Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've heard some morphs are more aggressive and snappy than the traditional normal BP's such as albinos. I always hear stories of vicious albinos which is unlike a normal BP's character. Which morphs are like this? Can someone please just explaint his to me in general?

Switch your statement to humans.
Some good and bad in all.
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

So not true!!

My Albino tame as a kitten and so are ALL my hets.

I believe it is how they are raised there back ground.

Just like a dog or a cat. You out get only what you give to them.

Yes SAME go's with humans!!!

If you have two kids you have probably seen that there are different innate personalities in people. I’m sure that past experience plays a part but I believe there are also genetic predispositions. I don’t think that it’s the albino gene it’s self but rather that aggressive animals may have been bred into some lines of albinos and those aggressive genes are still along for the ride in some cases. I’ve also heard about “pied temperament”. Not sure if that one might have something to do with the actual pied gene or rather again one or more animals bred into some of the captive lines.

I’ve seen snappy attitudes passed down to exactly half the offspring in three generations starting with an albino het male. I don’t have a very large sample size (4 in the 2nd generation and 2 in the third) and haven’t worked with more than 100 or so other (normal tempered) animals but I’m seeing a pattern. The only daughter to prove het albino was one of the normal ball tempered ones.

Apart from my albino project, I’ve encountered three other balls that strike at least occasionally and maintain ridged when held (a good indication they are very scared). One is a 50% chance het piebald (with the sign belly) and another is a pet store girl with the pied sign belly. The third one was a presumed normal. Since I’ve got a few other animals that I think are het pieds that are not snappy I’m again thinking it isn’t the pied gene it’s self, just some other gene that got bred into it somewhere along the line and can be bred back out.

A very good point made here. I totally agree. Speaking of which, I recently acquired an 03' CB Normal girl, who has an attitude like a demon spawn. I can't stick my hand in or around her cage without her trying to strike at me. I pick her up(slowly and gently of course) and she's all tense, like what you mentioned and actually landed one in my right forearm the other night. After that, I thought to myself, well maybe I don't need to handle her, cause it obviously stesses her out, but she'll be just fine for breeding, which is why I acquired her anyways. But now, from what you're saying from your experience, perhaps I should have second thoughts on even breeding her. I guess my question is, wouldn't it be responsible for me not to breed her for the fact that her personality might be inherited to her offspring? Is this something that should be considered by breeders or is it too miniscule to make a difference in their general overall personalities? I'm not criticizing anyone by any means, I'm simply raising the question for an open discussion. Ball Pythons are known for their naturally docile personalities. Would it then be detrimental to the CB species overall and to their good reputation to knowingly breed snakes with attitudes or has it not been formally proven that these traits are inheritable? I mean we all want to better the species and promote what great captives they make, right? Again, I'm not criticizing anyone, just bringing up topics to be discussed and to hear others' opinions. Thanks for reading.
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Cathy Hrusa
poetichusky@hotmail.com
Future Ball Python Breeder
~My Ever-growing herp Collection~
0.4 Normal Ball Pythons
1.0 Albino Green Burmese Python
0.1 Bearded Dragon
1.0 Red Eared Slider
0.1 FL Cooter
1.0 Sunburst X Blue Veiled Chameleon
0.0.2 Firebelly Toads
0.0.1 Pixie Frog

I think the jury is still out on the inheritability of temperament. From my limited experience I'm leaning toward there being at least one gene that causes irritable ball pythons but who knows, maybe yours just had a traumatic childhood.

Also, it's hard to have the discipline to cull an animal from your breeding program. What would you do with her? It might be hard to find a good home for her. I guess the noble thing would be to keep her but not breed her but I'm thinking at this point maybe you should breed her and see if you find some or all of her offspring to be more irritable than normal and report back to help establish or refute the idea of inheritable temperament.

In my case I sold the one presumed normal female that I had with a bad temperament but since the others are possible mutant gene carriers I don't have the will to not try breeding them to find out if they carry the albino or pied mutations (I’ve not yet seen a live example of either). If they fail to produce the desired mutation and I continue to find irritable offspring then I'll do the right thing and stop breeding them. I'll defiantly keep the better tempered morph animals I produce for my own breeders but in the big picture I would have to figure that someone will breed any ill tempered morphs or probably even adult normals I sell so I'm not really helping the overall quality of the gene pool.