thoughts on starting breeding

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Ball pythons aren't dogs. If the demand ever drops that low, there are probably hundreds of people on this site alone who would take a few unwanted healthy snakes. I would. Even if you have a good amount of land, dogs are too costly to have more than a couple. Most dog enthusiasts have 1-5 dogs. Very few have more than 10. It's not uncommon for a ball python enthusiast to have 20-100+ snakes, and most are always open to take on a healthy rescue or three. It's apples and oranges.

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Good point.

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Originally Posted by bsd13

Can I ask why you'd want to breed? In my opinion BPs are kind of like the Pit Bulls of the snake world. Everyone and their mother is breeding them and they're overpopulated. Not that other reptiles aren't overpopulated, but BPs are especially overpopulated.

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This could very well be fixed if more people would do their homework on the breed b4 they pass judgments on them, they want to look at what a few people have done with them and act like that is all the breed can do. While I have yet to breed any bp's, though I plan too very soon *crosses fingers*, my whole life I bred am staffs (pit bulls) and Shepard’s. Am staffs are the sweetest breed out there, yes there are a few bad apples but this goes for any animals, there are over 2 million am staffs out there and they all get judged by what 2,000 or so have done, there are countless families that you never hear about with several am staffs and a house full of kids pulling on their ears and stepping on their tails, yet no one gets bit. But if you were to look at how the breed is in their most vicious moments (when trained to fight another in a pit) you would learn the most about them.
1st they are intensely trained by a person to be mean and attack by being hit and not feed most of the time, yet this guy is almost never bitten
2nd when they show up for the fight they give the other person’s dog a bath (anyone that has ever gave a dog a bath knows how much they love this, but ask yourself if the breed was so mean to people would you wash another man’s dog that was trained to kill?)
3rd once in the ring there are 3 people the 2 owners and the ref. the ref stands there with a stick bout a foot long that he uses to pry the dogs apart, and to move their lips off their teeth. Now this raises 2 questions a dog that mean why would 3 people get in the ring and why would you get between them.
The only answer to all of this is the breed naturally is not mean to people (it’s a lost art now but back in the day they bred dogs for certain jobs as we now breed bp’s for certain colors and looks) am staffs were bred to fight bulls and be powerful but yet gentle and loyal. It’s their loyalty that makes them willing to fight to their own death just to please their owner.

Sorry if I went off a little bit there I just hate when people judge the breed with out knowing it at all (please note im not saying that you were saying anything bad about them). As with any animal that is properly trained and handled they make a great pet (ok I should have said domesticated animal tigers, cobras and such still are a little to out there)

no i never fought any dogs nor have i ever been or would go to a dog fight, i only know the stuff that goes on from research that i have done on the breeds history

Ball pythons are collected. They are in a sense like other collectors items, baseball cards coins etc except you get to play with them and have to clean up for them. Nothing like dogs though. I have 5 dogs and 30 bps. I want to make MORE bps while I might shoot myself if one of my dogs got pregnant and I had to keep all the babies(impossible but you know what I mean). A person can care for an entire collection more or less in one day and not have to do more than look for the rest of the week, while dogs are a 24/7 pet. BP's do best when kept like records, stacked one on top of another(in tubs of course). A huge amount of BP's can be kept in a very small amount of space if you use a rack system, dogs need alot of room to run and need attention and love from their owners, BP's would be happy if you never put a finger on them... BP's are more like coins than dogs. lol!