Quote Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan View Post
I have multiple breeding programs going with balls. Most of them focus on producing specific morphs, however one program leans heavily to producing animals with exceptionally good temperaments and are easy feeders. Most of this line are relatively large animals.

Gen 2 produced about 25 babies from 3 different mothers. Out of the 25 2 had initial feeding issues. 1 of those got over it, one is still a pain in the butt.

50% of the animals are larger than average, the largest girl hitting 1300 grams at seven months.

One of the boys from this bunch bred at 3 months old. Out of the 25, 24 had perfect attitudes. The one that was not "perfect" hissed at me once. How much of the behavior is genetic and how much of it is the way I handle my animals in the beginning is an unknown right now. I have never produced an exceptionally pissy baby. This is the first season I have bred animals where one of the parents have a bit of an attitude problem so we will see what happens. I am guessing attitude is 50% genetic and 50% rearing.

I am in gen3 of this experiment is in the incubator now. We will see how many traits hold true.

The question is do people really care about attitude, size, and ease of feeding?
i think that's how BP's (and other snakes/herps) would go more mainstream. for a lack of better words (or education), it's kinda like the domestication process. herpers are still in this bubble. it's a niche and we're all still breeding for morphs - colors and patterns. a friendlier and easier to care for/feed BP would gain more acceptance. and if it looks great, awesome!

i've been watching alotta JKR vids recently. in a recent vid, he visited a breeder in South Africa who was breeding Cape File Snakes. in the vid below, he switched them to rodents over a few clutches (9:40) and his most recent batches open their mouths to accept the food (13:40).



i dunno the science (or math behind it) but i think it's possibile.