Hatchlings= Bait & Switch????

[PaseQB]

I think that Church! = Amen!

More or less... LOL.

[Serpent_Nirvana]

Another thing that comes to mind. At least for me, my personal tastes in favorite snakes and morphs tends to be very pattern oriented. I love unique and aberrant patterns. Colors may change or fade, but the patterns stay the same.

Same here -- I'm a big fan of reduced-pattern versions of various morphs (spider, pastel, etc.) which tend to improve (ie, get more extreme) with age as the snake grows and the spaces between the pattern get bigger. (If that, you know, made any sense )

I dunno ... I would love to see more adult morph pics, both for curiosity's sake and because I like seeing what they look like as adults. But, I can only think of a few morphs that I think really get significantly uglier with age -- ie, crappy axanthics, crappy spiders, crappy pastels.

That having been said -- there are also a lot of really nice adult examples of those morphs that are out there. (Even axanthics -- which I wouldn't have believed myself until just this morning, when I saw the nicest several-year-old axanthic male I've ever seen ... And, now I want one. Dangit!)

[MAballs]

That depends on the quality of the parents. My Axanthic comes from a line that stays "Grey" well into adult hood.

Let's see it

[WingedWolfPsion]

I think folks are spoiled rotten, and adult normal ball pythons are beautiful animals--so are adult morphs of all types. We have a preconceived idea of what we want them to look like, and when they don't grow up to live up to it, we get disappointed. That doesn't make them ugly.

It's funny, though--many people buy the best hatchlings they can, but they have no idea how well their colors will hold into adulthood. It's surprising more folks don't wait to buy adults, when they can see their true colors. I suppose if they did, though, all this wouldn't work so well as it does.

[Mike Schultz]

My car doesn't look nearly as good as it did 5 years ago... I feel like I was bait and switched as well!

LETS GO FIND SOME SNAKE BREEDERS AND CAR SALESMAN!

http://www.trygve.com/pitchfork.jpg

[Serpent_Nirvana]

It's funny, though--many people buy the best hatchlings they can, but they have no idea how well their colors will hold into adulthood. It's surprising more folks don't wait to buy adults, when they can see their true colors. I suppose if they did, though, all this wouldn't work so well as it does.

I hate buying breeder anything as babies. Of all the snakes I bought this year for breeding purposes (a number that I don't plan to repeat ... ), I only bought two babies (both males, a black blood python and a lesser male). This was only because I had a fairly good feeling that both are gonna be killer-looking as adults.

I absolutely hate buying baby chinchillas for breeders ... They don't take long too raise up, but I just hate taking that risk that that cute lil' baby is gonna grow up to be a fugly adult.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this practise to other aspiring breeders -- there are risks inherent in buying animals as breeding-age (or close to it) adults. (For example: if it's so great, why the heck are they selling it in the first place?) But for me, after a few years' experience, I've come to the conclusion that I prefer buying subadults to adults whenever possible. Again: not a practise for everyone, but it's what I prefer.