Reptile & Amphibian Forums

this is the first breeding for this female. she was born with a kink so i hope it will work out ok.

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www.westernhognose.com

Just a question, and don't take this as any insult because its not meant as one. Why are you breeding her if she was born with a birth defect? Any birth defect, whether caused by the incubation temps or genetics (We really CANNOT know which it was caused by) is a bad thing to be putting into the gene pool. Its like the bug-eye Trait in leopard gecko morphs...or the same trait in leucistic and albino Texas rat snakes.. People let bad blood and bad genetics keep breeding into the lines so they could make more money. Any animal with a deformity is going to be weak.. in the wild she would never get the opportunity to reproduce as she would have been eaten long before now. Harsh but reality always is. So really, any offspring she has are going to have very high chances of being weak individuals both internally and maybe even exhibiting signs of those weaknesses externally, as in a kink somewhere...or even several kinks to the point they're unable to eat properly...

To me this is just foolish breeding practice and I've been breeding reptiles going on 10 years now, mostly lizads but the same rules of genetics apply to snakes as well. Don't breed anything thats not 100% healthy. You risk the mother and any resulting offspring in doing so..And also unfortunately, the only way to ensure`the gene pool stays strong is to not breed animals with visible or even invisible infimties.

So, don't take this as a bashing or flamings, its not meant to be. Just supposed to be a a question and some friendly advice/information.
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Mel Goodrich
RavenCrest Reptiles: Sale and Rescue
drune@charter.net

~Updated animal list coming soon~

Breeding an animal with an obvious physical deformity sounds like a bad idea to me. Deformities may not show up in the first generation offspring, but if someone were to breed two of those babies together they could end up with problems.

With leopard geckos this ended up happening with patternless morphs and kinked tails. Due to initial high price people were loath to remove animals with kinked tails from breeding colonies resulting in the widespread perpetuation of this trait. It's taken subsequent breeders multiple generations of very careful selection of breeding stock and lots of out crossing to get rid of this trait in their colonies.

I guess I just don't see any benefit to risking the perpetuation of a trait like this in the captive population by breeding this female. At the very least, anyone recieving offspring from this female should be informed about the mother's condition so that they can make informed descision when desciding to purchase and breed those snakes.

-Alice

Do yourself, and the rest of the herpetocultural community, a favor and freeze any eggs from this breeding. Breeding animals with known problems simply is a bad idea. I'm surely not the only person who now has reservations from buying a hog from you due to this. When I purchase something it is with the assumption that the animal is healthy (physically and genetically).

Ok I suppose I waited to long to respond to these posts.
First of all I have way to many tri-color hognose to need to try and get more from this female for the purpose of making a few more bucks. I have No intention of selling babies from this female. I would give babies away to other responsible breeders to use for research purposes only. My intentions are to breed this female and see just how her babies come out to see help to see if this is a genetic problem or just a incubation problem. If people never due any kind of research on thing like this when I good opportunity come along then how would anyone ever know the answers to why these thing happen.
Also I have been breeding these guys for a long time now and if I wanted to try and sell people snakes with any kinds of problem then I could have just kept this snake and info to myself and just sold her babies and no one would have ever known.
But if you know anything about me and my reputation in the reptile would or talk to anyone that has ever bought snakes from me you would know that I am a very honest and upstanding person that cares far more about my animals than I do about making a few bucks.
Sorry I didn’t write more info in the first post as I was in a rush. I do see all of your points and I hope I have clarified my reasons for my first post.

JIM
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www.westernhognose.com

I'm glad to hear your reasoning behind this. I thought/had heard that kinks in snakes were due to incubation problems. It would be beneficial to prove/disprove the genetic aspect.

Nanci
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*****
0.0.1 Classic Corn, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
1.0 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

That’s cool Jim I hope it works out. I’m not sure what everybody is so freaked out about these kinds of breedings happen all the time in indigos and other snakes that are incubation temperature sensitive. i've also seen western albino and pp albino for sale with kinks on kingsnake by some top breeders and nobody freaks about them. good luck