well, ill start with the attitude of blood and short tailed pythons. baby snakes of any species will be more prone to being defensive, you would be too if you were food for just about anything! but, once a baby short tail has become a solid feeder it takes very little to calm most down. some are just docile out of the egg, and there are some that are flat out stubborn. the reputation of short tails (yes blood pythons are short tails) started with large scared imported animals. a ticked off big blood python is not something to be taken lightly!
as for prices, normals range from $75 to 250 for a hatchling, this also depends on which of the 3 species youre looking into. as for morphs there really arent many. borneo short tails (Python breitenstieni i always spell it wrong lol) and bloods (Python brongersmai) both come in striped varieties, pricing varies with amount of striping. borneos also come in marbled and granite sided, again priced according to "beauty". blood pythons also come into albino (T- and T even tho i dont believe anyones produced any T in captivity yet...tracy barker will fix that!) and a stunning morph called ivory, again i dont believe any are available yet. the last albino bloods i saw were going for $5000 each. and then there are sumatran short tails (Python curtus) as far as i know there are no known morphs, just local variants. sumatran short tails tend to be the more pricey and less bred of the 3 short tail python species.
now onto size. Blood pythons (Python brongersmai) hold the record length for the short tail complex. i dont remember the exact length off my head, but its around 10 feet. in reality thats the same length or longer than alot of captive boas. bloods average approx 4 - 6 feet, tho larger arent uncommon.
Borneo short tail pythons (Python brietensteini i always spell that wrong lol) are next in line, averaging 4 to 5 feet, tho larger does happen. in terms of weight youre still talking heavier than a 6 to 7 foot boa.
sumatran short tail pythons (Python curtus) are the smallest of the complex, averaging 3.5 to 5 feet.
sadly alot of captive bloods and short tails are too fat! bloods are thick snakes, but theres a difference between thick and fat. and fat snakes make poor breeders. bloods dont use alot of energy so its easy to make them obese. they also eat large prey relative to their length. they are high humidity snakes that cannot tolerate poor ventilation. also, too much humidity can be worse than not enough, and the signs of too much humidity often mimic the signs of too little humidity. an easy remedy is to keep the cage on the dryer side (around 50% humidity) and keep a rubbermaid box full of moist moss in the cage, that way they can choose to be more or less humid. always have a large shallow water dish full of clean water available. and expect infrequent, but LARGE, poops. hope ive helped, i am a blood freak, i LOVE them.
J
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Jaymz
"got a bowlin ball in my stomache, got a desert in my mouth. figures that my courage would choose to sell out now..."
