Mike there are a few "categories" of snakes....here's a fast run down....Quote:
Originally Posted by mcavana
CBB - captive born/bred - these are the snakes that breeders produce from snakes they own and have purposefully mated to produce young
WC - wild caught - these are snakes caught in the wild and imported directly from Africa - a newly discovered morph could come in as a WC for instance or a gravid female, etc.
LTC - long term captive - something you'll see when a WC has been in captivity awhile - this one is tricky since some people consider "long term" to be a month :rolleyes:
CH - captive hatched - there are people in Africa who support their families by going out and capturing gravid female ball pythons - they then keep those snakes until the females lay their clutch - the female is then returned to the wild usually - they hatch the resulting offspring, sort them and fill their orders (to the experienced importers, this is my basic run down and in no way explains this whole process fully)
Captive hatched bp's can do just as well as any captive bred if they are imported safely, set up and started properly by an experienced importer. Like Robin I have a number of CH's here and they do just as well as my CBB's but you have to consider the source with them.
"Only advertised companies"???? We have loads of banners and so forth running so I'm a bit baffled by this comment - perhaps I misunderstood your meaning.Quote:
I just remember reading over and over and over again that WC is BAD BAD BAD! and was VERY surprised to see that one of this sites only advertised companies imports!
Mike
As far as WC's being "BAD, BAD, BAD" they aren't. What they are is WORK, WORK, WORK. :) I've never purchased an adult WC but I know from the two WC adult females I'm rehabilitating that nothing is guaranteed and it's a slow process. What can be "bad" is when people with little experience jump on a "deal of the century" and grab up WC adult snakes expecting to have not one issue with them. WC adults are probably best left to those that know these snakes like the back of their own hands or to someone that is willing to do the immense amount of work it may take to get them going. Some WC's may slip easily into captivity...many do not.
Some people see buying a gravid WC female as a shortcut to a clutch. That may again, be something an experienced keeper can handle. That is not as likely to be something a new keeper can manage or someone not really dedicated to that snake's wellbeing. Remember my Danu was a gravid WC that somebody else got a clutch out of. She ended up a skinny mess. She's taken Mike and I months to even start to bring her back. These kind of shortcuts, in my opinion, have such a high risk of failure for newcomers that I just don't think it's worth it in the end for them or for the snakes.