Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I went to the Hamburg expo,i was gonna get an albino burm but unfourtnately our house got robbed. So my dad,cuz,sizs and i went anyways. my dad loaned me money and i got a normal burm that is just shy of 2ft. and my sis got a male BP for my female BP, her male BP is 50% pos. het ghost and weighs 535 grams. So wat will i get when i breed it with my BP?any way he is a lil devil, i had them both(my female BP and the male BP) and when i went to take them off they already locked up.so i quickly seperated them.I wouldv'e let them but she( i don't think is heavy enough to breed)any ways the burm ate already and the BP is all ready refusing, so i will try later on in the week. here are a couple of pics.

Here is another one

Did you say that you want to breed your burm to a ball python? I hope that was a mistake; if not, you might want to give this some serious thought....like, maybe a new hobby.

PS: As an aside, if you had to scrounge/borrow money to get a normal burm, how are you going to afford taking the snake to a vet should it need it? Just curious.

>>I went to the Hamburg expo,i was gonna get an albino burm but unfourtnately our house got robbed. So my dad,cuz,sizs and i went anyways. my dad loaned me money and i got a normal burm that is just shy of 2ft. and my sis got a male BP for my female BP, her male BP is 50% pos. het ghost and weighs 535 grams. So wat will i get when i breed it with my BP?any way he is a lil devil, i had them both(my female BP and the male BP) and when i went to take them off they already locked up.so i quickly seperated them.I wouldv'e let them but she( i don't think is heavy enough to breed)any ways the burm ate already and the BP is all ready refusing, so i will try later on in the week. here are a couple of pics.
>>
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

no i did not say that, i said my female bp and the new bp already locked up, then i said my burm ate, sorry to have u confused, im exp. enough to not breed them 2 species

>>no i did not say that, i said my female bp and the new bp already locked up, then i said my burm ate, sorry to have u confused, im exp. enough to not breed them 2 species
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Hey there,

Sorry to hear that y'all got robbed. It's always a shame to hear about crimes being commited against good folks.

I am happy to hear that there was a silver lining on your otherwise dark cloud and that you were still able to get a burm. I'm sure you will do just fine with him.

Best of luck with your ball python breeding after you get your female fattened up a tad.
Our Website

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David Beauchemin
High End Herps.Inc
http://HighEndHerps.com

thx, yes my dad brang some money, we all didn't get robbed just my room, so my dad bought me the snake and he said i just have to pay him back half that, actually im glad i got a normal burm, i was going to get an albino but i kinda already fell in love wit the normal colors as well.

Again I know its not a brillent question but I am just curious and looking to get educated. Why would could you not try breeding a burm to a ball. I am guessing, the size difference, and the ball possibly smelling like food and getting eaten and when breeding off things like that should they be the same size.
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0.2 Rotts
1.0 Super Tiger
0.1 Green Burm
0.1 Ball Python
0.1 Red Tail
0.1 Blood Python
1.0 Green Ananconda

cuz if it was possible, the offspring would be a hybrid, any way i think its cuz they are 2 different species(some different species have been bred succesfully though)Anyway i am interested in breeding my two balls, sorry for all the misunderstanding. Oh and i almost forgot, great news, i Casper(the new male ball python my sis bought just ate a few mins ago.

This is a full shot of Aries resting on my habd, he is between 20-24 inches long

It's a good question and I'm sure some people must have tried
it by now considering what the market is like for morphs..

Taking into account how most Burm breeders try and breed their
females as soon as possible, if a large male ball were bred to a
young burm female what would happen???

I personally hate boa morphs especially all the Hog interbreeds,
but I've always been fascinated by Bateaters. I'd never buy one,
but I love to look at them...

With all the sweet looking ball morphs the possibilities seem
intriguing...

I'm glad you asked this question because I actually am in the process of attempting this hybrid cross. We have had great success with african rock and burmese hybrid projects and the ball python, while a lot smaller, is in the same genre or family as the rock and the burmese so I see no real realson why this cross should not work.

There is another guy that has pictures of his ball male breeding his granite burmese female. Interesting photos and very inspiring. We have yet to actually have our male balls (het piebald) physically copulate with any of our burmese but we will keep trying and eventually I am sure we will get it. We hope we're the first at this intriguing project but all the same, best of luck to all the others that either are trying this... or will be after reading this post. lol

We are also attempting burmese blood hybrids, retic blood hybrids and diamond/jungle/irian crosses
Our Website

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David Beauchemin
High End Herps.Inc
http://HighEndHerps.com

about the bloods.
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0.2 Rotts
1.0 Super Tiger
0.1 Green Burm
0.1 Ball Python
0.1 Red Tail
0.1 Blood Python
1.0 Green Ananconda

This hobby, plain and simple, has gotten so royally screwed up that I just can't believe it any more. Just because we "can" doesn't mean that we "should". Do we just continuually water down pure strains just to be the first at doing somethng that could reward someone with some do-ray-me?...that's ludicrous. All we will have are a bunch of "mutt snakes"! For me, its just a purely philosophical problem that I have with the rampant hybridization that is taking place...there's no place for it and absolutely NO reason for it. But, when people make a quick buck for doing it, well, its a free world I suppose.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center

>>Again I know its not a brillent question but I am just curious and looking to get educated. Why would could you not try breeding a burm to a ball. I am guessing, the size difference, and the ball possibly smelling like food and getting eaten and when breeding off things like that should they be the same size.
>>-----
>>0.2 Rotts
>>1.0 Super Tiger
>>0.1 Green Burm
>>0.1 Ball Python
>>0.1 Red Tail
>>0.1 Blood Python
>>1.0 Green Ananconda
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

I thought I really had something when I got my Italian greyhound. Then I started talking dogs with people and looking at pet ads-mutts are far more than "pure" breeds. Someone at work spent $300 on a "doxapoo", and lab/poodle crosses are everywhere for about that. I'm just waiting to see the Bulldog/Shihtzu crosses.

Are all genetically modified and have different genes spliced in.

Noone really knows what the long term effects will be, effects
on US. Geneticists and scientists have recently discovered that
the genes they have been splicing usually have more than just
one effect in our bodies...

It's strange, I feel just as disgusted about this in the boa
world, but not about pythons. Boas don't get huge though & they
are endangered in some cases. I think that Burms and rets get
too big to be pets for the majority of people. We are seeing
the after-effects of this in all the lurid escaped python
stories.

If they aren't endangered I don't find it aesthetically
revolting. After all it has been done with all domesticated
animals; pigs, cows, chickens, why would reptiles be any different?

Ryan and Rob:
I understand your respective objections. In fact, I share them in large part. But it seems "because we can" is virtually the same as "so we will" when it comes to our propensity to meddle in genetics. Our purebred dogs genetically derive from from our selective breeding over time. That has not stopped Ryan, as you point out. Isn't that esentially what we seem intent on doing with snakes? In both cases it seems presumptous that we so easily undo what has taken mankind (in the case of canines) and natural selection (in the case of snakes) so long to establish.

Bulldog/Shihtzu??? Boy THAT just burned a really strange image in my brain.

Quig

its more about the name than the image... bull-dog [bleep]-zu...
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Bryan, Atlanta GA

1-0-0 Rescued Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Rescued Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Rescued Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
0-0-1 Rescued Non-Alpha Green Iguana - Bud
1-1-0 Rescued Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-0-1 Rescued Dieting Panda Hamster - Mr. Fluffy
0-1-0 Rescued Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids

I agree with your distaste Rob. While the whole morph thing is a bit much for me, the hybrid thing definately crosses the line.
I thought we'd have learned from the mess dog breeders made of that species a long time ago. I guess the only mistake worth learning from was Hiroshima eh?
We'll, by the time I'm an accomplished herp vet, I'll surely have plenty of "new breeds" of snakes that come in for cogenital breathing problems, or back problems, dystocias ect to keep me busy since I don't want to see too many canines.

Ian

You know, some where out there there is someone that read that post and thought "hey I wounder what would happen if I tried to breed my snake and my dog?". As for me, I am just sitting back with my "normal" and waiting till we have too many hybrids and morphs causing the price to skyrocket on normals!
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Bryan, Atlanta GA

1-0-0 Rescued Ball Python - Apep
0-1-0 Rescued Mountain Horned Dragon - Ki
0-0-1 Rescued Aggressive Bearded Dragon - Zeus
0-0-1 Rescued Non-Alpha Green Iguana - Bud
1-1-0 Rescued Rats... no wait... ROTTEN Little Cats - Ra, Bastet
0-0-1 Rescued Dieting Panda Hamster - Mr. Fluffy
0-1-0 Rescued Little Angelic Kitten - Isis
1-0-0 Horse... whoops... BIG Golden Retriever - Jake
0-1-0 Wife
2-0-0 Kids

Excellent Bryan! I'll pay your asking price for the pick of the litter.

I totally agree Rob and the damage of cross breeding becomes obvious in no time. I remember just a few years ago when there was no question as to what a pure hog island boa was. Now I see them in the classified being posted as pure, and they are obvious crosses. This in just a few years of crossing them with Colombians. People producing hybrids have no regard for the future captive population of reptiles, or for future herpers for that matter. Think about 50 or 100 years from now, no one will have any idea what kind of snakes they have. I seen it referred to as a "genetic catastrophe" and thats pretty accurate.

"Think about 50 or 100 years from now, no one will have any idea what kind of snakes they have"

That is pure BS!!!

Sorry but it is. One fact that I guess you don't think of is there are a lot of people who feel as you do. Those people will keep their lines pure, as I'm sure you will. I my self will always have pure lines, even if I do start to breed some hybrids.
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Please...
Keep an OPEN MIND, You'll be AMAZED...

We're all entitled to an opinion but the proof of my post is in the boa classifieds "pure hog island boa" that is an obvious cross. Posted today, but I see them all the time. Just one example.

As long as greed and the almighty dollar are at the forefront of this hobby (and it is) we will continue to have problems, see captive populations go down the toilet, and see the "fun" of just keeping good old fashioned snakes go down the tubes. I don't mean to be a pessimist as there are some top knotch private breeders/keepers out there, but all you have to do is spend some time at the various shows, etc. and you will get a realistic vision of what lies ahead.

>>We're all entitled to an opinion but the proof of my post is in the boa classifieds "pure hog island boa" that is an obvious cross. Posted today, but I see them all the time. Just one example.
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

How can we get other people to give our hobby the respect it deserves when a good amount of breeders appear to be too money-hungry to really care about their pets as anything more than 'investments'. Obviously this isn't the majority, but stand back and look at what's happening to the hobby. Everyone is obsessed with high-end morphs. Yeah, they sell for a lot, but guess who buys them...more breeders who intend to sell them for a similar price, who end up selling them to even more breeders. Normal people don't want to pay $5000 for a 'high-end morph' if they want a pet. People are forgetting about the beauty of 'normals'. They are the most natural, the most adapted to their surroundings. Why do people seem to stay away from them now? Because there's more money in a rare reptile. A lot of species of reptiles are easy enough to breed that nearly anyone can get offspring regardless of how unhealthy their reptiles are, or what conditions they are kept in. I see more and more low-quality reptiles (specifically bearded dragons) that keep entering the market, because people breed them and don't give them the care they should have. There's a reason we see so many around that are missing feet or tails. You can't keep more than a few baby dragons in a suitable size tank before something bad is going to happen.

Sorry to rant, and I don't want anyone to think I'm targetting the breeders of morphs or specific people. A lot of breeders do a fantastic job taking care of their animals. I'm more talking about the people that keep their reptiles very poorly and are in it solely for the money. I do think there is a problem with common breeding practices (such as the amount of inbreeding that goes on in order to get certain morphs, which ultimately results in genetically weaker animals). I think that people in the trade are a bit too focused on the financial aspect of it though, when I see some reptiles selling for over $100,000, for instance.

Basically, the main thing I'm trying to get at though, is that people seem to show less respect for nature in this hobby than they should. No one seems to enjoy normal patterns. People want a reptile that looks different. I keep reptiles because I enjoy watching them act as natural as I can get them to act in captivity.

But yes, I have shown people that are not herpers what people are charging for certain reptiles, and for the most part it seemed to leave an unsettling feeling with them about herpers. The perception people have of me is that I'm a nature buff with a love of animals. If people ever referred to my hobby as being a business, I would probably reconsider what I was doing and why. that's just me though.

I hate to always relate to the dogs, but it's a good example because it's the same thing, different species.

Dog breeders certainly have respect, and this can be seen by the affinity for pure-breds. There is still the market for mutts, and the new "pure-bred" mutts like labradoodles ect. How was this hobby designed? The same, the almighty dollar. Though back in the day, the dollar didn't come for an albino, it came for a dog better suited for hunting, or fighting, or racing ect.

WHat does it take to breed dogs? Nothing, they do it all themselves. So how much respect does a dog, er snake breeder deserve?

Respect goes to the individual, and not the hobby in general. Any hobby. While some dumbnutts I meet at work still think the breeder who supplied "Spot" speaks the golden word, I think it's pretty well common sense that not everyone who breeds animals deserves respect.

What does a "natural" canis domesticus look like anyways? I sure hope our "pure" snake lineages don't get lost.

Ian

that's a good point, but I just don't like how much it seems like we're playing with genetics these days, and not even for stronger reptiles. We do it for better looking reptiles. The way I've always seen it is that we need to be a step better than the people that breed dogs/cats/etc. because our hobby already gets a bad rap because of a lack of knowledge by the general public.