Posted by:
Bigfoot
at Thu Dec 29 20:19:24 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Bigfoot ]
Let me explain a couple of things to you. First, once a particular species of animals is bred in captivity, it is no longer a wild animal. Some may try to maintain the wild appearance of the individuals they keep but generally, mutations which change that appearance are kept and bred. Think of all the variations of Burmese pythons that may be found in the pet trade. The genetic variations are generally more valuable than the wild type snakes. Unless considerable effort is made to maintain a breeding population of wild type snakes, eventually the mutants get interbred with wild type and it becomes hard to find a pure wild type. Even if this is prevented, the captive breeding population of wild type snakes must be in the hundreds to prevent loss of wild characteristics due to inbreeding. I mentioned in my previous post that I am purebreeding cornsnakes originating in animals caught in the county in which I live. I have no intention of attempting to maintain the variation of wild type coloration found in this county. What I aim to do is minimize the "dirty wash" found in most local snakes so as to produce a beautiful alternative to the Okatee while maintaining the geographic origin of the snakes in the line being bred. You and other boelens breeders can do the same with that species but given you have a limited gene pool to work with (even less than mine), that is the best you can do.
Secondly, hybridization is what happens to plants and animals brought into domesticity. Mules are mentioned several times in the Bible without even one indication God disapproved of their production. The modern domestic meat hog is the result of hybridization between European and Asian species. Beefalo is an established breed with sperm of a good bull going for $25 a straw. The lab mouse is a hybrid. Genes from several different species are being introgressed into housecats. There are lots of wolfdog breeders. In the pen out back, I have a Chinese goose gander, a European goose hen and hybrids between the two. I separated my Peking (mallard) drake from my muscovy drake last spring because the muscovy was mounting the mallard and I was afraid the muscovy's claws would tear up the mallard's back. I put them together again this fall and the mallard mounted the muscovy.
Now, if you start having sex with your snake, most people are going to consider you wierd and some of religious bent are going to get bent out of shape if they hear of it. Otherwise, there is no reason to get bent out of shape if people use (preferably) a boelens male to breed females of some more common species. Of course it is "unnatural," but then a cage is not a natural environment for any snake. The "unnaturalness" comes when you put a snake in a cage, anything you do after that is irrelevant to "natural."
Bigfoot
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RE: Boelens Pyhton hybrid - Bigfoot, Thu Dec 29 20:19:24 2005