Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For six years I've been trying to convince my mother to let me keep snakes. However, she is terrified of them.

But now, perhaps from a lot of teaching her what snakes are about or maybe since I know I'm staying in town for college, my mother has finally allowed me to keep a snake- a ball python. Perhaps even a pair! There is a show near here in a few of months. If we can fit it into our schedule, we will both be going up there to take a look! Maybe I'll come home with a couple.

It seems a lot of people here have a lot of ball pythons or reptiles in general!
Just curious on other people's experienced: How did you get started in the hobby?

I bought one normal about 9 months ago and I didn't really know a whole lot about keeping snakes in general. I did some research on husbandry and such before I bought her but other than that no experience. After I got her I started doing more and more research then I found a pic of a piebald and it blew my mind so I started researching that and found more and more morphs and that was a wrap for me. After my normal I got a a pair of pastels, a pair of yellow bellies, a het orange ghost, the normal that was supposed to be a ghost (I really didn't know what to look for at the time, you live and you learn), a spider and a het pied and I plan to get more. I love the reading all I can about them, I love the genetic possibilities and really everything about them and I look forward to my first clutch whenever it may come.

Lol, I think that is pretty much how everyone got started falling down this crazy rabbit hole, only difference is how long you've been in the hoby, and how many BP's ya got running around your house,
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Coolluigi

1.0 Pastel
1.0 Yellowbelly
0.2 Normal
0.1 Spider
1.2 Het VPI Axanthic
and soon to be more. *fingers crossed*

I started in May 2005 with a normal ball. I wanted a female only because they get a little bigger, but bought an unsexed snake that ended up being a male. I saw all the morphs but didnt want to breed snakes(initially). After I saw how you can cross all the morphs I decided to jump in.

2 years ago I bought an albino female and het male. 18 months ago I got a pair of pastels. Over the past 8 months my collection grew to include 39 snakes. Im breeding more than half of them this year.

I suspect that I'll have close to 100 by next year.

My rat colony is really what has expanded though. 25 breeding females with more being raised up.
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1.14 Normal Ball Pythons
0.1 Albino
1.0 Het Albino
1.1 Het Jolliff Axanthic
1.0 CH Black Back
1.0 Butter
1.0 Cinnamon
2.3 het Butterscotch Ghost
1.0 Mojave
1.3 Pastel
1.0 Spider
0.1 CH Stripe
1.1 Woma
1.0 Yellowbelly het ivory

1.0 tiger het albino Reticulated Python

1.0 Blood Python

It all started with a baby red-eared slider and a wild caught garter about 26 years ago. I started breeding ratsnakes when I was 13, and have been breeding anything I could get my hands on ever since.

But I still enjoy field herping more than anything else.

I started with a garter snake when I was 8 years old (18 years ago :O) Anyhow, He died from mouthrot about 3 months later and I got a corn snake immediatly afterwards b/c my brother worked at an exotic pet store. Mom got upset when my brother's kingsnake kept escaping and she made me sell MY corn to a friend. Totally unrelated but I still had to get rid of mine. boooooo. Then I ended up adopting my brother's normal bp a couple years later and I still have him! He is about 14 years old now, along with his best friend that is about 12 years old and I have had that one for 8 of those years. I guess I was hooked ever since I was about 8 years old just because I was around snakes a lot!

Good thread by the way!
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1.1.0 Green Tree Pythons
0.0.2 Ball Pythons
0.0.1 California King
2.0.0 Ball Pythons (pet sitting)

i also love field herping and breeding reptiles. i enjoy being outside and looking for new things. nice picture of a box turtle.

I got started a year ago. My mom is terrified of snakes so she always told us that they were bad and scares the crap out of us. My girlfriend had been telling me that she want me to get her a Ball python (since she use to have one and her mother gave it away to a pet shop). I started doing some research and found out that it was nothing like my mom had told me. I told me girlfriend that I was going to get one but didn’t know what to get, them it came to my heat a snake that I had see when I was a boy (albino ball python). So I when to the reptile expo by my house and got a het female albino. That was last Jan. on April o got another female normal1200g and on Nov I got a male het albino pos snow. I think I’m hook. Now I’m thinking what to get this 25 since there is an other expo by my house.

The craze started when I was 6 and caught my first garter snake.
The pets started when, against my mom's wishes, I bought a corn snake when I was 16.
Ball pythons started when someone gave me one because she was having a baby.

And now I have a crested gecko too...with plans for more. Haha.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

I started keeping snakes and turtles in 1965! I never asked if I could keep them I just brought them home and that was that. Get yourself a good snake and educate those around you so they overcome their fear.

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Mark Kennedy

Dated a girl that had one, went to the Dixie show in Birmingham with her and met Terry there. The rest is history.
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Pastel 1.0
Spider 1.0
Normals 1.2
Het Pied 1.0
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 1.0

When i was a kid my dad would take us, me and my sister, to petstores and i would always go to the reptile area of the store. my dad grew up being taught that the only good snake is a dead snake but we learned so much and found that that wasn't true . We went to our first reptile show in texas when i was 8 and i got my first leopard gecko. then we moved to new york and decided to get milk snakes and grey banded kings and tried to breed them. we grew our leopard gecko collection to about 25 breeders and were getting lot of babies. we ended up getting out because my dad had heart problems. then in 2004 i think we got into ball pythons we went to daytona and got 10 poss het albino females then got an albino male on the internet and have grown since... we currently have about 180 ball pythons and hope to continue to grow

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Home

Good question:

I got my first snake when I was in 10th grade in 1974, from a pet store, it was a Burmese Python and the stupid guy at the pet store sold it to me even though I didn't know the first thing about taking care of it. My parents wouldn't let me have one, so I hid it in a aquarium in my closet. I knew they ate mice so a few days later I went to a closer pet store and bought an adult mouse to feed to my small Burmese. Well this mouse was way too big, and attacked my Burmese's tail. I knew nothing about keeping these things. And in 1974 you only had a choice between a normal Burmese Python, or a Columbian Boa.
I had a book on top of the aquarium's top to keep it in, and after about two weeks my snake found out he could lift the book up and get out. About 6:00AM in the morning my bedroom light goes on and my father is there asking if I own a snake. I said yes, and he then said, "Well you better go into the bathroom and get him then, because he's behind the toilet". Well that snake was taken back to the Pet Store that night. But once I did get a place of my own, that's when the snakes started coming in, and in the last 35 years I know a little bit more about keeping snakes. I never lost another one, and I never again tried feeding an adult mouse to a small snake.

Petstores are so irresponsible. I answered an add for one once and the guy told me the petstore he bought it from said you keep it in a ten gallon and it won't get bigger. The snake was a burmese around six feet long and he thought it was full grown.
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Pastel 1.0
Spider 1.0
Normals 1.2
Het Pied 1.0
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 1.0

Since everyone was posting pictures of their first thought I'd post mine.

Her name is Eve

She actually hatched the day before I picked her up and I had no clue about that until two years later a friend of the guy I got her from told me. Shes been a really great animal.
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Pastel 1.0
Spider 1.0
Normals 1.2
Het Pied 1.0
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 1.0

It all started a couple years ago. I saw a friends BP and i loved it. I was always afraid of snakes but when I saw how calm and cool this one was, I wanted one. I used to go to the local pet stores and hold as many as possible. I think they hated me. I'd always want to see everything, but never bought one. Then last Februay, I got my first one.

A friend of mine told me he had ball pythons in the past and that he got rid of them all but one. He kept it in his basement. One day he took me down to see it. It scared me to think that a friend of mine would do this to an animal. He said that Ball pythons get as big as retics if you let them and that he had done a good job of keeping the size down on this one. He only fed it once a month and only one mouse. It was cold, bad shed, and emaciated. He said that he thought it might die and didn't mind if it did. One less thing to deal with.

I told him right away that if he didn't want it, I'd take it. He said ok and gave it to me for my birthday. The first rat i gave him, he could barely coil. Good thing it was frozen because he was too weak to kill!

That was a year ago!

Below are three pics. The third is from last February. The second is from July. The first was taken today!!!

Oh and now I also have
1.0 Mojave
0.1 Pinstripe
0.1 Yellow belly

You saved its life! It looks great now!
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Adrian De Leon
Hissenia Reptiles

I grew up with critters around the house that my dad would find in the great outdoors. The first time I bought a snake (a San Felipe rosy boa) about 7 years ago, I was inspired by Britney Spear's MTV boa dance. (I kid you not) The ball python bug didn't really sink it's teeth into me until 2 years ago when my rosy passed away due to a tank decoration accident. A coworker of mines, was very generous to give me a normal male ball python. I knew of the morphs that existed, but wasn't too interested until I read up on the exciting world of ball python genetics. And it was the piebald that made me drool. I've been fortunate to hatch my first clutch last year and going for season #2 currently. Since then my collection has grown to ...

FEMALES
1 baby pastel
2 adult pastel
2 sub adult super pastel
1 adult mojave
1 baby black pastel
1 adult normal
1 baby orange ghost
1 pdh pied/albino

MALES
1 adult black pastel
1 adult spider
1 het pied

OTHER
1 san diego rosy boa

For me it started as a kid catching things in the yard and putting them in containers. My Mom was terrified of snakes when I was younger. When I was 17 I went to a pet store and bought a Ball python and brought it home..set it up in my room and then told my mom! Lol.. she later relaxed on the issue. So it started that way for me..haha
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Adrian De Leon
Hissenia Reptiles

I've been into herps since I was a kid. My first memory of snakes is when I was pretty small (maybe four or five) and I was in the back yard with my parents when I found a hognose under a bush. I'll never forget that. It was terrifying and yet really really really cool! By the time I was 7 I was terrorizing my mom by catching and bringing snakes home. I got my first real pet snake when I was 13. It was a snow corn snake (he just died in late October this past year, but he was a great ambassador on behalf of snakes ). I ended up having quite a collection, but had to get rid of most of them when I went to college, but I kept my first. I graduated college three years ago and am finally at a point where I can get back to having more snakes. My wife graciously indulges my "habit".

Dan
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1.0.0 Snow Corn - RIP
0.1.0 Normal Corn Snake
1.0.0 Amelanistic Corn Snake
1.1.0 Black Racers
0.1.0 Normal Ball Python
1.0.0 Pastel Ball Python
1.0.0 Red Eared Slider

Thanks for the replies everyone!
I enjoyed reading your stories!

It all started when I got my first herp (a leopard gecko)when I was 7 years old. Then i bred my corn snakes and then it took off. 2 corns 2 cal kings 2 green tree pythons 2 pastel balls 2 Het pied balls 1 normal 1 amazon tree boa 2 normal leopard geckos 1 aptor leopard 1 raptor leopard and 2 crested geckos 1 yellow belly ball. All will breed next year or the year after. I love ball pythons because of all the genetics and morphs, co doms and what not.

Kyle
Kyle's Reptyles
www.freewebs.com/kyleherp/

a friend of mine is a breeder (mostly boas) and has many cool stuff...he sold me a male bell line pastel last april. its been downhill since then. 2 Proven YB's, a stunning female pastel and a 1000 g female in which i adopted. all of them will be raised to breed eventually one day.
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"In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure."

Bill Cosby

WHAT I GOT!
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2.1 Pastels
1.1 YB's
0.1 Normal BP

wow, its fun to look back. It all started after I found an eastern milk snake in the back yard. I kept it for a little while then released it and realized i need to own reptiles. That was 17 years ago. I started working at a pet shop where I met who would become my future husband. We both became very involved in the trade attending shows together. Later I started working at Regal Reptiles, i got to play with the big gators and snakes. After working there for about 4 years we decided to branch off into Ball Pythons, that was 6 years ago.

We started with a few normal females and invested into a pastel ball python. I actually feel in love with a Bumble Bee at a White Plains show on Kevins table when they were still 25k. I knew then that i wanted to breed snakes, people say they have the ball python bug, well i was litterally bitten by a bee. From there it kind of spiraled out of control. We now have close to 1500 snakes and growing. We got married almost 2 years ago and have just continued growing our collection and breeding. I love this trade and I am very passionate about Ball Pythons. Breeding and hatching season is like Christmas for grown ups to me It honestly never gets old, only better with time.

Good luck with the start of your new collection.

ps, my mother was never a fan of snakes either. My husband and I know live above her and have all 1500 snakes in her basement With time they give in... lol ... I just kept building snake rooms everytime she went on vacation

Kim
WWW.Northamericanreptileconnection.com
N.A.R.C

hey are you taking about the NY White Plains expo? That i live like 20 min from there. Will you have a table there this 25? if so where i'll like to pass by it.

Yes we will be there, we are always near the stage on the floor. Hope to see you there
Kim
N.A.R.C

i remember i first got started with my western painted turtle (louis) about 2 and a half years ago. my pets grew from there to include 2 bearded dragons, a tokay gecko, a russian tortise and a map turtle, but the thing i really wanted was a ball python. my mom hated snakes and so did my dad so i wasnt allowed to get one. so i went against their wishes and got one anyway. i set up the tank in my closet with heat lights and everything it needed. to this day it is still there and is fine. i handle it everynight and they still dont know about it.