Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know you guys must get sick of people beating dead horses into the ground on this forum but I had to ask.

Could the fact that my python is captive hatched have anything to do with her high aggression?

My experience has been that the housing setup and the amount of handling the animal receives are the two main factors contributing to an aggressive or "strikey" (sp.) snake.

With proper husbandry and handling, I believe just about any Ball Python will calm down. I had a few hatchling females (CBB) that would strike and hiss. They have calmed down considerably.
-----
Jay A. Martin

The reason I ask is because I keep reading on these breeders sites stuff like "ONly buy Captive bred its the only way to go!", but probably because they want people to pay their ridiculous prices *shrug*.

CBB animals are (in most cases) better than WC animals. They can also be better than farm hatched babies. With CBB, you get a verifiable history of the hatchlings parents. Were they healthy, any problems, etc. You also know, or at least have a good idea if they have IBD. If the parents are healthy, the young are most likey as well. Farmed babies may be in less than sanitary environment - many are exposed to animals with disease. I could go on and there are many who can and would argue against.

Personally, I would prefer a $50 CBB animal over a $20 import.
-----
Jay A. Martin

Very good points i never thought of it like that, I guess I got lucky in that my captive hatched python is healthy (never had mites or anything), she certainly is [bleep]y though

Just to interject a comment here... out at the Reptile show here in Tucson this weekend, CBB Ball Pythons, in "normal" color, were selling for $35 from at least 2 different vendors, including the one I bought mine from. Two pet shops I visited this week, one a big "chain" shop and the other a local reptile specialty shop, had similar sized and colored BP's for $100 and $90 each, respectively. Incidentally, this show allowed ONLY CBB animals to be sold. NO imports, whatsoever. Therefore, the prices were not "artificially" lowered by the competition of imported animals, or animals hatched from imported eggs.

I not only was able to handle the snake before buying (after sanitizing my hands, of course), but I was able to talk with the breeder, ask questions, and learn something about the parents of my snake. I have the breeder's name and phone number, with the open invitation to call him with any questions I might have (which I will probably take him up on).

Seemed like a great deal to me, and from everything my limited experience and research can tell me, I've gotten a great snake for a great price.

I doubt being captive hatched (wild bred) would be correlated with being more likely to be aggressive.

As far as the snake’s life experience, both captive bred and captive hatched see humans very early on so it's not like a wild caught that grew up without human contact and possibly with predator encounters. Sure the export process is different and I don't know much about it so can't be sure that experience doesn't contribute to their personality but I would hope it's not all that bad. I think the main marks against imported captive hatched babies is that you don't know IF they have been exposed to unsanitary conditions, IF they have been allowed to dehydrate or go too long without food, how much stress they have had along the way, and of course the possibility of impacting the wild population.

I've seen a little evidence of an aggressive dominant gene in ball pythons but my sample size is very small so I can’t be sure. If there is a genetic basis to aggression in ball pythons (I assume most everything is genetic until proven otherwise) we may eventually see differences between wild populations and captive bred ones based on selective breeding. We are pretty early into captive breeding (only a few generations) so I wouldn't expect to see much if any difference yet. Unfortunately, some may actually be selecting for more aggressive captive bred balls under the belief (perhaps correct) that they will be better feeders and breeders. I've seen a few aggressive balls in my own collection and it's hard to have the will to cull them. One male hatchling I did sell (disclosing it's temperament) and I know the guy is going to breed it but it wouldn't have been a good candidate for a pet store and I didn’t want to breed it so what are you going to do. I also plan to breed a young adult female that might be wild caught that is very aggressive because I'm interested in other genes she might carry. It will be interesting to see how her captive breed offspring behave. If she turns out the have the gene I want I sure hope I can breed out in her descendents any genetic tendencies to aggression she might have (it might also just be her experience, especially if wild caught).