Hello fellow herpers!
I’ve been lurking on this forum for awhile now soaking up all the great info so I thought I would drop in and introduce myself before contributing. I am 50 years old.
My 16 year old daughter came to me asking if she could have a ball python for her birthday this year. I was thrilled! Over thirty years ago, I had a modest collection of reptiles and have been an enthusiast my entire life. As a kid, my favorite pastime was turning over logs and rocks in the woods and creeks near my house to see what fascinating creatures were underneath. There wasn’t a snake I’d encounter that I would wrangle and one of my favorites in the wild has always been the kingsnake which we had no shortage of where I grew up. In my late teens/early twenties, I had a normal ball python, a Colombian red-tail boa, an albino California kingsnake, a Northern Copperhead, a Tokay gecko, a Savannah monitor, and a Nile monitor. I also bred and raised my own feeder rats. When I was collecting and caring for reptiles, the only morphs I knew of were normal/wild type and albino. I was amazed when I started to look into buying my daughter a ball python to find all the beautiful morphs available today and am hooked again. I’m also very excited to find something that my daughter is excited about and that she and I can enjoy together. As some of you may know, that’s not easy for dad’s and daughters during the teen years. For her birthday (and much to her mother’s displeasure 
) I got my daughter an Enchi ball python. Of course, for Christmas I got her a Banana ball python, a Mojave ball python, and a Butter ball python. Our current preferences are for the more simple single and double genetic morphs with an interest in maybe breeding in a few years just as a hobby with no real desire to sell or profit. Interestingly, my oldest daughter who is in college majoring in human biology does not like snakes or insects but has a keen interest in genetics and we have peaked her interest from a purely scientific standpoint. She has been working with attenuated cholera in the lab doing genetic mutation research projects. She has been teaching me all about genetics.
tldr: I’m excited to get back into this hobby and can’t wait to continue to add to our collection! Thank you to all who have and continue to share in their passion and knowledge here.
Welcome to community, we would love to see pictures of your animals.
