I have no particular information on whether burm disease in genetic or not, but I think you misunderstand the theory. The reason inbreeding tends to cause problems in most animals (someone correct me if I'm wrong here) is that it brings long dormant recessive genes that already exist but are almost never expressed to the surface. If ball pythons don't carry a gene for something similar, no amount of inbreeding will make it appear. We can probably assume that balls might carry other latent genes that could cause different problems, but maybe just not that one...



>>I have been thinking a lot about this since Brian posted the statement earlier and I have this question. If "Burm-disease" was a genetic disorder like the myth states and was originated from inbreeding, then why is it not seen in the Ball pythons. The Ball pythons have been line bred a heck of a lot more than the Burms. Everytime a new morph is found it is line bred and thus following the same principles should create some form of "Ball Disease", Just looking for some others ideas on this. Todd
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Larry D. Fishel

Side effects may include paralysis

and death but are generally mild.

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