african import?

[wolftrap]

I follow Morph Market on Twitter, and they posted an ad for an African Import male BP with no price listed - I know that these are reaaaallly expensive BPs, so I was just curious what they were? Are they wild-caught, or bred from the original line of domestic BPs? Imo they don't look too far off from the wild-type pattern, but I could be wrong...

[alittleFREE]

Import means that specific snake was imported straight from Africa. Either wild caught, or captive hatched over there.


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[zina10]

Normally they are the cheapest of Ball Pythons.

You used to get them for $10. Nowadays importers pick through hundreds of wild caught/hatched BP's to see if they can find anything different, with an aberrant color or pattern. On the search for a new morph or a new genetic anomaly.

Only those are worth anything to anyone. Those, and BP's from the Volta region where they grow overly large. Females, esp. gravid ones, from that region also sell for more money.

"Normal" wild caught BP males are usually and sadly almost a throw away product. They are often full of parasites (like all fresh imports) and incredibly stressed which makes them problem feeders.

Nowadays you can get nice, healthy and captive bred/born normal Ball Pythons for cheap. So cheap, some people buy them to feed off to their snake-eating species of snake.

So I'm really not sure why those import males would be advertised as something special?

[wolftrap]

Yeah, my thoughts were... if they are wild-caught and imported straight from their natural habitat, why would that be something to advertise? They only advertise BPs on their Twitter page that are upwards of 2-3 grand, so when I saw the African import without any morph/special genetics (and a male, at that) I was a bit confused.

I bought my normal female for $35 from a show, which is the price I see everywhere for the wild type BPs. I really hope she wasn't wild-caught and that she was bred in the states, but I guess as long as she's healthy and happy, ignorance is bliss....

Thanks for everyone who replied!

[Reptilius]

I wouldn't touch them personally.

[CALM Pythons]

I wont touch one.. thats what I started with back in 88/89 and they are nothing but Ticks, Mites and Internal Parasites. You can get a whole Bag of them for $100. So whoever told you they are more expensive is wrong.
Outback Reptiles is famous for these imports.. as far as I’m concerned it’s too much of a risk for a huge headache and we have a excellent selection here in the states.


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[Craiga 01453]

With all the amazing morph options and reputable breeders available here in the states, I see no reason to be importing wild caught animals.

[wolftrap]

I agree. I would hate to support someone who just picks their animals out of their natural habitat instead of supporting those who devote their career to the ethical breeding scene.

[zina10]

In all fairness, due to the imports, we have the amount of quality captive bred Ball Pythons that we do.

All these cool morphs that most of us love, are due to people cherry picking through thousands and thousands of imports and picking/breeding the ones that were "different" looking. Every single gene morph was at one point a aberrant looking import that got proved out.

The dark side of that was thousands and thousands of normal looking Ball Pythons that were sold dirt cheap and frustrated beginning snake keepers all over with the difficulty of getting those snakes to eat or thrive. Most of those snakes ended up dead sooner or later.

I'm just glad that we don't need to import so many any more, there are plenty of healthy captive bred Ball Pythons to choose from. Plenty of normals, plenty of morphs. The prices on most morphs have become very affordable, too. I remember the first Blue Eyed Leucistic that supposedly sold for $100,000 !!! Back then it was a race of buying loads of imports and cherry picking over them, or having the business partners in Africa do it.

It still goes on nowadays, though I'm sure not at the same scale (I hope). It seems more profitable to breed outrageous combinations with what we already have, rather then going through thousands of imports in the hopes to find something new. But they are still being caught, picked through and imported.

I'm not sure why someone would offer lots of imported male BP's. Nowadays not even petstores would touch them. They have a steady supply of captive bred and born snakes. Perhaps it would be interesting to the people that feed snake eating species such as King Cobras, King snakes, Indigos ?? Monitors ?? I don't know..

The over sized BP's from the Volta region still seem to sell well, though, import or not. Some people love the large size to them. It can be impressive, since they are a larger snake overall, not just overweight. Often I see gravid females for sale, and that really does turn me off. Importing, handling, shipping, treating for parasites, SO MUCH STRESS on a gravid animal, just seems fundamentally wrong to me. But there seems to be a real interest in gravid over sized imports, so they get imported and they get sold. I'm not sure if that does harm to the eggs or females, but it can't be a good thing for them.

[Armiyana]

The only other plus side there would possibly be.... introducing a fresh bloodline into the gene pool.
Diluting out some of the possibly more inbred lines that may be about. But again, this is why you want to look for ethical breeders.


For a large scale breeder, taking a chance and adding some freshblood may be a great idea.... for a smaller scale breeder or just pet owners, this is just a pain in the butt really.