Athena was born eyeless into a clutch that had incubation problems. There were other deformed hatchlings and normal hatchlings as well. I fell in love with her at first sight, and adopted her from Pat as Action Reptiles as soon as she had eaten a few meals on her own. She eats like a horse and is pushing 1100 grams now.
Several people have asked about breeding her, but I don't really see myself doing it. She is beautiful that is true, but I have enough other snakes to breed. Additionally, I had some incubation problems of my own this year and hatched a few snakes that were eyeless, and a few that were deformed. One I had to put down, as it could not eat. The others ate with assistance. One did well and was adopted into a new home, but the others still require assist feeding, which is hard.
Athena "sees" just fine with her heat pits. In fact she seems to see even better than some of the ones that have eyes. She also makes a great ambassador for people who are afraid of snakes, because people are drawn to animals with defects, even if that animal is a :O snake.
Gale