Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am new to this forum. I have been checking out bloods the last couple of months and have been getting very interested. I just picked up a pair of ch babys from a retail store who just got them from bushmaster who is local here in Colorado. I used to take care of some of the yearlings and ch babys at Pro Exotics back in 2000 and forgot how nasty they could be. I was bitten four times tonight while I was inspecting them. Any way I am very exicted and plan on getting into some of the morphs. Talk to you soon.....

I am very intrigued by these statements about aggressive CB blood pythons. I have been working with them since the early 1980's and have kept and/or been around hundreds of them. While the wildcaughts I've been around typically had attitudes, I would have to say that less than 5% of the captive borns showed aggressive behavior. However, I do not have experience with the farmed bloods coming in from Indonesia, which would be my guess on the origin of this pair of babies. Was wondering what everyone's impression was of these farmed specimens. Thanks,

Kelly

I don’t have much experience with CH and farm bred bloods but I do believe that the temperament is somewhat inheritable, which is why i believe CBB bloods are much calmer. The babies I hatch out are usually pretty docile after a few weeks of just picking them up for a min or 2 while cleaning their cage or doing their waters, My adults are both handlable and will huff and puff when they are upset and don’t wanna be messed with. So I feel the stereo type comment Bloods are mean and aggressive is very outdated with all the CBB animals out there now. But of course every now and then you get one that will fit it to a T.

Congrats on the pick up, any pics?

Zack
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Zack Greens Reptiles

Thanks for the response. I am very excited as I have a bunch of ball pythons and really needed something different. I am sure They will mellow out as I handle them more. They literally got them in yesterday so I am sure that doesnt help with the aggressive behavior. I will get some pics soon.

Kelly, I noticed mixed responses on the CH bloods and found more often they are defensive likely due to import stress. With good patient care, they should settle down. Personality with bloods and inheritance does have a huge impact on individual attitude. With farmed animals, you are just playing the odds since buyer can't check out the parents. Breeding for appearance and personality will only improve the temperment of babies. I find p. brongersmai to be more nippy as hatchlings over p. breitensteini. I haven't breed P. curtus so cannot speak to that species.
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Thanks Rich, good point and I would definitely agree. Inheritance is the main key to temperament in captive bred boids. I don’t believe there are too many U.S. boid breeders working with, or wanting to deal with, aggressive adults in their breeding programs. Captive breeding in the U.S. tends to automatically exclude the genetic movement of aggressive temperaments on to future generations in most cases. You are absolutely correct in that there is definitely not the adult breeder selection going on with the farmed situation. All of my adult bloods have been extremely calm as well as the few young I have produced. However, I see this most markedly with the green anacondas we produce. We are working with very calm adult bloodlines in our breeding program and have never produced any aggressive young out of 5 litters over the last 10 years. These neonates can be easily handled from the day they are born and believe the over-riding factor is the temperament of the adults. Here’s a couple of off topic shots of some of the greens we have produced, a day old neonate and a 5 year old, second generation CBB female.

Kelly

So the myth about green anacondas just being a oversized nerodia-attitude serpent are false? LOL. Very nice looking animal there, BTW.
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www.richcrowleyreptiles.com
Support your local herp society
www.chicagoherp.org

I have experienced a few, but by and large, nice captive raised adults tend to produce very manageable offspring. Our second and third generation young are very calm. Actually, greens are by nature shy snakes that are easily stressed and that accounts for a lot of the attitude issues you see in some of them.

Kelly