Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do you think it exists?

I my experience breeding thousands of kings and other north amrican colubrids over the years I only see things like kinks and bulging heads ect when the 2 snakes I am breeding are completely unrelated.

I don't get it with related siblings.

I have found weak strains of snakes that do throw kinks more often than not, however. Like some hypo Florida kings I have. But I wonder how it still can be inbreeding depression when u have one that is the "carrier" and breed it out the babies still have the abnormalities. This could just be a line trait thing and not from inbreeding results.

I wonder if it ismore common other other spp than others? Like I hear about Drymarchon (Indigos) that are not constantly outbred get problems. I know they cannot be compared to kingsnakes, but how much of this is true inbreeding depression?

I don;'t see it in other spp which have been inbred to death because of recessive traits like corns and hognoses. But I especially don't see it in kingsnakes.

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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

Hi Rainer, thanks for the offer.

Also, In most cases, Its not the snakes, its the methods. Or most likely the methods.

Its not impossible, but it If it was a product of inbreeding, there would be consistent and regular symptoms, much like breeding for a trait. That is, show up with all keepers that bred that combination.

Whats interesting is, we keep all these snakes, in a way foreign to their design, we feed them food foreign to what the normally eat, we keep them in little boxes, some smaller then others, we keep them in temps that do not resemble what their design uses in nature, and we want to blame genetics. Its possible, but not all that probable. end part 1

Many years ago, when I was inbreeding lots of kings. Folks had all manner of opinions. Much like today. But the facts were clear.

Most if not all kingsnakes live in inbred colonies. They tend to have localized color and pattern. Hence the hobby of morphs and colors.

A geneticist was consulting at a zoo I worked at. He carefully explained that many animals, like in homozygous populations, that is, they are inbred or forced to inbreed. Examples are small island or mountain or extreme desert populations. Which are common in nature. Even kings like Fla kings are completely separated by unsuitable habitat.

These homozygous populations do fine inbreeding because all deleterious genes are culled out. He explained, that outbreeding is where the problem pops up. Out breeding, then inbreeding, will indeed surface genes that can be deleterious.

What is amazing is how long some of these morphs can be maintained. for instance, my albino kings and corns. I started the albino kings in the early seventies, and within a couple decades, they encompassed the world and now are feral on the Canary islands. They are still being bred and are strong today. Hmmmmmmmmmmm amazing animals.

Sorry I did not get back to you, I was in the bush and lost it on the phone, smart phones you know!

Many years ago, when I was inbreeding lots of kings. Folks had all manner of opinions. Much like today. But the facts were clear.

What is amazing is how long some of these morphs can be maintained. for instance, my albino kings and corns. I started the albino kings in the early seventies, and within a couple decades, they encompassed the world and now are feral on the Canary islands. They are still being bred and are strong today. Hmmmmmmmmmmm amazing animals

Exactly what I thought.

As far as getting back to me late. Well you didn't miss anything anyways. It is not what it was.
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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

Check out the Indigo Forum. There is a thread currently about inbreeding in eastern indigos, where the problem was inadvertently made much worse by Federal protection from the Endangered Species Act. There just are not any wild type legal indigos available to strengthen the captive gene pool. (Note I said legal). Severely inbred lines are developing problems like dwarfism, split ventral scales. There are, of course husbandry related problems like egg-binding, but some really seem to be genetic. The indigo gene pool is much shallower than the kingsnake gene pool. Also, seems like some other highly successful species (e.g. ball pythons, cornsnakes) can be inbred for generations and not have problems.

That is really interesting because Indigos do wander a large area. But that does not necessarily mean they don't follow certain scent trails and breed within groups. It just means they have a larger base area o search for food.

Even kingsnakes that congregate in rock-piles together (like zonata mountain kings) wander into the forest to lay eggs in tree stumps. Then return to their same rockpiles.
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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

I still believe its mostly husbandry. As far as I know, Indigos have not inbred many generations.

I produced many many species where there was no more founders available. And thru many many generations. Such species as red ackies and yellow ackies, were founded with a couple of individuals and they are somewhere around 20 generations and still strong.

After producing monitors, high metabolism snakes like indigos and coachwhips, fail in captivity, because snake keepers have no concept of the heat they take.

I spend lots and lots of time in the field and its amazing the temps some snakes use. Even hognose use extremely high temps for snakes. Coachwhips, etc, would not be able to move, if kept in the 80's. When hot they move and I mean move. I have been working with hognose, and temps over 100F are commonplace. What folks do in captivity is based on the people and surely not these animals.

Kings and pits and corns, are low metabolism snakes, so you can keep them cooler, Try that with racers, whipsnakes, coachwhips and other fast moving snakes.

Let me think, an indigo kept at 95F would need to be fed nearly everyday and would fill the cage with crap daily. Which is why folks do not do that. But it is what they do in nature.

This kinda of stuff is common with the new wave of recipe/internet horse poopy.

A tiny thought for folks, corns is the perfect captive snake, and the reason is simple, in nature, they will LIVE IN HOUSES. Indigos, varanids, coachwhips, not so much. Cheers

Some of the indigo maladies cropping up, like dwarfism, seem to be from inbreeding. I agree that husbandry can always bean issue for anything we keep in a box (be it big box or small box or a medium box), but keepers who have kept and bred them for years successfully in US and Europe are starting to see problems which never appeared before.

The difference between eastern indigos and kingsnakes is that indigos do not seem to live in inbreeding colonies (except for in captivity LOL). These are wide ranging, dispersing snakes that can cover 100s of acres. Whereas kings do seem to establish inbreeding colonies, family groups, whatever you want to call it. Inbreeding does not seem to hurt them at all. I believe same is true for other highly successful species (corns, balls, garters, maybe hogs).

I don't know what the Indigos really do. I wonder if they breed with same females or siblings. How will we ever know?
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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

Yes they do, except its bigger, as they are bigger and can move over distance with ease.

Where do you think they are when you cannot find them? which is most of the time. Thanks

Well I have a thought, and of course it is purely an academic thought which I have never tested. But what the hell. Here goes. Some species, say corn snakes, greybands, mountain kings, for example, stay in close community groups and never travel very far afield. They have evolved with constant inbreeding in the wild population and it does no harm. But wide-ranging traveling species like indigos, have the opportunity to mate other indigos at the outer edge of their home range (which may be 100s of acres). Thus, the species has evolved with lots of genetic mixing. That is, a male may encounter a female far removed from its birthplace. Maybe selection against inbreeding has evolved with indigos in wild populations. Whereas a mountain king may never travel more than a few acres in its entire life. Results in lots of inbreeding for mountain kings, but the population is not the least bit effected by it.

The problem is, that does not matter, as the whole colony travels a greater distance. So in effect its the same. Only it covers a larger area.

If they, any snake, have a home range, the size of that home range does not matter. They will breed within that range.

Then the thought that those animals within that home range have been there for thousands of years, pretty much insures there's inbreeding.

But, all this is academic. As there is no proof either way. best wishes

So would you attribute the kinks in the two you sent me to be from breeding unrelated snakes or from incubation issues? Thanks!

The hypo Florida king line I mentioned in my post above is what I was referring to as the only ones that have turned up with slight kinks on the lower half of the body which straighten out as they grow.

This line is not inbred at all so it must be a genetic carrier.
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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

What kind of kinks are these, and when did they occur.

There are two basic types of kinking, one that occurs during incubation and one that occurs at the time of hatching or shortly after.

People often treat animals as toys and without thinking. Please no offense. But its true. All snakes that hatch out of eggs, have spines that are mostly cartilidge and it takes about 10 days to harden up. If you observe hatchlings, they are forced to stay in a confined area, inside the egg. Calcium is placed to strengthen the spine right after they hatch. Torts and turtles, as well as lizards also do this and its far easier to observe. A they are bent in very unnatural positions upon hatching.

In nature, newly hatched reptiles, do not emerge for a period of days, up to two weeks.

We noticed decades ago, If you pop some newly hatched kings, minor kinks occur. ITs best to wait a week to ten days before manipulating any hatchling. Often this type of kinking disappears with age. I hope this helps.

The two snakes in question were sent to me with kinks, thanks. One was about a 90degree kink at the end of the tail. The other was a midbody kink. Again, they arrived in that condition, and I wanted Rainer to clarify if this line (007) was prone to genetic kinking or if there was an incubation issue that led to the kinking. No offense taken that you assumed I mishandled them as toys!

I wasn't talking about you at all, I clearly stated, folks often do. I did not say all folks, or you or Rainer.

If your looking for possibilities, that can also occur during shipping.

As a breeder, folks(not you) wanted their snakes and wanted them as soon as they hatched. I often explained, its best to wait until the snake mature a little(harden up) and feed and start to grow. That way there is no excuses. The problem was, buyers did not give a hoot until there was a problem.

Again, this is not about you or Rainer, just my experiences. Thanks.

Man, I just hope the breeder did not notice the kinks before they were shipped out. Further I hope he immediately offered to refund your money and/or send out flawless replacements. doing the right thing, that's what it's all about.

We're square. My concern was if the kinks were in his opinion genetic or from incubation, that's all. I'm actually contemplating buying a couple more from him.

There is no answer, I have raised kings that had kinks as juviniles and never had a genetic problem. So in my experience its from our poor husbandry.

But I do not have his animals, nor have raised those animals. So you have to weight that.

Lastly, its all yours. You are the one who wants them, and you must have your own reasons. So the risk is yours.

I mean, if I had a choice between kinked or potentially kinked or perfect non kinked of the exact same animal, that's easy, take the non kinked. But is that your choice?

When I was producing lots of kings. Folks were always trying to get me to ship them "questionable" neonates. I always told them to wait to make sure, its feeding and growing. and past the kinking stage. But in many cases, they said, ship, I want I want I want, which is also a valid point in their opinion. Cheers

....for some time there was a very small group of sfmk and most of the (even smaller) group of guys breeding them would get knots/kinks, etc. A few began to cross the locales (counties) and got better results. I have since also decreased incubation temps. I think the combiation of the measures has helped a good deal.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Inbreeding promotes homozygosity. This is only an issue is a detrimental trait is present in heterozygous form in the parent animal.

In people, a rare genetic disorder like cystic fibrosis would be more prevalent when inbreeding. If there is a rare genetic disorder in the family, a relative is more likely to carry the gene than a random person who is unrelated. If no such genes were present, inbreeding would cause no harm. Outbreeding would maintain rarity of detrimental homozygosity.
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Nick Puder
www.rnpreptiles.com