Quality of a ball python

[AntTheDestroyer]

I often see people refer to high quality snakes, but never to a specific snake, only when giving advice in what to look for. This statement has often confounded me, because in my opinion it mostly seems to be based on the personal preference. To further my confusion others seem to know what they are talking about. Obviously there is something that I am missing. I love would love to hear what in your opinion makes a snake high quality. I understand that trying to generalize all ball pythons may be an exercise in futility so if you would like to talk about your favorite morph and tell me what you look for, I would appreciate your input.

[Lady mkrj58]

To Me a High Quality snake comes from pure Blood lines and Breeders that know what they are doing from the very beginning.

Sent from my SGH-T999

[Bigfish1975]

This is a good question. I like to look for things that catch my eye first. To me it depends on the particular morph. For my collection, the main focus is Pieds and YB. For Pieds, I prefer an animal that medium white. Maybe in the 40-60% white range. I like nice contrast and animals that keep that contrast well into adulthood. With the YB genes, I like animals that have a really vibrant, rich color. Some nice blushing and some of the classic yb markers. For some of the darker complex animals, i like them dark. A Black pastel or cinnamon should have a really clean, dark black presentation. I like combos to be clean and the best traits from their genetic make up. Ultimately, I want to enjoy what I'm looking at and working with in my breeding plans. Aside from colors, the animals should look healthy. A relatively short, heavy bodied snake. A well shaped head, no kinks or other deformities of course. I want animals to look like they came from a good place. Where they were cared for properly. That's all.

[AntTheDestroyer]

thank you for the replies. Bigfish your response was very helpful.

Lady I am curious to what you mean by pure bloodlines? Are you referring to snakes other than ball pythons, or is there something that makes a certain line of ball python pure?

[Izzys Keeper]

I often see people refer to high quality snakes, but never to a specific snake, only when giving advice in what to look for. This statement has often confounded me, because in my opinion it mostly seems to be based on the personal preference. To further my confusion others seem to know what they are talking about. Obviously there is something that I am missing. I love would love to hear what in your opinion makes a snake high quality. I understand that trying to generalize all ball pythons may be an exercise in futility so if you would like to talk about your favorite morph and tell me what you look for, I would appreciate your input.

Put it this way. If you have 2 pastel ball pythons. One of very high quality, and one of very low quality. 100% of the time you will know which is which. You just know. It's more eye catching.

Now you have some morphs that are visually very normal looking but with subtle differences such as yellow belly. A high quality yellow belly will more prominently display those subtle differences. It should be easily identified if you are familiar with the morph.

Within every morph are the characteristics that identify the morph. Some people prefer certain characteristics to stand out more or occur more and this is where the personal preference comes into play.

I believe the measurement of quality firstly comes from what a majority of people in the hobby like.

Secondly(though more importantly) it comes from what you prefer and want in your animal

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[Slim]

A high quality morph will best embody the traits specific to that morph, and will carry those traits into adulthood, passing them onto their offspring.

A famous judge once said, "I may not be able to define pornography, but I know it when I see it." High quality animals can be a little like that lol.

[Kokorobosoi]

For me, a high quality animal is what I enjoy and desire about the morph. Some morphs that other rave about are honestly quite uninspiring to me, so I don't see the allure. And sometimes I'm after a morph so bad it becomes a manhunt.

I see high quality as clean, high contrast, that appeals to you as a keeper.

beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all.

[keebs]

For me, a HQ animal is healthy, shows no sign of struggling to thrive (if husbandry is correct) and progresses and grows like it should! To me, that says that the breeder knew what they were doing and were putting the health of the animal before anything else. I know there are a lot of people out there who will attempt pairings that could possibly result in deformed/unhealthy offspring, so to me, folks who don't do that produce high quality animals. Also, someone mentioned "pure blood lines" earlier in the thread, and I honestly don't know what they're talking about... unless they mean animals that aren't crossbreeds of different species? Otherwise, I don't think it's possible to discern what a "pure" bloodline looks like... unless an animal is VERY heavily inbred, and that raises some ethics questions, even though inbreeding in the reptile community is extremely prevalent and (often times) necessary for producing designer morphs.

[Slim]

I don't think it's possible to discern what a "pure" bloodline looks like... unless an animal is VERY heavily inbred, and that raises some ethics questions, even though inbreeding in the reptile community is extremely prevalent and (often times) necessary for producing designer morphs.

A couple important things to keep in mind:

1) The term "Pure Bloodline" has little applicability in this discussion, unless you're talking about a specific line of morph like a TSK or VPI line of Axnthic. We're talking about the best example of a particular morph, not the possibility of hybridism sneaking into an Enchi Lesser.

2) Line breeding in reptiles is quite different than inbreeding in warm blooded animals. Line breeding is an accepted practice in the reptile community, and takes place in nature at every little isolated pond and water hole on the planet.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Obviously health is a given, now if we talk about mutation's quality it is really in the eye of the beholder.

Some people will like reduced pattern over busy one for example, it also can be about blushing and contrast, ultimately what might appeal to one person may not appeal to the next one, the great thing is that with patience you can find the animal that is the definition of high quality based on YOUR own criteria of high quality.