I am sure you would find CO barren in comparison to the hill country you're used to. It is what it is. It might be a real kick to you for bike riding but not so much critter wise.
It’s almost unbelievable if you didn’t see it yourself.
There’s lots of really great breeders out there but my favorite Mendelian maniac is Kevin McCurley of NERD Reptiles.
http://newenglandreptile.com/nerd/
He started out as an awkward geeky kid who had tanks of snakes in his room and became one of the rock stars of BP genetics.
http://raphaelsblog.tumblr.com/post/21376508822/kevin-mccurley-tries-to-explain-how-the-soul
On the herp forums, he drives people crazy when he comes up with some amazing new morph and won’t tell people what all the ‘ingredients’ are.
It used to be that a 3 gene animal was awe inspiring...he’s working with 6+ genes as “normal” now.
Almost constantly, bags of captured wild BPs arrive and the breeders go pick through them looking for unusual patterns/colors and they’re constantly discovering new morph possibilities.
I’ve tried to follow it all but it’s become nearly impossible to keep up.
The cool thing is that when somebody creates something nobody else has yet, that snake can sell for up $50K.
Just 2 years ago, we saw a Pied Albino at Repticon with a price tag of $25K.
Now they’re available for less than $1K.
The name of the game is make something totally new and cash out on it before another breeder figures out what your formula is.
The whole industry is part rock show, part serious genetic science, part intrigue, part Las Vegas, part adventure and wholly fun to watch happening.
It’s like God made a lowly, normally drab critter who’s the genetic equivalent of a full Panatone chart and said “Now go wild”.
One breeder recently discovered the “Sunset” gene and introduced red into BPs, which hadn’t been done before.
He didn’t realize what he had until *after* he’d sold a bunch of het-for-Sunset babies off at a trade show for pet prices.
Somewhere, a slew of unwitting kids have some very, *very* expensive pets.
:)
http://snakebytes.tumblr.com/post/27407117576/the-sunset-ball-python-has-been-an-interesting-journey
Brian has a really good channel on YouTube called SnakeBytesTV.
He and his crew are hilarious.