Normal?

[Crawly's Mom]

Okay so I was curious after reading through the hunter's guides for morphs. What distinguishes a "normal" ball python? I assume that Crawly is normal, but I don't know any better, he was simply sold to me as a ball python. So what traits make up a "normal"? I see that certain patterns or colors define morphs, so is that the same with normals? If so... what are those characteristics?

[Kinra]

Normals don't really have traits. They are more what you would call something that doesn't really fall into another known morph category. There are some that look really cool that people label dinkers and try to prove out as genetic, but "normals" are really varied in how they look.

[Crawly's Mom]

So anything that doesn't fit into a category is then just a normal, unless proven to be a trait than can be passed from one generation to the next?

[Kinra]

Yeah pretty much.

Edit:

To kind of throw some perspective out there, here are my two normals with my 50% possible het caramel glow (the really bright one).


As you can see none of them look alike. Even my het ghost female looks different as well:


Hets are usually considered normals because there is really no way to tell what they are het for just by looking at them.

[Crawly's Mom]

Are most normals het for something and you just won't know it till you breed? This all interests me and I am quite curious, but I really have no way of knowing what Crawly really is as he wasn't from a breeder. Not that I plan on breeding him any time soon, still quite the baby, just curious is all! Good to learn for the future, just in case!

[Kinra]

You never really know if they are het for something or not. I learned Saturday night that my favorite reptile shop actually sells their hets as normals and they don't people.

Petco and Petsmart only sell captive hatched, so again there is no real way of knowing. Only breeding can really prove them to be het for something or not. My hets and possible hets are from breeders which is the only reason why I know what they are.

[Crawly's Mom]

Well then I will just assume Crawly is normal until proven otherwise. Do people often use normals balls in their breeding programs? It would seem to me you'd want to use more proven producers if that is the right term lol. Like snakes you know have particular traits.

[Kinra]

I don't think there are many breeders that will use a male normal for breeding, but I know there a quite a few people who keep normal females for breeding. Most of my collection contains a lot of visual morphs, I have 1.1 pastels, 1.1 spiders, 0.1 butter, 0.1 bee, 1.0 enchi, 0.1 cinny, 1.1 spotnose, and some others. Some people who are starting out will work with hets, like a pair of het pieds or het albinos.

Using the normal females for breeding purposes helps with limiting inbreeding.

Edit: Normal females are also pretty cheap, which helps add more breed-able females to a collection for a little cost. One can easily pick up a proven breeder female for $50-200 depending on where and who you get it from.

[Crawly's Mom]

Truthfully, I don't know if Crawly is male or female as he has not been sexed. I need to find a good herp vet to get him checked out, I would assume at that time he could probably tell me if he(she?) is male or female.

[Crawly's Mom]

Personally I really love the look of the pieds and will probably look more into them if I do begin breeding some day. I think the color difference between the white and the pattern is just gorgeous. ^.^ The panda pied is amazing looking too!