Thoughts on this normal girl?

[Ball Clan]

I've had this girl since September. I got her from the breeder I got Xavier (my bumblebee) from as a bonus for him forgetting to ship on the planned day. Really nice of him by the way. He did it as an apology and I didn't even know he had done it until the package was in the mail. Anyways, as far as anyone knows she is a normal bred from a WC/imported female, but the bigger she gets, she keeps getting more and more of this orange coloration on her sides. I've seen normals with a fair bit of yellow, but never with this much orange. What do you guys think of this girl? I think I definitely want to try her out breeding with my spider combos and see what happens.






Cool belly pattern as well.





And here she is from just a normal view.





She hasn't been officially added to the Ball Clan yet, but I'm starting to think I don't want her going anywhere. Her name is Mercedes.

Opinions? Thanks for looking.

[Ladybugzcrunch]

Looks like a high gold normal to me. Pretty girl.

[MonkeyShuttle]

Shes pretty for a normal but it kind sounds like the guy pawned her off on you. For a pet awesome for breeding it seems like a bad idea in my opinion cause of the cost to feed and house her for her to only help put out more normals which people seem to be giving away these days. But you never know

[Tarzan152]

BPs are like flowers to me. I honestly think they are all beautiful. Some more bright or unique than others but none are dull or boring. I think you have a beautiful girl there. I really like her belly markings.. Sexy.. ha..

[Ball Clan]

Shes pretty for a normal but it kind sounds like the guy pawned her off on you. For a pet awesome for breeding it seems like a bad idea in my opinion cause of the cost to feed and house her for her to only help put out more normals which people seem to be giving away these days. But you never know

I'm sure the guy did pawn her off on me. But she did not cost any extra. I actually did pawn her off on a friend at first, but they were starving her to the point that she was emaciated and weak so I brought her back home because I truly believed she would have starved to death if I had not. I brought her back home at the end of January and I have gotten her up from 91 grams on January 26 to roughly 200 grams as of yesterday afternoon. She has shed twice since I brought her home, and I just noticed that orange increasing with each shed so it made me curious if that could be something that might contribute to my fires or spiders in the future.

At this point, probably just because of her first few months, I guess I'm a little protective of her so if I decide to get rid of her, I would only give her to someone who I was pretty sure would take care of her. She was honestly in pretty sad shape six weeks ago.

[cheaversg]

Its so stupid that some people get pets (no matter the pet) and they don't take care of them.

[Ball Clan]

This was her a few days after I got her back, after one meal.



And this is her as of right now.


I personally think she looks much better now.


The camera doesn't do it justice but she has made a HUGE improvement. In that first pic, she actually had difficulty holding herself up. She would hang limp from my fingers. Now, she is back to normal strength and looks healthy again.

[Slim]

She is very pretty, but honestly, I don't see anything in her except a very nice Normal.

[angllady2]

She certainly is a lovely normal. One of the wonderful things about normals is the enormous variation in them. I've seen a few with that same warm orange on their sides. I've always found it beautiful. And I don't see any reason why she could not contribute desirable traits to her future offspring. Certainly, people will tell you not to breed normals or single gene animals because of the overabundance of normal baby ball pythons that flood the market every year. But even so, there are always people looking for normals. Many small pet shop owners visit reptile shows looking to buy up the normals for re-sale in their shop. And there are always people looking for a first snake who may not be willing to invest a few hundred dollars right away until they are sure they can properly care for a snake.

Many people with large, expensive collections of multi-gene animals started off with a normal or two. You may not want to breed all normal females to all single gene males and end up with dozens of normal babies. But to breed a few special normal females to specific males to enhance desired traits... what's wrong with that?

Gale

[kikkimea]

Pretty. 👍
But I don't think you do what he did and ship an animal without telling you. What if you didn't have any space for it? It's a live animal, not a sticker or a sample.. It's sad that people value normals so little because they are so cheap..:/
Glad you took care of it!