CapeFearConstrict
Wilmington, NC
Male, 32
I've been working with ball pythons for over ten years now. Two years ago I decided to breed them as a business. I run a small operation. Currently I have approximately 100 snakes in my breeding program and hope to produce over 200 babies in the 2013 breeding season. I've always been fascinated by reptiles, snakes in particular, and being able to work with them every day is very satisfying.
I feel ball pythons are a great starter snake. They are very docile, reluctant to bite and they don't get too big. Some snakes are very active when being handled, they will be going this way and that, and for a child this might pose problematic if the snake gets away from them. Ball pythons will explore a little bit while being handled, but they aren't usually quick moving and they are easy to control. Ball pythons aren't perfect though. They are notoriously picky eaters. I have some snakes that haven't eaten in over seven months. This is frustrating when you're trying to raise up a snake for breeding, but as a pet owner, it's not such a big deal. Corn snakes are another species that come highly recommended. I have no personal experience with them, so I can't comment much. Definitely research any species you decide to go with before bringing your pet home.
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If a mutation is genetic, there's always a chance that it will be passed onto offspring. DNA comes in pairs. Each part of the DNA contributes something to the oganism. When a baby is created, half the DNA comes from the mom, half from the dad. Some mutations are only on half of the DNA pair, others are on both. When it's on half, there's a 50% chance it passes onto each offspring, when it's on both, there's 100% chance it passes on (but the resulting offspring may only end up with half the mutation, unless both parents pass on the mutation).
This is a very simplified explanation, but hopefully it gets the idea across. Any genetic mutation is passable. When the mutation is caused by environmental causes (usually due to temperature issues during development in the case of ball pythons), those mutations are not passed onto offspring.
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You can't really train snakes in the same manner as you can a dog. Reptile brains are very primitive. There's not much there beyond the essentials for survival. Snakes do get vibes from humans though. If you are handling a snake and you're nervous and scared, the snake will realize that and also be on edge. If you are calm and confident, the snake will know it and be more at ease. It's still under debate on whether or not snakes learn and can identify their owners vs others. Some snake owners will swear their snake treats them differently than others. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the snake really is only reacting to how you are feeling. Also, snakes tend to change their personalities as they age. Babies are typically more easily irritated and more likely to bite. They have to be though, as in the wild, baby snakes are easy prey. Once they reach adulthood, they tend to mellow out. As far as danger, if it's a smaller snake, the only dangerous area is going to be their teeth. When someone is handling one of my snakes, I caution them to keep the snake's head out of striking distance of their face. Ball pythons have heat sensing organs that help them find their prey. Your face is warm and your breath is hot, so that's a big ball of heat that the snake is seeing and in a moment of confusion, they might strike. As I mentioned before though, a bite from a ball python isn't exactly dangerous. It's more of an annoyance than anything. You also want to avoid sudden movements. Predators in the wild move and attack quickly, so any sudden movements might be seen as an attack and could result in a defensive strike. Now, with venomous snakes, you don't want to be anywhere near them unless you've had proper training. Bad things happen when a venomous snake bites you. Larger constrictor snakes, such as burmese pythons or reticulated pythons, can pose more of a danger, since they are strong enough to constrict you to the point where you can't do anything about it. It's always recommended that you don't handle large constrictors alone. Always have someone on hand to help, in case the snake starts constricting. The snake won't constrict you with the idea of eating you, but if the snake is draped around your neck and starts feeling uneasy, it might tighten its grip on your neck in order to keep from falling off, and that could lead to a bad situation. Once you get enough experience working with the snakes, you learn how they work. You understand their body language and know when they are relaxed and when they really just want to be left alone. I can easily tell if one of my snakes is likely to bite, and through experience I also know the best ways to handle a snake that is likely to bite so that they don't bite.
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As far as I know, there are no pythons that are cannibals. There are some other species of snakes, such as the king snake or the king cobra, that do eat other snakes.
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There's no set rule that can be used to determine if a mutation (morph) will be valuable. It's all determined by how desirable the mutation is and how much supply there is of that mutation. As for making an individual snake valuable, you have some control over that. You would need to pair up a male and/or female that contain the gene or genes that you want in the baby, and then hope you hit the odds. The way the mutations work is that a baby is born that is different. The difference might be subtle or it might be blatantly obvious. Most of the morphs we have today came from wild caught animals from Africa. When these snakes are found, we don't know if the mutation is caused by a genetically passable trait, or if it's just some anomaly in the snake. A breeder will need to buy the snake and prove it out, which in some cases, can be very expensive. As an example, the viper ball mutation was bought for $70,000 and turned out not to be genetic. The GHI ball mutation was bought for $125 and now animals with that single gene are going for $10,000. It's a gamble that some of the big breeders take because the payoff can be enormous. A single new desirable gene can make a breeder hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few years. Can you create a valuable snake by breeding two normal or common snakes together? In extremely, extremely rare instances, yes, but normally no, that doesn't happen. The only way it could happens is if a random mutation occurs in one of the babies that turns out to be both genetic and desirable. There have been very few instances of this happening, but it does happen.
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Honestly, that's a tough question. An easier question would be "what's the worst thing about breeding snakes?" That would be cleaning up snake poop day after day. :) The best thing... It would have to be seeing baby snakes hatch out of their eggs. It takes anywhere from 4-8 months from the time you start pairing the male and female together until she lays eggs and those eggs are ready to hatch. Those babies are the culmination of months of anticipation, hoping, hard work and patience. It's a combination of seeing the miracle of new life, the feeling of accomplishment in knowing that you had a big hand in making it happen, and the hope you have for the future with the babies you just hatched. That would be the best thing about breeding snakes as far as I'm concerned.
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I think I need to clarify what exactly constitutes an attack from a python. Pythons only attack their prey. They strike, bite and constrict. They don't crush, but their constricting makes it difficult for their prey to breathe. With every exhale of the prey, the snake constricts tighter, making it impossible for the prey to breathe. Ultimately, the prey will suffocate and die. At that point, the snake releases the constriction and swallows the prey. I've never been attacked by a python, in the sense that they thought I was prey. I know this has happened to others, and there are methods to get them to release, but in general, they will let go after a few minutes when they realize you aren't dying and they've mistaken you for food. Most bites people get from pythons are from defensive strikes. These are bites that occur because the snake is scared and wants you to leave them alone. The snake will not pursue you, but rather will seek to run away. Therefore, the best way to get them to calm down is to put them back in their enclosure and leave them alone. Generally speaking, the time between opening the snake's enclosure and when you pick them up is the time when you're most likely to get bit. Once you get them in your hands, they usually calm down and are fine. Every once in a while, you'll get one that is so high strung that even after picking them up they are tense and stressed out. The only thing you can do with those are to spend time handling them every day. That may acclimate them to your handling and they should calm down.
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