New Here!! Couple Quick Questions please?..

[cinderbird]

First of all I want to say BP.NET you rock!!!!! I've been looking at bp pages for what seems to be years and u guys crack me up and have great info.

My Questions. Please be kind I'm not used to snakes but we love the one we have.

1.)How can you tell the sex of your snake?? I've heard the shape of the tail, The size of those prong of the teeth things on the tail. Is there anyway a novice could find out short of going to the vet and DEFINITLEY not hurting the snake?

2.) My wife and I would like to try breeding. Is there any type of snake you would recommend to breed with a norm for some cool variations? We like just about all the breeds we've seen but pied. What snake would you get and why?

Thanks guys...

1. there are only two ways to sex BPs since they are sexually non-dimorphic. Popping or probing. They need to be done by someone with experience. Usually another herper or vet can teach you. If you want to try popping yourself, there are a few videos on youtube you can look at, one from Adam Wysocki of 8ball pythons and one from Ralph Davis of RDR. You can also see if someone on the forum is close to you and can come sex your animal. I've heard of that happening a lot as well.

2. just to help you out with terminology.. There are -species- of snakes, not breeds (like in dogs or cats). With your statement, i believe you are talking about different morphs? (the mutations seen in many species of reptiles that give them different color or patterns from those animals considered normal or wild-type), and that of the ones you've see pieds are the only one you dont like.

If you want to try breeding, a great suggestion is to get a baby female, and raise it up for 3 years so you can learn about and understand these animals. Breeding is a lot of work and sometimes it can be very rewarding but these animals aren't robots and things dont always go as planned.

I personally recommend RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH! There are a few books i'd recommend,the first being Pythons of the World volume 2 by David and Tracy Barker. That book goes over EVERYTHING, including morphs and breeding.

There are over 50 base morphs for ball pythons. No one can tell you what you like better than YOU! Research morphs, research the snakes and research breeding. After that, find the morphs and combos that you like and work on getting what you need to produce them. Remember, its not as easy as just tossing males in with females.

in a nut shell, the moral of the post is research!