Morph Related Feeding response

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

The only morph I have really had problems with are pastels. They just suck. Poor feeders and breeders....even most of the combos. Pastels just suck at life.

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As much as I hate to because I love our pastels, I have to agree with you. We've had some pastels that were bottomless pits, but in general they do seem to be pickier eaters in my experience. They also seem to take a little longer to get the hang of breeding.

Spiders are the exact opposite in our experience. They are almost always great eaters and are usually great breeders. We've had similar luck with pinstripes. Our mojave female is an insane eater as well.

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Originally Posted by AK907

As much as I hate to because I love our pastels, I have to agree with you. We've had some pastels that were bottomless pits, but in general they do seem to be pickier eaters in my experience. They also seem to take a little longer to get the hang of breeding.

Spiders are the exact opposite in our experience. They are almost always great eaters and are usually great breeders. We've had similar luck with pinstripes. Our mojave female is an insane eater as well.

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I agree on all points. I don't understand the stigma of spiders and why people are against keeping them. They are GREAT feeders and breeders.

Pastels, in my experience, also seem to be inconsistent breeders. Picky eaters, slow growing, and very shy.

I agree with the consensus that, apart from individual variation, it's more bloodline than individual morph that will determine a snake's personality traits (feeding included). I think that could certainly lead to certain morphs having a given trait, especially early on in their establishment, if they're all descended from a single founder animal. I also don't think it's impossible that some personality traits could be somehow linked to a single-gene mutation, but I think it's much less likely.

That said, in my experience my best feeders, hands-down, are my wild-type ball pythons. :rolleyes:

I'd say that beyond that, the rest seems to be just individual variation. Really bad, really picky feeders generally don't stay in my collection, so I couldn't say that I have one morph group that's worse than others. My spiders and crosses have tended to eat well, as have my mojaves. My pastels have also been some of my most consistent feeders (my pastel ph clown girl is one of the few BP females I've managed to raise up all the way through without hitting that "1000 gram wall" :rolleyes: )

Although up to the individual snake , interesting that so many have mentioned spiders and mojave's being good feeders. My spider just wont stop. If i continue feeding he will continue eating.

Thanks for all the reponses guys!!

I raised a male spider from a hatchling to 1900 grams in 10 months. It was sold to me as a female but the combat behavior was a good indicator to me. I'm not really a fan of them but Spiders are unstoppable.

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Originally Posted by Slim

Same answer for aggressiveness, number of eggs laid, and breeding ability for males. The morph doesn't affect the outcome. (Desert females may be the exception, for obvious reasons)

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Which reasons you mean?