Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does this have any mental effects on the snakes? Im just curious if anyones seen a mentally challenged snake from all the breeding back to one another for morphs. I was about to start an albino project with a hets and I don't exactly want a snake with down syndrome(not trying to be funny). It would kind of suck to have a snake that does circles all day long and keeps falling off his climb branches. I know it has a larger effect in well, larger, more complex animals(humans). Does it show any with snakes? Thanks in advance for answers!
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"Stupider.....like a FOX!!" -Homer Simpson

This is an excellent question and one I thought hard about for a while. It would seem to me that this is dangerous but then I've not done any studies. My conclusion was to trade. For example, if I had a clutch of albinos, I would trade my male to another breeder for his male (same age, etc.). That way, I have a duluted bloodline and so does the person I trade with.
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Jay A. Martin

The term inbreeding has a huge negative stigma attached to it. Take humans for example. People think that inbreeding leads to things like 5 arms, 3 eyes, 2 heads, etc etc. Wrongo. The ONLY thing that inbreeding does is increase homozygosity. NOTHING ELSE. I don't know where you get the idea that Down Syndrome is from inbreeding, but it isn't. Inbreeding increases thr paring of like alleles. That's it.

Now yes, sometimes lethal recessive alleles exist and inbreeding increases the chances of those being expressed, but you won't see it in 1 generation. Not likely. Maybe in humans, but not in BP's. Humans aren't evolving anymore. Well, we are, but not in a good way. Every human gets the chance to breed and pass on his/her DNA. Even weak, sick, mentally-challenged, etc etc. This doesn't happen in the natural world. Those animals are picked off quickly and/or not able to attract mates. So MOST lethal alleles in BP's were weeded out long ago.
www.jefffavelle.com

I never mentioned anything about Downs Syndrome
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Jay A. Martin

Yes, it was for him. I meant to reply to his post, but I had like 10 windows in 3 different forums open at once. I'm just glad I got the right thread, LOL!!

My biggest worry with inbreeding is people that breed albinos to albinos to albinos without ever outcrossing. Any random bad recessive genes that happen to be in a founding animal are going to start to be expressed really quickly.
So I think it's ok to backcross to form a morph, but after than, outcrossing is good!
I mean... look at leucisitic Texas ratsnakes... ouch.
But, on the other hand... the Pharaohs of Egypt did ok (lots of inbreeding there).

Again, and too often recently, I'm going to have to agree with Jeff on this one. He knows his stuff, and by hoppping on his back, maybe it'll rub off on me. With BP's, inbreeding is not a bad thing at all; it is how you maintain or purify the strain of morph you are going for. If you have an albino with a really high contrast colour, why would you breed him to a outbreed with less sontrast, when chances are one of it's offspring will carry the same super-high contrast gene. You wouldn't notice a difference for many generations breeding BP's.

I agree with no damage being done in many generations but I do recall an input television show about an island in the tropics with just birds and one species of snake. The snakes have inbread over countless generations and they showed the hempies and they were mutated. Both male and female. The number of true males and females were about 1:1 with the transgenders.

Just food for thought

It was the discovery channel BTW

Called the "Founder Effect". Its an extreme form of genetic drift and results in a small fragment of a population being the sole providers of DNA. Its a type of Bottleneck that results in higher homozygosity due to the simple fact that there's not many DIFFERENT individuals to breed with. But it takes many many generations to see deliterious effects from Founders and Bottlenecks (usually).

Thanks for the nice words Mykee!
www.jefffavelle.com

n/p

Hey thanks man! Check out what pipped today!! Finally.

www.jefffavelle.com

n/p

inbreding will make the "lines" weaker....smaller snakes...smaller clutches....bad sperm count....it happens...ask the striped corn people...and many other lines/morphs...

balls are alot more hardy ....they can take it for awhile...

they used to say that it took 7 generations anyways....so you have alot of time to outbreed them anyways...

as mentioned...once you get alot started....trade a few albino males off to someone for other males....and even get a bunch of het females from a third source...you will have a bunch of bloodlines to work for more years...

have fun...

JYReptiles

Does this have any mental effects on the snakes? Im just
curious if anyones seen a mentally challenged snake from all
the breeding back to one another for morphs. I was about to
start an albino project with a hets and I don't exactly want a
snake with down syndrome(not trying to be funny). It would
kind of suck to have a snake that does circles all day long and
keeps falling off his climb branches. I know it has a larger
effect in well, larger, more complex animals(humans). Does it
show any with snakes? Thanks in advance for answers!

Down's Syndrome is caused by an extra chromosome from improper cell division during production of the sperm or egg. This sort of thing is as likely in randomly bred animals as in inbred animals.

Inbreeding isn't necessarily bad. Race horse pedigrees all trace back to four stallions around 400 years ago. But they do a lot of selection for performance in race horses. Lack of selection for good quality is what produces bad rsults from inbreeding.

IMHO, albino ball pythons have been both inbred to keep the mutant gene and outbred to increase the number of heterozygotes to increase production. To minimize the inbreeding effects, try to get heterozygotes from different breeders rather than mating brother to sister.

Good luck.

Paul Hollander