred last season), a Pastel female, a Spider male (first morph I acquired), and a Mojave male. I did have a female Pinstripe a year ago but passed away due to being extremely picky with eating. I will be picking up a new female morph this weekend, and maybe one more but we'll see.

Ever since I acquired my first Ball my knowledge has expanded greatly than I could have ever imagined. I have gone so in depth with Ball python husbandry, breeding, and genetics than I could even THINK was possible.

In the future I definitely see myself breeding Ball pythons without a doubt. I see a HUGE amount of them too :D.

The obsession started when I met a friend of a friend who had a pair of ball pythons at her house. Loved the bold patterning, calm nature, and the medium size of them. She suggested I do some online research if I ever decided to get one of my own, and that led to finding out about morphs, other species, basically the whole reptile hobby :D at the time I was still in high school and lived with my mother, so I wasn't allowed to get any of my own. Simply dedicated all my free time to learning everything I could, about everything I could!

I finally got my first ball pythons in October last year, a female pastel and male mojave. Glad to say that I was armed with all the research I'd gathered here, and on top of that they're fantastic feeders. I had promised myself I wouldn't get any more until I produced from the original pair, but caved after a year (at least it took that long! Haha) and now have a fire female in the collection

It's not the biggest in the world, and I actually only plan to breed for interest's sake (don't care about making money, I'm having fun), work up to superfly mojaves, pick up one last trio of morphs for a recessive project I'm interested in, but I really want to get into other species of reptiles. I've got a pair of crested geckos and a tarantula now, and the wishlist changes daily on what I want to get next (Dominican Red Mountain boas look sweet!). Can only see the hobby growing as a part of my life in the future. Who knows? Still trying to figure out what I want to do college wise, the zoology course is looking mighty tempting

Angolans are next on my list of non BPs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cecilbturtle

about 30 years ago i started catching snakes in the yard. had a few turtles and had to sneak wild caught snakes into the house. i'd keep them for a couple days then let them go and catch some more.

my first bp was around 1990. had him for a few years till my mom found out. :rolleyes:

freshmen year in college i got a normal bp and a hogg island boa. a couple years later i was working part time and breaks at a reptile zoo. worked there for a few years caring for all sorts of reptiles and weird critters. some experience with hots but not enough to keep one...enough to know i SHOULDNT keep one without more experience.

i have also worked with animal shelters around pittsburgh, philly and now at my local shelter.

now i have a pair of pastel bps (poss. het for piebald), a male bumblee and a huge normal "dinker" female... and i'm currently caring for a rescue burmese python.

who knows what the future will bring? :D

---

You don't live to far away from me. I live about 45 mins away from Wilke-Barre or about 5 miles away from Bloomsburg University.

It all started with me when I was a kid, catching wild snakes. Then a good friend of mine, her parents had a few balls and a huge burm. I use to always have one of the balls around my neck while romping around the neighborhood :rolleyes: Of course my mother was deathly afraid of snakes and wasn't allowed to ever have one. Lmao she wouldn't even let me on our driveway with one in my hands!

Fast forward to when I actually purchased a snake. My husband already had the male redtail when we met and I talked A LOT about ball pythons. He bought me one of those grab bags of 10 babies sent from Africa. ( I still have 3 of them :) )

Now, as you can see in my signature, I have over 30 balls, a gtp and leos. My husband has all the burms, retics, boas and hots. Of course we know a crap load more now than we did then! This will be his third year breeding his stuff and my second year breeding my balls and third with my leos.

I have a couple more leos I'd like to add to my collection ( ok, too many to list lol ), definitely hypo, clown, fire and pied stuff to my balls. I'm trying to get my husband to get a white phase albino retic because I think they are gorgeous. I love what we do, I love my animals and we've talked about making it an official business. I've already got the name picked out. I know we won't be Ralph Davis, Ben Siegel and Constrictors Unlimited big, and I'm cool with that, but I'd like a name for us, quality animals, quality customer service and anything we can do to make this industry better, is what I'm striving for :)

Oh, anything non bp related that I want to get into is more gtps and Brazilian rainbow boas. I did have a pair of tokays at one point that I had intentions of breeding but the female died :(