I have talked with many people who breed snakes from beginners to pros and there seems to be a lot of disagreement as to where the blame goes when things go wrong when attempting to breed snakes. Some of these things are discussed matter of factly, yet other people will say nothing could be farther from the truth. I will attempt to begin this discussion by asking everyone who replies to NOT mention a specific snake. This is not important right now.

Example number 1 will be the recommendation which comes with some snakes that we should not breed morph to morph but het to morph, or het to het instead, to assure better chances of producing healthy offspring.

Example number 2 would be advising against breeding offspring back to a parent.

Example number 3 would be breeding sibling to sibling.

Rumors of defects and tragedies coming from these pairings includes

1. One eyed snakes or snakes with no eyes at all.

2. Kinked backs and tails

3. Eggs that go full term only to leave fully formed babies dead in the egg

4. Eggs that come out infertile from day 1, or go bad soon after being deposited

Seems like I hear about these things quite often, but there's many questions that should be asked. Size and age of the breeding pair, cage temps, brumation times and temps and incubation specifics. Most importantly it seems like many people fear failure two years in a row so after a pair doesn't produce they switch the snakes to be bred to a different mate. This makes it even harder to find out what went wrong the first time. There's still not enough people discussing these things for proof of any theories as to why they did not get healthy clutches from any given pairs of snakes. A very experienced breeder friend of mine tried to explain it in the sense that he may have over 20 pairs of one type of snake. And that even accurate gathering of info from his colony would still only be a tiny piece of the puzzle that needs to be put together before anyone can rightfully say something like,"You didn't get any good eggs from that pair because you bred morph to morph". This is just an example but as mentioned in the beginning I don't want to start naming snakes and have anyone be insulted or threatened due to rumors surrounding a snake they may specialise in. I could contradict myself til cows fly on this subject, I have heard of certain types of snakes being inbred over and over with no downside and others that outcrossing was mandatory. One of the first questions that should be adressed is does anyone feel that any of the 3 examples listed above applies to any one certain snake or snakes, or will anyone stand by what they assume to be facts that say the opposite, that in no cases do any of the 3 examples amount to anything? I hope I wrote this correctly as it is hard to summarise. Especially when trying to keep from naming specific snakes to specific rumors. All replies are appreciated, but be prepared to explain how you came to your conclusion on the subject. Tom

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