Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know if BELs (especially the Super Butter) born with very large eyes can cause any problems for the snake?

Thanks in advance
Bob

My super mojo's is actually recessed a little, so i hope you don't mind if i bum/piggyback your post and ask about both bug eyes and recessed????

The correct term for Bug-Eyed is Exophthalmic.
I have not seen this inheritable deformity in Ball Pythons myself.
However, I have seen it in Leucistic Texas Rat Snakes.
If you use an Exophthalmic snake to breed any other snake...especially another snake carrying genes for the leucistic trait, you will also likely pass this deformity on to the offspring produced.
I would suggest NOT using an Exophthalmic snake for any breeding purposes.
Obviously, you would not want to produce snakes (or sell snakes) with this deformity.
The quality of life for these snakes (and the quality of the snakes themselves) are a direct reflection of the breeders who produce these animals in captivity.
Anyone can hatch out a snake which is unfortunately deformed.
But, it is our responsibility (as breeders) to do our best to eliminate deformities from future bloodlines.
In my opinion, offer this animal the same love and care you would for the best animals in your collection...but do not allow it to breed. And reconsider using the same cross that produced this animal....so that you do not risk producing more Exophthalmic snakes.

Out of curiosity, what cross produced this deformed Blue Eyed Leucistic?

I hope this information was helpful.
Take care.

Your friend,
Harlin Wall - WALL TO WALL REPTILES!
970-245-7611
970-255-9255

IF (and I don't have first hand knowledge either way) exophthalmic babies are common in some homozygous leucistics in two different species could it be that the tendency is part of the mutation and not a separate gene that can be bred out without loosing the leucistic mutation?

I agree that in general not breeding defective animals is a good idea and selective breeding might even help if the defect is a side effect of a desired mutation; but hard to figure out exactly how. Maybe an additional mutation could make a new allele without the problem and that could be selected or some different gene that compensates for the tendency could be selected into a line.

However if the tendency for the defect is part of the actual desired mutation it will be much harder to select out than if it where caused by a different gene that could be separated once through outbreeding and then be gone from that line for good. I think the persistent sporadic problems (wobbling, kinks, and duck bill) with some other mutations that haven’t been successfully bred out yet are also good candidates for undesired side effects that are actually part of desired mutations. Perhaps there is some incubation environment or nutritional line of experimentation that would have more chance for solving these problems than selective breeding in these particular cases.