Scalesless Heads- Do they have a strong future?

[Stanley M. Ordonez]

The prices for scaless heads are going down. Faster than I would of thought. They were very pricey and they went down to 20k for a morph + scaless. Now I see one breeder selling them for 6K(simple morph). Are they a good investment? Are their genetics good; Strong? to be good breeders? To continue their lineage? I ask these questions because of what I am seeing? What do you think or have heard. Is everyone who bought them still happy? Are breeders who bought them from another breeder when they were high, do they still have a warm and fuzzy professional relationship? Is this a proceed with caution if you have lots of liquid assets? Thanks, Stan

 

[Dbz4246]

Those questions are hard to answer since Scale less heads are still fairly new. But think about it this way, even though they are newer, you see them everywhere. So a lot of breeders already have them and the price will just drop from there. Issues with the snakes haven't really been exposed yet, as far as I know. But there is at least 1 anatomical mutation with the the pure scaleless, but no idea how it actually affects the snake long term. But I see this kinda acting like the Banana, lots of breeders will jump in and mass produce, destroying the market for it.

 

[SPJ]

You must have missed the the fiasco at Daytona. LOL
The male scaleless that BHB has looks like crap. The female is nowhere to be found and Brian won't talk about it.
The people who got in early are less than thrilled with how the project has been handled.
Winston will hopefully have full scaleless this year from his breedings.
There are many scaleless head combos already. Pastel, spider, pied, etc.
The price drop is because back door deals are now in the open. There are a few sellers offering the lower pricing.
Personally, I don't like the completely scaleless one and have a feeling there will be viability issues with it.

 

[Dbz4246]

You must have missed the the fiasco at Daytona. LOL
The male scaleless that BHB has looks like crap. The female is nowhere to be found and Brian won't talk about it.
The people who got in early are less than thrilled with how the project has been handled.

Have not heard about this. Is there a thread about this already? I'm nosy lol

 

[snowgyre]

Yes, please Steve, can you expand on that? I was at Daytona and saw Mr. Smooth and was surprised at how many scaleless heads were available given how new the gene is to the market. I didn't think the scaleless ball that was at the show looked bad?? Granted, I didn't take much more than a passing glance at it.

 

[SPJ]

Way too many threads to post links to. Sean Bradley, Mike Wilbanks and few others are not happy with Brian.
Here is what they had on display. Where is the female? Every time BHB is asked he goes into a rant and basically tells the people who are heavily invested from the beginning to go to hell.

 

[SPJ]

One more. Sad shape and that thing is 2 years old.

 

[snowgyre]

Hmm, I'll have to defer to your experiences with Brian. It's hard to tell from the photo if the skin on the snake's back is incompletely formed scales (like we see in other scaleless snakes) or actual skin problems. Without seeing a shed it's hard for me to know.

I didn't realize a female had also been produced? I was only aware of the one male.

Also, with a sample size of only 1 (perhaps 2, depending on the nature of the female, or 3 if we count the scaleless ball that showed up years ago but died), it's hard to definitively say if there are health issues tied to the gene. I have some ball pythons that no matter what I do are just slow growers. I have a three year old male who is only 700 grams, for example (he was a mouser for ages but thankfully just switched to rats, so I'm hoping he'll make up for lost time).

I'm not saying those of you heavily invested into the project are not justified in being frustrated or worried, but I'm not completely convinced the project is worth abandoning just yet. With all the scaleless heads at Daytona, I'm guessing we'll know for certain the behavior of this gene in the next year or so.

 

[SPJ]

Brians attitude is what is causing problems with the project. There was the original one years ago that was a female that died, 2 females that the bessettes had died, and now the female sib to this male is MIA and BHB won't let anyone know what happened to it.
Basically he has been horrible with the project and people like Sean who paid $50K to get into the project wanted answers.
Hopefully Winston will be a better steward of the scaleless project because BHB dropped the ball big time and alienated a lot of current and future customers into the scaless project.
Personally, I don't care for the animal. But I do see where people want answers. This screams that things are being withheld like what happened with the desert project.

 

[snowgyre]

Thanks for explaining things, Steve. I agree that this is all starting to remind me of the desert fiasco. I hope it doesn't end up turning out that way for everyone who invested so heavily in the project. I guess we'll know in the next year or so what's going on.

 

[Stanley M. Ordonez]

Thanks Steve

Thank you Steve for posting these pics. A pic is worth a thousand words. Like many others I had no idea how this project was going. I am glad that we are able to talk about. And hopefully others will join the conversation. Whether bad or good the reptile community will be a better one if we all talk about it. I hope that it does not turn into a finger pointing contest. Integrity is something very important; and for one I try my best to hold on to. When I look into the mirror I would like to see a person that I could trust. I hope that there will be more information that gets out on this project. We did not get into this hobby initially to make money, but to enjoy and share our hobby with others. Thank you for joining the conversation, Stan

 

[ShawneeAlice]

I kind of think scale-less snakes are only popular because of the novelty of them. Honestly they look like gross old snakes to me, not something pretty to look at, which is a large part of liking a snake - the way it looks. I tend to dislike hairless mammals too. Sphinx cats, hairless rats, those weird hairless dogs. Idk, I love beautiful fur, and I love beautiful scales. But that's just one consumer's opinion x3 Even the scaleless heads would bother me..they look incomplete lol

 

[AbsoluteApril]

I kind of think scale-less snakes are only popular because of the novelty of them. Honestly they look like gross old snakes to me, not something pretty to look at, which is a large part of liking a snake - the way it looks.

Couldn't agree more! I never understood the appeal.

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

Some concerns (purely speculative) -

1) Is there not the worry that this would result in the need for much tighter environmental humidity controls to avoid skin maladies (thereby increasing the burden on the keeper)?

2) Relating to 1, is there not the worry that this could also prove an inferior barrier to microbial ingress in general beyond the reduction in protection against desiccation?

3) What impact does this trait have on the brille and is there not the worry that the eye has reduced defense as a result if the brille is in any way compromised (even if only partially)?

I doubt there are enough data to make conclusions due to so few available samples, but I would imagine there would be a delicate balancing act to care with multiple points of potentially increased risk. I do not wish to dog the project or the folks involved in it. These are simply my intuitive and automatic concerns that arose the instant I saw the animal. I am understanding (to a degree) of certain compromises that can come hand in hand with some morphs of various animals. Some I am willing to tolerate. Some I am not. Not judging on this one since I know virtually nothing regarding this, but more information would be helpful.

 

[ShawneeAlice]

Well, seeing as how hairless cats need a ridiculous amount of skin maintenance to keep them healthy, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that a scaleness snake would need more specialized care.

 

[snowgyre]

I wrote this in response to an information request on scaleless reptiles a while ago on a different forum.

Warning: This is long, but I feel a scientific literature review was warranted given the debate surrounding scalelessness in ball pythons. I have no conflict of interest in writing this report and no stake in the scaleless market other than finding scaleless animals fascinating (I own a scaleless Texas rat snake - a new acquisition). The too-long-didn't-read summary is at the bottom above the citations.

The genetics of scalelessness in reptiles is fairly well understood, as is scalelessness in birds (particularly chickens), and hairlessness in mammals (hair and fur are basically highly modified scales). It is known that the skin of a scaleless snake lacks beta-keratin (Citation A: see below).

There is scientific literature examining scaleless reptiles since the 1970s, including numerous studies examining their health in regards to water loss (no difference in northern watersnakes, citation B), mechanical resistance to the skin (reduced in scalelessness, citation B), heat transfer (no difference between scaleless and scaled gopher snakes, citation C). For more papers, feel free to search Google Scholar, although many articles may be behind a pay wall.

There is no documentation I know of that shows that scalelessness in reptiles is linked with other defects that could cause negative health effects or death. Instead, more data is available to show that scalelessness largely has no effect on the physiology of the animal. Scalelessness also does not cause negative effects in birds (except at low temperatures, which is to be expected for an endothermic creature, Citation D) or mammals (numerous examples exist), which have common ancestors with reptiles and likely inherited the scaleless/hairless gene rather early on in the evolutionary tree. Therefore, there is no evidence I am aware of that should make us suspect that scalelessness in ball pythons should lead to reduced health or death. If scalelessness causes physiological problems in ball pythons, that would be rather new knowledge in the scientific community, and certainly warrants close examination and peer-reviewed publication(s).

TLDR; There is no scientific reason for us to suspect that scalelessness in ball pythons is a deleterious (aka bad) trait.

Citation A: Toni, M. and L. Alibardi. 2007. Soft epidermis of a scaleless snake lacks beta-keratin. European Journal of Histochemistry 51:145-151. Available here: http://ejh.it/index.php/ejh/article/viewFile/1136/1257

Citation B: Bennett, A.F., and P. Licht. 1975. Evaporative water loss in scaleless snakes. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Physiology 52:213-215. Available here: Evaporative water loss in scaleless snakes

Citation C: Licht, P. and A.F. Bennett. 1972. A scaleless snake: tests of the role of reptilian scales in water loss and heat transfer. Copeia 4:702-707. Available here: http://compphys.bio.uci.edu/bennett/pubs/4.pdf

Citation D: Somes, R.G. Jr., and S. Johnson. 1980. The effect of the scaleless gene, sc, on growth performance and carcass composition of broilers [chickens]. Poultry Science 61:414-423. Available here: The Effect of the Scaleless Gene, sc, on Growth Performance and Carcass Composition of Broilers

 

[Helenthereef]

Thanks for the literature, it's good to proceed on actual evidence, and to hear that this gene doesn't seem to be linked with any other physiological deficit.

However, I still have to say I agree with ShawneeAlice on this one - just because it's possible to do things doesn't always mean it's desireable. It's a personal stance, I know, and obviously there are many people really interested in this, but for me this is similar to overbreeding bulldogs to the point where the animals can barely breathe - just doesn't make sense to me.