So I am wanting to start breeding ball pythons and do to limited funds I am having to start with yearlings. I already Have a male Enchi Pastel Het Clown and a female Enchi Fire 66% Het Clown. But I am wanting to get a female pied something. I found a female Scaleless Pied for $275. I love the look of Scaleless and would love to play around with it at some point. But I have heard that Scaleless is harder to care for than normal ball pythons. How much harder are they to care for, and would you recommend me getting one?
I believe OP meant to write scaleless head pied, not scaleless pied.
All in all, I personally would not invest in the scaleless project. Scaleless ball pythons in particular are very difficult to take care of. Unlike most scaleless colubrids, they lack any scales at all including belly scutes. Because of this, they are easily prone to damaging their sensitive skin, and you have to be very mindful of what decor/substrate is used to prevent injuries. They also get dehydrated very easily and often require higher humidity, soaks, or even moisturizing of some kind. They also shed often and need help with shedding at a higher frequency than normal snakes. They grow significantly more slowly than your typical ball python. All of that aside, there is plenty of reason to believe at this point that scaleless is an infertile or sub-fertile project. At this time there have been scaleless adults for at least 6-7 years and we have yet to have a single female successfully reproduce. So all in all, it is definitely not a project I would recommend for breeding purposes. You could always get a scaleless as a pet, as long as you’re ready to take on the extra responsibility of caring for one.
I’ve heard some claims that Scaleless Head (in its heterozygous form) can enhance/improve the look of other morphs. No idea if that’s even true, as I’m not a ball python person nor a breeder, but it might be worth looking into. Point being that Scaleless Head might be useful even if you’re not making fully scaleless animals.
Are you wanting to produce pieds? If so, you’ll need to get a male that is at least het pied.
Ultimately you should figure out what you like and want to produce, and then choose animals that will help you achieve those goals.
Yes
I love the look of both Pied and Clown, and I think that a black snake is super cool so getting Black Pastel gives me the ability to get Super Black Pastel. I also thinking about it would love to try to get Super Black Pastel Clowns, and I could even try for Super Black Pastel Clown Pieds.
Keep in mind that super black pastel hatchlings are often born with defects including duckbills and severe kinking that is often incompatible with life and will require euthanasia. If you’re trying to stay away from producing hatchlings with issues, than I’d avoid black pastel in the homozygous form. At this point it’s a known and established issue, and yet every year I still see posts about people swearing their breeding stock is better quality, “healthier lines” or that they’re incubating at a lower temperature, only to post an update later on somehow shocked and suprised that they produced severely kinked hatchlings
