Do any of you breeders have ball pythons of a certain gene that are more friendly, or more hissy, compared to other genes?
Someone said there’s FOR SURE some that are more prone to be aggressive, not sure which though.
If there are more friendly genes and more hissy genes which are friendliest, additionally, are banana and pieds considered to be of the friendly variety?
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I’ve not noticed a difference in pied personality. I only have one banana so far and while she was hissy as a baby is fine now.
I have no experience yet with puzzle but gather they MIGHT have a reputation of being irritable. Would definitely want to hear from actual puzzle keepers on that. Even if it is a thing would be hard to know if it’s actually a side effect of the mutation or some sort of founder effect like some other gene bred in by an early breeder of the morph.
I have worked with apparently inherited bad tempered ball pythons. I started with a foul tempered pet store female that I thought might be het pied (she wasn’t) and saw her temperament passed to her daughter and grandchildren before abandoning the line.
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So far couldn’t single out a morph, but there’s definitely a genetic or incubation factor. For me usually if there’s a very nippy one, then almost the whole clutch is nippy. They all grow out of it by 1 year or so but those kind of clutches take the longest to settle down.
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Years ago I gave a corn snake egg to a coworker with a child to incubate. Apparently their temps were low as it took forever but eventually hatched an abnormally dark and aggressive corn snake.
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All of my normals bps have the sweetest dispositions. However, my banana boy is evil! He is still very young so I am so hoping he will mellow out with age. Maybe……. Lol! 
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My Finnley is a Super Fire ( with YB, & poss. Bongo), and he is charming as can be, and a great eater.
It is possible that temperament comes with some color genes,
or/and
is it also equally likely it runs in just family lines?
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In my experience (and I confirmed my observations with my wife and kids), mahogany are spicy and tend to remain that way and bananas are super chill. Interestingly, we made some banana mahogany babies this year and they were the only babies in the clutch that werent feral. In speaking with other breeders in my area the consensus is that its pretty typical. I also have heard first hand that puzzle (even het puzzle) are feisty too. I think in both cases multi-gene animals might be easier to calm down but in the aforementioned mahogany clutch from last year I had 2 animals that were so grumpy that I refused to sell them as pets. For context we have handled a dozen or so mahogany and maybe twice as many banana. Not a huge amount but enough, I think, to get an idea of some typical behaviors.
We’ve had really good sucsess with our BEL complex animals being easy to handle (and lots of client feedback saying the same), spider gene animals IMO are probably the best pet when it comes to balls as they in many cases aren’t really head shy and as babies are really cuddly (wobble/neuro issues notwithstanding). At the end of the day, husbandry and handling weigh more on behavior than morph (IMO). A hungry, cold snake covered in bad shed is never going to be friendly.
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My two mahoganies are nice and as mentioned my one banana was a terror young but has grown out of it. Curious if the puzzle tude might be more consistent across collections indicating maybe not a separate bad attitude gene bred into some family lines. But then again I gather puzzle is pretty new so maybe they are still all the same family line so if the original breeder was one of those who purposely selects for aggressive balls for feeding response they could have introduced a second gene that could be separated from puzzle soon.
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Out of my group, I don’t really notice a gene that stands out as more or less defensive than another.
My most defensive is my killer queenbee. She’s a bit calmer now that she’s older, but will come over and snap at you to get out of her tub or to put her down after a few minutes of handling.
My second most defensive is a large normal phase gal.
Most shy? A normal phase rescue that had severe burn wounds. After that, a mojave super enchi pastel.
Most docile? A coral glow mojave fire gal. Followed by a pewter pied gal.
If this was about sexes? I feel like males can be a little bit more flighty and females can be a bit more huffy. But that tends to apply mostly to when breeding hormones are up and going. Off season, I don’t notice too heavy a difference.
Amusingly enough, in leopard geckos I did notice a large number of early blizzards were definitely more nippy and grumpy. I mentioned it to a shop employee once and to prove me wrong, picked up the large blizzard male they had and promptly got the worst bite I’ve seen anyone get by a leo in person. LOL. They do seem a fair bit calmer now that they’ve been outcrossed more from the original breeding stocks, but every now and then I see a blizz with a 'tude and laugh.
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