# Balls Out!



## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

Ball _pythons_ that is.









I've recently become very interested in ball pythons. I've always been a fan as I think they're the "cute" snake of the slithery world. But I have had the experience over the past week to interact with them a lot more and I really love their adult size, the girth, their attitudes (some are right spunky while others are little puppy dogs), etc. I also love some of the morphs!

The morphs I'm really interested in are lesser platinum, pastel and spider. I'd love to make some lesser bees and queen bees. They're just fantastic looking animals. I also like the albinos. I definitely have to do a bit more reading on the genetics to see what traits are dominant, co-dominant and recessive... etc etc... to figure out exactly what I should look into getting if I do indeed get into balls.

Does anyone on the forums have ball pythons? Normals? Morphs? Would love to see them!










Cheers.


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## sapir (Jun 20, 2008)

I don't keep snakes atm but I had 2 normal ball pythons a couple years back when simple morphs were a couple thousands and up. Watch out for the spiders tho because they spin, from what I know they all do it just some are more noticable then others. I know kingofkings has an albino ball hopefully he posts it.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

balls are probably the snake ill get if/ when i get one, that or hogg islnand boas. Mojaves are pretty cool. There cool snakes, but nice ones are pretty expensive. At least you can get homzygous snakes from 2 100% hets that are much cheaper lol


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## dark FrOsT (Sep 23, 2006)

awesome snakes, i have one now... waiting for my t4 check then i think im getting an albino  super pump for it


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## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

Albinos are awesome. I am not a huge fan of a lot of albino animals. But for some reason I like the albino ball pythons. They're pretty neat.

I think if I start getting some animals this year I'm goin to focus mainly on females. It's more important to get the females early than the males as the girls need some time to grow before being able to breed. The catch is that by the time they are able to breed their morph value will have plummetted as they will be a lot more common, making them harder to sell. I don't want to be stuck with tons of baby ball pythons, haha. But that wouldn't be any time soon anyway.


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## psychofish (Jun 5, 2004)

Hands down the best pythons I have seen are here

VPI

They also have tons of info on the site.


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## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

Considering they have morphs with their name in it, yes... they are right up there with the best breeders around.


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## SERRAPYGO (Feb 4, 2003)

Put this in the lounge, and there's a whole new meaning to this thread.









And pics I don't wanna see!


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## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

Yeah, knowing some of the folks on this site... no thanks!!


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## No0dles (Dec 16, 2003)

haha


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## ICEE (Feb 3, 2007)

Mettle said:


> Albinos are awesome. I am not a huge fan of a lot of albino animals. But for some reason I like the albino ball pythons. They're pretty neat.
> 
> I think if I start getting some animals this year I'm goin to focus mainly on females. It's more important to get the females early than the males as the girls need some time to grow before being able to breed. The catch is that by the time they are able to breed their morph value will have plummetted as they will be a lot more common, making them harder to sell. I don't want to be stuck with tons of baby ball pythons, haha. But that wouldn't be any time soon anyway.


Sadly to say that is correct. If you started now with mojaves then by the time they are able to breed their price will plummet.Their already down to $300 range. If you would have got into it a few years ago then ya you coulda made a lot of money. I remember when leucys were 10k and up range, now lucky to get $1000. The Commercial breeders are now into like double tripple quadruple hets.


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## No0dles (Dec 16, 2003)

that site has some very beautiful species and quite pricey. im scared of BIG ASS SNAKES! liek the 10-15 footers.......them things will wrap you up in a heart beat lol i'm just a p*ssy! i read this article in the newspaper last year there was a guy who had a pit viper in a cardboard box and went into a local walmart when he came out the snake was gone, they had animal control out there with half the parking lot closed looking through all the bushes and trees etc. for a 6-8 hours until it got dark. then they told people to just be aware and if they see anything call animal control....they never found the snake though!


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## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

No0dles said:


> Albinos are awesome. I am not a huge fan of a lot of albino animals. But for some reason I like the albino ball pythons. They're pretty neat.
> 
> I think if I start getting some animals this year I'm goin to focus mainly on females. It's more important to get the females early than the males as the girls need some time to grow before being able to breed. The catch is that by the time they are able to breed their morph value will have plummetted as they will be a lot more common, making them harder to sell. I don't want to be stuck with tons of baby ball pythons, haha. But that wouldn't be any time soon anyway.


Sadly to say that is correct. If you started now with mojaves then by the time they are able to breed their price will plummet.Their already down to $300 range. If you would have got into it a few years ago then ya you coulda made a lot of money. I remember when leucys were 10k and up range, now lucky to get $1000. The Commercial breeders are now into like double tripple quadruple hets.
[/quote]

Yeah, but I'm not in it for the money. Besides, the average small time, hobbyist breeder will rarely make much if any of their total investment back on these animals. You have to be REALLY into it to get anywhere. And the start-up costs are huge. Though if someone REALLY wanted to get into the game now it would be easy with the right investment. A few years back, like you said, a mojave would go for a lot. Now it's something else. There's ALWAYS something else with ball pythons. And if you want to play that game you better be walking up to the table with about $50k to invest into some quality animals for future breeding projects. But to me that's just silly. I would just want a few snakes from morphs that I like that I could breed and sell the babies of. That's all. I'm not looking to get rich off of it. Just make some of my money back...


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## No0dles (Dec 16, 2003)

yes people do f*ck it up for everyone all the time







but why would anyone want to own a pit viper unless they are a fish store owner or something along the lines and just want a badass venomous snake on display? aren't they considered illegal in most if not all states here in america?


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## ICEE (Feb 3, 2007)

I hear you mettle, but the get rich approach was taken by far too many people, and now their paying for it :laugh:

Ball Pythons are very fun! And waiting for the eggs to hatch, well thats the worst part :rasp:


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