CH-Captive Hatched- Questions??

[ReptiGramma]

I have read many of the horror stories about Wild-Caught babies and adults, but not much has been said about CH babies. Are the stories the same? Can these snakes be treated with extra precautions--Worming? External parasite treatment?-- and turn out to be as impressive and healthy as a CB?

I would think that they would need to be kept away from any exsisting animals in the home (quarantined), but for how long?

Are these snakes nastier than CB? Can they be handled?

I have seen some very impressive looking Ball Pythons on kingsnake.com at a dealer called 'Boca Morphs' and even made a phone call to ask some questions, which gave me HIS side of the story.

Has anyone had first-hand experience with a CH baby? Not any more horror stories, but actual first hand knowledge????

Thanks,

[Linds]

They can definitely turn out to be just as great as as captive bred animals, and should be treated with just as many precautions as any new animal you bring home should be. They are hatched side by side in incubators, just like captive bred animals are, and are handled from day one, though they do undergo long distance group shipping, etc. and may pass through some questionable hands before they reach you. If you do decide to go with a CH animal, it is a good idea to make sure you purchase one from a reputable dealer that has taken all necessary precautions in providing you with a healthy individual. If you do not know about the person you intend on doing business with, a trip over the faunaclassifieds may help you find out more ;)

[gonesnakee]

Quite often they are sold by the 1000's & are packed that way in crates, no individual delicupping from the folks in Africa. "farmed" or captive hatched BPs come from eggs laid by wild caught parents. They go out & grab as many adult BPs as they can from the wild & keep them together in large enclosed areas. They then wait for the females to start laying eggs & take them away to be incubated. These babies are then sold by the 1000's to overseas wholesalers, who inturn start selling them off. Quite often they appear in petstores before they ever are even offered a meal. I have bought groups of "farmed" or CH in the past & was not too impressed overall.They are only one step away from being WC & come from the same people. Proper quarantine is a must as they have usually been in close contact with WC ones & usually have gone thru a wholesaler or 2 prior being made available to the public where they can be exposed to all kinds of other possible nastys & kept in groups. I personally would go captive bred from a reputable breeder & only buy an animal that is well estabished on F/T prey preferably rats over mice. If you do not have the time or resources to quarantine & treat them for possibly both internal & external parasites I would not even consider them. My thoughts are BUY CAPTIVE BRED, NUFF SAID!!! Mark

[ReptiGramma]

Gonesnakee...That is one of the horror stories that I have already heard. It was explained to me by a man at Boca Morphs, that the eggs are removed as soon as they are layed and taken to a farm or snake ranch and incubated and hatched. These babies have never touched the ground or been around any of the adults that were wild captured. That all sounds very good to me, but I am wondering how sanitary these farms are where these babies are being incubated. Has anyone ever visited one of these ranches? Saying that these CH babies are full of parasites and worms is like passing on gossip...I HATE gossip!!!

Thank you, Linds, for your comments, and I will go check out faunaclassifieds.com and see what I can find out.

Everyone deserves a chance, and If the people at Boca Morphs are being straight up with me and are taking all the precautions they claim to take, then they are probably selling healthy snakes that have eaten regularly for several weeks.

Again...Anyone with FIRST-HAND knowledge of CH babies or Boca Morphs?

Thanks a bunch,

[The Dragon Lady]

Yes, I have several CH Ball Pythons, as Linds said they can be very good. All mine are excellent, not a problem in the bunch. If you do get a CH, just follow the normal precautions and you should be good. Also, try to get CH babies from a reputable dealer, I have seen some absolutely horrific conditions, especially in some of the pet shops. If you can look at several and pick out the healthy looing ones. Nice and fat and well hydrated. Any sagging skin or dry looking spots, stay away from them. Here is a link for you to check out, you might want to go to the show and look around there a bit.
http://www.michiganreptileshow.com/there_is_no_limit__to_what_you_w.htm



Good Luck, and feel free to keep asking the questions :)

LOL Oops wrong log in, I am on my wifes Laptop, I have BP's she has Leos, silly me :medclown:

[ReptiGramma]

I ordered and received 3 CH babies from Boca Morphs in Florida. I am so happy with these little guys...Well.....One little guy and two good sized girls. They are healthy and beautiful. I have not been able to keep my hands off them and have been handling them several times a day. They each gobbled down a large rat fuzzy the first night. I see no visible pests, but treated with Reptile Relief anyway...It's all natural and safe. They are just the sweetest, gentle tempered snakes. The little male would ball up when I first started to handle them, but after a couple of days, he mellowed out and shows no fear or aggression. Both of the females were mellow and friendly from the very beginning. None of them have ever struck at me or failed to eat whatever is offered. They have been given fuzzy rat pups, pinkie rat pups and adult mice. I have not tried frozen/thawed yet. I will eventually switch over so that I don't end up with injured snakes from bites or scratches.
I have also puchased 5 male ball pythons babies of about the same age from a local breeder. These 5 are slower eaters and 2 of them are 'nasty' little buggers. They strike and bite, and never seem to take their eyes off me when being held, but I make them tolerate it anyway...Twice a day for 15 minutes at a time. I seem to instictly use alot of cautiion with the CBB snakes, but the CH babies seem to want to be held. When I take the lid off their containers, they crawl out right onto my hand. Whereas the CBB babies coil back as if to strike, and sometimes do!
I guess that I have answered my own questions by my own experience.
I would buy CH babies again, in a heartbeat!!
Thank you , everybody, for responding.
From one snakeaholic to another, have a nicsssssss day!

[nita]

CH as you have discovered can be fine but always beware of who you are getting them from. Some importers are bad others aren't. Last year I had no problem beautiful healthy balls no problems. This year different person, and sick dying balls instead :(

[gonesnakee]

You asked for FIRST-HAND knowledge & were given it. It has been my firsthand experience that CH BPs more often than not are a problem. Some importers & wholesalers are great but lots out there are very unworthy. The petstore closest to me brought in 8 this year. not one ate & they are all now dead. Oh thats wrong actually one ate & died the next day. All 8 of which came in majorly dehydrated with mites & skin problems & died over the period of a couple months. Many other stores recv. BPs from the same shipment in the same shape & around 50-60% of all of them died the first month also (around 30 some RIP). Funny how they after choosing NOT to follow my advice turned to me for help. The last time I recv. any CH myself a few years ago 4 out of 6 died in the first month & one of the others in the first 3 months. I FF 2 for quite some time the 3 month RIP & then the last one that went 6 or 8 months before dying from stress of FF. I have also personally witnessed shipments at various local stores on numerous occassions over the last few years come in severely dehydrated & just crawling with mites & sometimes even TICKS! A few were even DOA Most of which refused to eat anything & again high mortality rates as a direct result. Glad to hear you found a worthy source, but hate to break it to ya they all aren't that way. I am speaking from firsthand experience & personally I would buy a CBB specimen over a WC or CH anyday based on my personal knowledge. Mind you I have experience with keeping 1000s of snakes over the last 6 years, but choose to lisen to what you want to hear & disrespect those whose experiences aren't supportive to your claims & call it gossip Mark
P.S. I used to work in Africa BTW

[Jeff_Favelle]

Health issues aside, if you have to " look at several and pick out the healthy looing ones. Nice and fat and well hydrated. Any sagging skin or dry looking spots, stay away from them " then do moral/ethical issues also not arise?? Not picking on anyone with the quote, they just said it better than I could type it.

In other words, if you have to weed through hundreds of half dead snakes to get the "one you want", isn't the fact that you're weeding through a hundred half dead snakes having some kind of an affect on you?

I know it would for me. CB only in my collection.

[Jamie]

I have had nothing but bad experiences with CH balls, I find that when you get them is it often you who is offering them there first meal. I have only made 2 purchases of CH balls and will never do it again, with all the money I wasted on them I could have bought fewer but healthier CB balls. They are well worth the extra $$$, I think out of the 15 CH that I bought I only have 1 left and he will never be introduced into my reptile room with all my CB babies and adults. I will make him his own rack and he will always be outside of my room. WHY TAKE THE RISK? If they are dying it could be something that could spread throught your whole collection. Also why take your business to wholesalers when the canadian market is doing awesome. I would rather pay the extra $$$ to a fellow herper then save my money on something far less superior in quality. That is just my opinion based on my experiences.

[Dave Barsalou]

Last year I got 150 CH's and never had one die on me. All ate very well and had many people compliment me on my stock. Of couse you get a wide variety of eaters within a lot but for the most part my CH has been very positive. So positive that I'll be getting 500 more within a couple of weeks (I hope if the US gov gets thier sh*t together and send me my paperwork) and don't expect any different results. I can't see a difference between CH and CB. (if you get the good ones at the beginning of the year and through someone reputable) and certainly can't tell the difference as adults. Just IMHO

Dave

btw ball pythons are required to be shipped 8 animals per bag. 2000 animals max per shipment. These crates are rather large. Any shipping information can be had in just a few clicks from the USF&W cite or toll free call. Just a few seconds stops propagation of mis-information. The florida suppiler is closer to what actually happen with respect to thier care.

I would like to add that water is not persent or offered until they reach North America. They are shipped within 24-48hrs of hatching (completely out of the egg but in bulk you will see some hardbellies from the people in africa pulling them out of the egg a touch early. (don't forget they have 10's of thousands and if they animals "looks" like its free of the egg and they pull and it tears a bit then they will throw it in the bucket and keep going, one once in a blue moon is not the end of the world, I'm sure we can all site many examples right here at home that are worse with our other pets)

so it's hatch, hrs later in a bag (just like us shipping animals around the country?) and shipped to north america. Doesn't sound like much time, how does everyone else's hatchling look like 24-48hrs after hatching? (guess un-reputable dealers re-selling animals down the line (gotta be more than a few days for them to look sick or wasted or dehydrated, etc) without feeding them would look pretty bad and you'd get alot of mortality)

This actually is driving up the costs on them but unfortueatly, due to over harvesting, the animals are actually getting harder to come by. I expect shortly that they in africa will have a difficult time filling thier max quotas THEN CITES will step in and limit greatly the export quotas. By that time the natual population will be deciamated.

[nita]

This actually is driving up the costs on them but unfortueatly, due to over harvesting, the animals are actually getting harder to come by. I expect shortly that they in africa will have a difficult time filling thier max quotas THEN CITES will step in and limit greatly the export quotas. By that time the natual population will be deciamated.

Someone a while back posted a report done of the BP and their harvesting and it was stated that 10% of the hatchlings from the farms had to be released back to the wild and the report was suggesting they take more from the wild rather than release them because there were so many, since they thrive so well in the farmland that is being created. The report was an older one though, it was an interesting read and gave a new light on the harvesting of the eggs from the wild, I think it was Heather-Rose that had posted it if you do a search you might be able to find it.

[Dave Barsalou]

Hi Nita, I saw that too. Unfortueatly 10% release is still not enough. If you look at the numbers (statistians please chime in, i'm not going to my textbooks to calculate the answer) that release rate only prolongs the enevitable loss of resource. Take a look at it as removing 90% the population then of the remaining 10%, lets say a 50/50 sex distibution further reducing breeding capcity, mortality rates, ablilty to reach size within a reasonalbe amount of time (ie: steady, good supply of prey) and finally low egg production. If balls produced an average sample size (n) of 10 eggs then a slightly larger number of live release would allow a perpetual supply of animals. As it stands, 10% is not enough.

Dave