Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all. I've been giving this a bit of thought and this is why I believe bloods are going to be thing next big thing.

My personal opinion is bloods have a wonderful future. They have many advantages and a few disadvantages. Here's a few that I thought of...please feel free to add on any I've forgotten to mention.

Advantages:
1. They don't get huge, yet have that big bodied "feel". Unfortunately it seems that more and more states are passing laws against the possession of large snakes. They usually go by length, so snakes like boa's, tics, burms, etc may be out. Where will all these people turn to? They have to get their fix somewhere. Hopefully bloods!

2. They actually have a personality. I have nothing against balls, I have 9 myself, but they have the personality of a wet dish rag. My bloods on the other hand seem to always be plotting...hopefully not against me! :razz:

3. They don't poop as often=less cage cleaning!

4. Opposite to balls, their colors get WAY better with age. That is one of the coolest parts about them. I can't wait for the next shed because they just get better and better and better!

5. They EAT! Nothing is more frustrating than a snake that won't eat.

6. The morphs. Right now there aren't many (hypo, T albino, T- albino, and Matrix/ivory are all I know of)...but Tracy has said that she has things no one has seen. I can't wait until they come out. Even the good ol' T 's are GEMS! 2006 will be the year of the blood python!

7. Super balls. I personally don't like hybrids, but the blood/ball cross may help feed the fire a bit.

Disadvantages:

1. Stigma of aggressiveness. This is definitely not a baseless stigma; I've seen a few NASTY wild caught bloods. Even the worst balls I've seen are still quite handlable. That proves to be a problem as the availability of decent, wild caught animals is one factor that I believe drives the ball python market. You have many "get rich quick" people who will go out and buy 10 adult WC females and a pastel male...I don't see this as a possibility with bloods.

2. They get a bit bigger. You can quite easily house an adult female ball in a rack...but this would be a bit cramped for an adult female blood. The availability of reasonably price racks is another thing that I believe helps drive the ball market. If it's going to cost another $300-400 to house the snake versus a $80-$120 rack slot, which would you choose?

3. Larger clutch size may cause the prices to drop much more quickly than balls. Retic and burm lovers understand these economics, but I think it may scare the ball people away a bit. I think the solution to this is for them to just do the math. Even at $4000/pr for T albinos, if in 3 years the price drops to $1000 a pair (a HUGE drop), you still will make ~$10K a clutch! Try and do that with pastel or albino balls!

The key I think is building a larger base. I see the snake business as like a pyramid. At the very bottom, or the base, are your average Joe's/Jill's who have one or two normal balls, probably bought them at a pet store or maybe even a herp show. Say for instance there are 1000 of these people. Maybe 40 or 50 find out about morphs and get into them. Of those 50 people, 30-40 can afford a $1000 morph, 10-15 can afford a $5000 morph and 1-5 can afford a $10-20K morph. I am probably over exaggerating the percentage of base people who get into morphs, but my point is we first need to build our base if bloods are going to be the next big thing!

Finally, I think many people are quietly snatching up captive bred females now, awaiting the influx of wannabe blood investors. Why not buy 4-5 females now, just in case it blows up like it hopefully will? Have some females ready to go when the next big morph comes out!

Who would've foreseen 10 years ago that this many people would pay thousands of dollars for a ball python?! Everyone talks about a ball market crash...will it happen, maybe, maybe not...but all that talk causes people to look around for the next big thing...BLOODS ARE IT!

Matt Hennek

I tried posting this earlier but it disappeard so my appologies if it shows up twice.

Interesting post I hope it stirs up some discussion and debate. I agree with you on some things and disagree on some others. I do believe we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of popularity of the Curtis. this is due in large part that now that captive bred animals are now hitting the market people are finding out that they are hardy in captivity with the right husbandry and far from being being the maneaters they were ruputed to be when only wild caught specimens were available, they are proving to be quite handlable. My borneo is an actual lapsnake and will sit in my lap perfectly content to just lay there for hours.

That being said I do not however believe they will be the next "big thing." I do not think their popularity will ever approach that of the ball python. This is do to the fact that the ball python has pushed snake keeping into mainstream America and people that years ago would have recoiled in horror at the thought of a snake in the house now have a ball python that is a family pet along with the rabbit, hamster and guinea pig. This is due to a number of factors that cannot be reproduced with the bloods. The main one is that of temperment, While balls can bite they rarely do and even wild caught balls are handleable. Bloods have their days when they don't mind being handled and then they have other days where it ain't gonna happen without a battle. Another is factor is availability and price. Balls are collected by walking through grasslands and picked up by hand when they ball up and then farmed by the thousands in Africa and shipped to the US where lots of hatchlings can be obtained by distributers for a few dollars a piece. This equates to affordable snakes at the chain retail stores like PETCO and PETSMART, and everyone in between has made a profit and the consumer walks out after a huge markup with a $50 snake.

The bloods on the other hand live in thick ground folliage in Borneo and Sumatra and noone without a death wish is going to go poking around in there looking for them in big numbers. The wild caught specimens are nasty and do not adapt well to captivity. The captive bred market is just starting to catch on and is mostly in the hands of private breeders that have overhead to make up for. Breeder direct prices of a typical blood can be anywhere from $75-150 and most average Joe citizens are not going to know a breeder and are not going to want to pay the price by the time one turns up at the corner pet shop (I've seen normal wild caught adult bloods at the local pet shop for $400). As demand for these increase in the snake trade I would not be suprised to see blood prices actually start creeping up.

Then there is the issue of husbandry. Bloods are not a beginners snake. A first time snake buyer can get an aquarium, a hide box, a heater and food supply (assuming they are eating)and a ball will do fine. Bloods require more specialized care and they are not forgiving of our mistakes.

Bloods appeal to people already into snakes and that have some snake years behind them. Balls appeal to the masses and to people who are general animal lovers. That gives them a huge market advantage that I don't believe will ever be encroached upon by the bloods.

Do I think bloods have a future, absolutely, but I do not think they will be "the next big thing" because they fill a specialty niche in the established snake market. To be a "big thing" it has to appeal to masses. So far in the herp trade this is only happening with leopard geckos and ball pythons and to a smaller degree bearded dragons, iguanas and cornsnakes. This is all just IMHO of course but I think it is true. I would love to hear what others think of this so what other thoughts are out there?

"(I've seen normal wild caught adult bloods at the local pet shop for $400). As demand for these increase in the snake trade I would not be suprised to see blood prices actually start creeping up."

I certainly agree with that statement(s). Obviously, bloods are popular enough that they get their own forum, but they seem to be more of a "side show" freak snake that everyone thinks is ugly at first. Eveyrone in my family said my blood's head looked like a "shoe" and thought it was ugly. They said "its not a snake, its a worm!" Of course, after 6 months everyone loves the damn thing. In this respect, bloods arent the most obvious snakes in a room regardless of how beautifull we all know they are. In local shops and small reptile shops, the bloods were very expensive in comparison to kingsnake-classified prices.

I hope for this (bloods remaining in the dark). I would hate for bloods to loose their value and become commonplace like the balls. I would hope that bloods remain an "elite" snake like the GTP. Then again I'm probably clueless!

I agree with you as I too would not like them to be as common as balls but as I stated in my first post I don't see that ever happening. They are acquired in completly different ways and their husbandry is specialized just enough and their temperment is finicky enough to keep them from being beginners snakes.

Now what very well may happen is that some of the ball lovers will eventually take notice of the qualities of the bloods and "cross over to the blood side" if you will.

I see this posted often and don't quite understand. Per instruction from care sheets I've read and advice given by Kara at Nerd (great bloods!), I keep my bloods in almost identical conditions as my balls. They are on newspaper in the same rack as my balls. They are fed the same frozen/thawed rats as my balls. The only difference is I provide a larger water dish. I'm having growth rates of around 150-200g/month and have had only full sheds so I must be doing something right.

matt

He's right--- bloods have been so domesticated it seems like the whole "high humidity" thing is blown out of preportion. Adults can be kept like Burmese...it seems.

But young bloods are much different. I have had a few hatchlings...youngsters, and they DO dry out...its scary at first. Ill never forget thinking..."my blood is going to start flaking". He would start to dry out after 5 minutes of handling. On the other hand, I have NOT seen a blood python in anyone's care that didn't have dimpled scales. It's very hard to get a premium balance. It depends on the natural humidity of where you live. Ive even seen photographs of bloods from extremely reputable breeders who's scales are still dimpled. So maybe we just ignore the least obvious listlessly?

I never agreed with the "use newspaper" thing either. Sure snakes cant vocalize, but I think they appreciate the extra effort of real cypress. Look if greg maxwell can provide mulch for predominatley non-ground dwelling snakes, I should at least put the effort in for snakes that LOVE to burrow!

Like you said it's not as big of an issue with adults. But with babies you do need to keep the humidity RIGHT, and you do need to keep temps RIGHT. Otherwise you can fairly easily end up with a snake with a RI, stomitis, or belly up. I think the more experienced keepers that are using things like proportional thermostats and humidity monitors and have all their keeping of herps down to an exact science, forget about the twelve year old that buys a ball and sticks it in a fish tank in the side of his room. Yes it's easy for us to keep bloods because we know what were doing. However it seems balls are more likely to survive in less than accurate conditions whereas bloods will most likely not, and be lucky to just get some RI that may or may not be treated by these keepers who dont know what there doing. I still would not reccomend a blood as a first snake for someone. New herpers need to learn how to set up a cage and monitor things like temps and humidity before they go buying a blood, where they might (not saying its humaine) be able to get away with not doing it with a ball.

As far as newspaper... Personally I think newspaper is WONDERFUL. Very easy to get, clean, and usually costs nothing. Where as moss/mulch etc is often sometimes expensive, gets everywhere, and a PITA to clean. Not to mention its difficult to find fecal and urates, and often harbors too much humidity. In turn this creates a bad situation for the snake and I have frequently seen it result in scale rot and even sometimes blistering etc. So personally I dont see the point is going to the trouble to use it. I double layer newspaper/paper towels and if they want to burrow under it they dont seem to have any problem. I do however keep humid hides with my juvies with moist spohgnum moss. It provides a humid place to hide or burrow under the moss. Also keeps me from having to clean it out of the entire cage and gives them a choice of if they want to stay in it or not.

So on to the future of bloods... Bloods and short tails ARE the NEXT big thing. Comparing them to balls is futile, as is comparing anything with balls, you can never and will never have a snake that is as popular as a ball python there's just too damn many of them already. They've been around too long, and they are too easy to keep. Even people who arent herpers know what they are and there available everywhere! Ask someone on the street if they've heard of a blood, then ask someone if they know what a ball python is. Bloods seem to be coming up very quickly tho. I remember only a few years ago you might have trouble finding them but they seem to be everwhere now and they seem to be selling. I dont think or atleast hope they wont spread too far into the "I just wanna pet snake crowd". But they seem to be gaining popularity within the herping community greatly, and there are a number of very respectable breeders working (and focusing mind you) on the species. Thus I see a great future for the bloods, with their natural beauty and variance in the patterns of normals and the different morphs alike. If you've seen one ball morph you've seen all the others of that specific morph (there are acceptions but in general, atleast to me). Not to say that they aren't spectacular, but you cannot beat the many many random variations in bloods. Thus getting to my main point YOU CANT HAVE JUST ONE! Bar none, they are completely addicting! I should be getting number 11 in a few weeks, and thats just Borneo's I still havent gotten a sarawak, blood, or sumatran st. Not to mention not a single one looks anything like the others, and they ALL KICK ASS!

J
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

Marine aquariums. Much more expensive (with the exception of morphs), much more difficult, and they require more knowledge than a quick one page care sheet.

np

I agree with a lot of this. Bloods have a similar look as balls but with a much more beautiful pattern. I would think this would lead to bloods taking over as "the new balls" when the ball market finally comes down due to overproduction and the ball breeders are seeking a new market. Just think of all the ball breeders, that is a huge customer base for those currently producing blood morphs and a huge influx of buyers would result in a high price climb. However, the problem I have is the clutch size. The market won't be able to sustain itself as long as the ball market will. These high numbers are good for breeders I would think, as the return is quick and payoffs are high due to volume, but prices will fall quicker as more are produced. Short term big thing? Maybe. A few more morphs need to show up first, obviously.

Another reply stated that bloods are not as easy to keep, ie, not a beginner snake. However, how many beginners are picking up $1k morphs? Not many, I would think. These are serious people that are able to care for a snake. The people that pay that kind of money for high end balls shouldn't have a problem with bloods. I think that goes more for bloods in pet shops, which we may not see, but then again we don't see the ball morphs either. Bloods themselves don't have to be the next pet dog in order to drive the morph market. Someone can buy a ball, develop interest, purchase ball morphs (which are cheap after the crash) and then invest into some higher market more advanced snakes like bloods. Same theory working there.

Also, I saw a pic of a leucistic blood online, one more to add to the morphs.