Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know that genetic mutations change the way a ball python looks as far as pigment go. But does it change anything else like size and/or temperment? Just a curiosity question. I mean i always see people posting pictures of their biggest balls (no pun intended) and they are always normal looking. Do some mutations or morphs get bigger or stay smaller than others? Also lets see some pictures of your biggest Morphs.

Some people have made observations that spiders eat and grow fast relative to other non-spiders in their collection. I'm not sure if there's anything concrete to support something like "Spiders grow faster than normals," but just an observation by some keepers nonetheless.

that most of the pics in "biggest balls" threads are normals is that females are larger than males and normal females make up the vast majority of most collections. Just an observation.
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"yeah, eagles have feathers hanging off of them too and I don't smoke --- out of them!" PS it was a dream catcher!

That, aaaaand most morphs are pretty new, when you think about it - in the last four to five years, most of them, and new ones every year. A lot of morphs haven't finished "growing up" yet; they might be big enough to breed but not necessarily as big as they're gonna get.

That, and as was mentioned before, there are waaaaay more normal ball pythons out there than morphs.

In a few years I'm sure we'll start seeing some giant morphs, too.

~jenny
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1.2 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, and Periscope)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
1.1 betta fishes (Vicious and Killer)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
1.25 chickens (Ugly the rooster and his harem)

"The problem with America is stupidity. Now, I'm not saying we use capital punishment, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"

one more aspect to this is that alot of the huge normal females were animals that individuals have picked up from other people that had them as pets for quite a few years. These females were never taken off feed and cooled for breeding thus helping them reach the large proportions that they are. Our largest female is 3400g, by no means a giant but she is also over 7 yrs old and has produced 5 clutches of eggs in each of the last 5 years. I've seen a couple very large albino and pied females that weighed over 3500g and they are very impressive animals to say the least.

If you want to grow up a very large ball python, buy a female, feed her alot, never breed her and wait 10 years. You'll have a giant for sure. I wonder if waiting 5 years to breed a female and get a very large number of eggs would make up for the few years that you would be getting small number of eggs from her, hmmmmmmmmmmmm?
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

I have a female that's turning 15 in January (I've had her since she was 4 weeks old, and I was 5 years old) who's just laid her first clutch this season. Three good eggs and one bad one, a small clutch but considering this is my first season too, I'm okay with that!
She's about 5 feet, give or take an inch, and before she went off feed I'd guesstimate her at about 6 or 7 pounds (She weighed more than my 5.5 pound bunny, and since it was a noticeable difference, I figured a pound or two). Not the biggest ball ever, but a chunky lady nonetheless. I don't own a scale (yet), so I don't have exact weights.

I wonder if you aren't right about waiting another year or two and in the long run getting larger, healthier clutches (and larger, healthier snakes). I've got a cute lil reduced pattern baby, mebbe I'll wait til she's four before breeding her, just to see After all, there'll be 20 years after that for breeding! Gotta love long-lived snakes!

~jenny
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1.2 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, and Periscope)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
1.1 betta fishes (Vicious and Killer)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
1.25 chickens (Ugly the rooster and his harem)

"The problem with America is stupidity. Now, I'm not saying we use capital punishment, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"

big girls aren't better than little girls....

you get 12 eggs from a big girl and she doesn't lay every year due to being to fat......yet little 1400 gram girls give me 9 eggs each,.........said it before.......5 girls 9 from 4 of them and 5 big girls and got 6 from 11 and 0,0,0,0, from the other fatbutts.......the fat girls were fed one large mouse every other week or less this year....and haven't lost any weight really......

think about that when you see these people feeding a large rat every week........and then some.........

others agree with me........took them 3 years to get eggs from a huge girl I sold them and she lays about every other year......12 every other or 8 and 9 every year....smaller better...
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and I am still waiting for that "magical" check......
mail isn't that slow.....come on man....write it out.....!50

my spider ate alot then stopped...he is 1 1/2 and like 800 grams?.........then there is the poss het pied....she's 15 months and like 1600 grams........

the onlt thing I noticed is the hets here grow faster and better than the other stuff.......my albinos grow well too......

and all the balls are the same 5 foot sizes more or less....in the end....

balls are balls.........
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and I am still waiting for that "magical" check......
mail isn't that slow.....come on man....write it out.....!50