So the UK Really Banned Spider Balls

[pretends2bnormal]

Even some experienced keepers don't know that these things exist.

I care a lot about all animals. It's simple. I wouldn't buy
Here is a list of morphs / combos with defects that I don't support: http://www.owalreptiles.com/issues.php

Honestly, I'm not sure I can agree with your statement about experienced keepers not being aware. I suppose it depends on your definition, but I don't personally count the person with a single PetSmart ball python that is kept with incorrect husbandry due to ignorance as experienced even if the snake is still alive 7 years later. That person may never know about morph issues, but serious keepers who research I think would be hard pressed to avoid finding out about it. There are dozens of posts on all the forums I've seen talking about it and many articles about the awful-ness of spider BPs. Reddit is extremely against it and spider wobble is brought up, often in the first 3 posts, of a newbie asking what morph they should get or for ideas of cool lower cost morphs/combos. Facebook is probably similar, though I've never gone near the BP groups on there.

My 2nd snake was a spider ball python and within the first day I spent researching care before I went to get one, I came across spider wobble in several places (none related to the outcry against them, funny enough.. mostly just pages on forums asking if their snake is sick from someone who didn't know and had done no research on husbabdry). Very quickly that exact link was posted and I could see all of the problem morphs.

Now that I've had him, I noticed something interesting about the wobble, at least for him. He has minimal issue on flat surface (only during high excitement live feeds which was all he accepted at first. Now he eats frozen just fine with no excitement wobble at all). Moves exactly like my other BPs. It only becomes evident when you pick him up, and his manifests as the apparent inability to stay upright... but it has the consistency that he orients his head ALWAYS to be upright compared to the surface he is on. If he is on your arm, as he moves around it in a circle, he is very good at keeping his head upright if the arm was center of gravity. Kind of an interesting thing, makes me wonder if that is the cause. Something related to the gravity-detection part of the brain.

He is not a no-wobble spider, but he is far from severe or one that I would question the quality of life.

I don't think bans are the answer from a government authority. All that will do, in my opinion, is remove any competition for backyard breeders who are now the ONLY source of the "cool" morph combos with spiders. And those breeders will not care about wobble or attempting to minimize it.

Plenty of less ethical people will still want and buy them from that kind of place and all it will do is make lives worse for the snakes being bred. When there are more quality sources that do produce ones without wobble or minimal wobble with good reputation, people will prefer that over a no-name breeder and creates lower demand from backyard breeders. Some will always suffer from someone's ignorance or stupidity, but I think banning would increase the scale of that suffering.

Olympus Reptiles appears to be doing a good job breeding spiders with no noticeable wobble (and since he shows all the babies of his clutches, I feel good that he isn't hiding anything). I do think there is something to the ability to breed for low wobble, I think it hasn't been isolated well yet.

For the same reasons, I would not support bans for dog breeds. It will only have the same results, in my opinion.

Just my thoughts. I do think that people overestimate how many spiders have the severe wobble like the ones posted on YouTube of awful issues. For every video there are dozens of posts from people who own one that say theirs is nowhere near that bad and is living very well. (As much as I don't support needlessly killing animals, ones that display severe wobble like that should have been culled if it displayed like that as babies, regardless how valuable their genetics are.)

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk