MorphMarket Q&A - Gavin Adkins from Balls2U - 001

All Reptiles
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Let’s bring a bit more fun to this place!

Our lovely Gavin Adkins (@balls2u) has agreed to take part in a forum Q&A, where he will chose his favourite questions posted below and answer them in a video posted to his YouTube channel… Which will be shared at the bottom of this thread when it is live.

Your questions can be about anything as long as they are clean and inoffensive.

I will try and make this as frequent as possible with hopefully many different breeders and keepers of all types of critters.

Again, thank you Gavin for doing this :metal:

Ask away…

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I’ll start us off.

  1. If you could talk to your past self about building a collection, what advice would you give yourself?

  2. If you could only add one new gene into you collection for the next decade, what would it be?

  3. Apart from ball pythons, what else has caught your attention in the reptile world?

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1 what was your first pet snake ever?
2 whats your highest goal?

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What’s your opinion on:

  • Live versus frozen thawed?
  • African Soft Furs as prey vs. more common rats?
  • Tubs: Clear, Semi-clear, or Opaque?
  • Substrate?
  • Power feeding?
  • Ideal diet for prey animals?
  • Spiders and other potentially deleterious morphs?
  • Do you ever supplement your snakes?
  • Inbreeding?

And of course I’m always game to hear crazy stories! Craziest client, craziest BP, craziest everything!

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Since Ball Pythons can be a pain in the butt when it comes to eating…

What’ the longest you’ve ever seen a healthy Ball Python go without eating?

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Here are my questions

  1. When you began breeding what is it out of joy for the animals themselves? If so, is it still that way today?

  2. What advice would you give to a person that wants to prepare to breed in the future?

  3. How much would you say is a decent investment amount on breeding stock for a person getting into breeding?

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  1. If you have a facility for breeding how big is it, if you don’t then do you hope to get one in the future?

  2. Do you breed your own feeders, if so how much money do you save or what are the benefits of breeding your own?

  3. What has been your favorite morph to work with?

  4. What kind of incubators do you use/prefer and would you recommend them to people just getting in the hobby?

Edit:
5. What are your opinions on using gloves for handling?

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What are the most notable UK-specific laws (how it is different than say in the US) and regulations and how do they impact (help or hinder) the reptile market and make it unique from other regions? E.g., feeding laws, or laws around transportation or display of animals at expos. Any ways that you adapt your business to deal with this.

If this has been discussed in another video I’m happy to just have the link to that.

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Here’s a few!

Do you or have you ever used a snake hook?

If you had to limit your collection to 5, which ones would you pick and why?

First experience with a reptile?

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Someone needs to watch Gavins YT lol

My question:

When starting out (first 2-3 breeding seasons) how much should I hold back? How important are holdbacks to building a collection?

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  1. Only buy what you need :joy:… You get addicted in the beginning and you started impulse buy… But it’s good to make mistakes because you learn by them. :wink:

  2. that would be the new gene, that’s coming over to me in April :wink: never been seen over here yet and is a game changer :shushing_face:

  3. I like a lot of Reptiles… I keep at the moment, day gecko’s but I’d like a dwarf Cayman

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  1. corn snake :love_you_gesture:t3:
  2. to make a sunset ultramel clown pied :wink: well then start adding other genes :joy::joy::joy: it never ends
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  1. frozen as they don’t bite back
  2. ASF
  3. All work but the grey ones work best
  4. reptichip
    5)no such thing with ball pythons
  5. Arkwright working food plus, peanuts and veg
  6. love spiders, just don’t cross lethal genes in combos
  7. no
  8. no such thing in the wild, but yes it’s fine, I’ve had no issues when I have done it with ball pythons.

Story… I was in Paris visiting my brother and we was waiting on the underground, when a American from Texas came running up to me asking for a picture :exploding_head:
Englishman, American both in Paris at the same time :exploding_head:

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Thank you Gavin, these have been amazing.

(Now another user has commented, you should also be able to carry on replying now :wink:)

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If you had a male piebald as your first BP, what would be the first 4 female combos you would buy to breed to him to start your collection?

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I can’t wait :joy::joy:

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