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Breeding for more than just colors
While cleaning out my snake bins today, I had my girl Jasmine [Butter, Pastel] on my shoulders. She is probably the most docile, curious, and easily handled snake in my entire collection and I started wondering if theres anyone who breeds with the consideration of things like offspring vigor, temperament and feeding response. After all, what good is hatching pretty snakes if they're mean as heck or never seem to want to eat?
Do you breed with more than just colors in mind?
Captain of "The Good Ship Blip"
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The Following User Says Thank You to Joykoins For This Useful Post:
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Re: Breeding for more than just colors
Originally Posted by Joykoins
Do you breed with more than just colors in mind?
Yes, but, to a lesser extent: Of course you are going to initially pick the snakes with the best colors/patterning for holdbacks when they are hatchlings-some will be nippy/nervous/shy/problem feeders, but, that does not mean that the adult snake will be the same way at maturity. If you have several hatchlings with the same quality to pick from for breeding holdbacks-then of course you will select the ones with the best personality/vigor/etc.
As for breeding adult ball pythons with good dispositions for the express purpose of producing good tempered snakes: I can't remember the last time I saw someone on MorphMarket posting a snake for a higher price because it had a really good personality...but, I have seen snakes marked lower for notably poor behavior.
People often tell me that the worst tempered ball python is still better than an average specimen of XYZ species of snake that they own...
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I've not seen this done for ball pythons. I do have two retics I'd like to pair not only because they'd make nice morphs, but because they both have excellent temperaments.
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The Following User Says Thank You to bcr229 For This Useful Post:
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Back in the 90's people were breeding retics for temperament as much if not more than for color pattern.
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to MasonC2K For This Useful Post:
bcr229 (09-09-2019),Bogertophis (09-09-2019)
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It's been talked about before here and there over the years. I believe user JordanOrNoDan is breeding for size and temperament and has discussed it on this site.
I didn't read through this thread but searching breeding for size or 'temperament' brings up a few threads on the subject
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...ht=temperament
Hope that helps. good luck!
Last edited by AbsoluteApril; 09-09-2019 at 01:02 PM.
Reason: spelling
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For the Horde!
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to AbsoluteApril For This Useful Post:
Ax01 (09-09-2019),bcr229 (09-09-2019)
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It makes sense to breed snakes as much for temperament as for other considerations, & if that reduces the number of offspring, even better- as I suspect there is
more than enough to go around, and if the pets people buy had better temperaments to begin with they might be kept for a lifetime, instead of being discarded
for something new. At least by one type of owner?
This is a tough question though, because on the one hand, I'd love to see species preserved as they are in the wild...and it's probably the most feisty snakes that
survive the best- the ones that make the worst pets...and it's also the plainer colors (& not albinos etc) that survive in the wild. Survival of the fittest- nature wins.
But it's also hard to argue with all the fancy "eye candy" snakes that breeders come up with now...living works of art, for sure...things that you don't find in nature,
things that would also not likely survive in nature -I'm assuming, because they never have. It will take a while, but eventually all the artificial choices we make
in lieu of natural selection will end up with domesticated snakes...and that, for me, goes against what I love about snakes in the first place. That they're wild...
It's really hard to have it both ways...as natural habitat is destroyed by population growth (land used for crops, road, industry, loss of space) are pet snakes all we're
going to have left? I hope not.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
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Registered User
Re: Breeding for more than just colors
Originally Posted by Bogertophis
It makes sense to breed snakes as much for temperament as for other considerations, & if that reduces the number of offspring, even better- as I suspect there is
more than enough to go around, and if the pets people buy had better temperaments to begin with they might be kept for a lifetime, instead of being discarded
for something new. At least by one type of owner?
This is a tough question though, because on the one hand, I'd love to see species preserved as they are in the wild...and it's probably the most feisty snakes that
survive the best- the ones that make the worst pets...and it's also the plainer colors (& not albinos etc) that survive in the wild. Survival of the fittest- nature wins.
But it's also hard to argue with all the fancy "eye candy" snakes that breeders come up with now...living works of art, for sure...things that you don't find in nature,
things that would also not likely survive in nature -I'm assuming, because they never have. It will take a while, but eventually all the artificial choices we make
in lieu of natural selection will end up with domesticated snakes...and that, for me, goes against what I love about snakes in the first place. That they're wild...
It's really hard to have it both ways...as natural habitat is destroyed by population growth (land used for crops, road, industry, loss of space) are pet snakes all we're
going to have left? I hope not.
Well said!
Captain of "The Good Ship Blip"
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Re: Breeding for more than just colors
Originally Posted by AbsoluteApril
It's been talked about before here and there over the years. I believe user JordanOrNoDan is breeding for size and temperament and has discussed it on this site.
I didn't read through this thread but searching breeding for size or 'temperament' brings up a few threads on the subject
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...ht=temperament
Hope that helps. good luck!
good memory! he's also breeding for feeding response/appetite. it's a short read but he mentions it in this thread here: https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...or-temperament
RIP Mamba
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The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Ax01 For This Useful Post:
AbsoluteApril (09-09-2019),Alicia (09-09-2019),Bogertophis (09-09-2019)
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thanks! that's the thread I was trying to find
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