Reptile & Amphibian Forums

is it common practice to breed siblings to each other, and/or parents to offspring?

come on guys....someone has to know

I'm not sure "common practice" would be a good term, but to prove out a morph, it's done.
-----
Tosha

8.10.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
7.9.5 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

so, if not breeding for morphs, inbreeding is generaly not done? are most "designer" snakes inbred or not?

There wouldn't be any reason to "inbreed" normals as they are fairly cheap and you can readily get new blood. In the case of some morphs, they may not be compatible with other blood lines or there may not be other blood lines available or the morph itself is new and no one is really sure what to breed it to. I think most people try to bring new blood into their projects when they can, but in some cases, it's just not feasible. As for your statement about most designer snakes being in inbred, I would say no, some, but not most.
-----
Tosha

8.10.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
7.9.5 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

Actually with so many imported normals there really isn't much reason to breed normals period. There wasn't much breeding of ball pythons before the morphs and lots of the cb normals now are either direct byproducts of morph projects or due to the increased interest in the species due to morphs.

In the case of dominant type morphs such as spiders there is an incredible level of outbreeding going on with young spider males to lots of different older normal females. With recessive morphs inbreeding isn't uncommon, especially at the beginning of a new morph.

Since most morphs are rather pricey, it makes sense and cents to breed that moph to as many normal females as possible. Raise the females up and breed them back to daddy to produce homozygous morphs.

Alternatively, you could also sell the morph and buy the same type of morph a couple years in the future to breed with the females. This would ensure fresh blood and you'd eliminate the need for inbreeding.

Hope this clarifies things for you a bit.

I failed to mention that if you're crossing two homozygous animals, you'll need to cross the siblings to get a double homozygous animal as they'll be het for both traits/morphs.

Cross an albino to an axanthic and you'll have snakes that are het for albino and axanthic. Cross the siblings together for a chance to get a snowball. Another example is if you cross an orange ghost to a caramel albino you'll get hets for both traits. Cross the siblings together and you'll get caramel glows.

There are plenty of people out there with a snowball project (for example) that you wouldn't NEED to cross siblings however it's the easiest way for some. I know a lot of breeders do breeding loans and straight trades for genetically compatible snakes so they can add new blood to their projects but there are those that don't. Yes it happens and a lot, sometimes it's necessary sometimes it's just convenient. I'm surprised that there aren't more snakes know for "spinning or kinks" but i suppose out in the wild there is much inbreeding too so maybe they are actually designed for it.
-----
Tosha

8.10.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
7.9.5 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

you guys have been so helpful. im just getting started in this whole "designer" snake thing. im very interested in it. i apreciate any info from you guys.

thanks
Deal

First I will say it is not as bad as you might think as well...but like you said...someone buys a high end ball and breeds it to as many normal females as possible creating a whole bunch of hets from different bloodlines. Also on the codominant morphs...how many different bloodline have been added to those. 1 more thing...how many different bloodlines of albinos ....ghosts....axanthics...piebalds...and others have come straight out of africa?????
-----
Michael Enriquez

"I'm surprised that there aren't more snakes know for "spinning or kinks" but i suppose out in the wild there is much inbreeding too so maybe they are actually designed for it."

Actually it doesn't look like inbreeding is to blame for either caramel kinking or spider spinning.

I've read that about half of the imported caramels where kinked and I've heard first hand reports of het X het breedings where all the caramels where kinked but non of the possible het siblings where. The entire clutch has the same amount of inbreeding so the distribution of kinks tends to indicate that it's being homozygous caramel and not other genes concentrated by inbreeding that causes kinking.

Spider is probably the most outbred morph in existence, perhaps even more outbreed than most wild bred normals. Several generations of 6 month old males have been bred to large numbers of older (and likely imported) females. Again, the multigenerational distribution of spinners that I've read about tends to support the condition going along with the spider gene it's self.

Hi,

Sibling breeding or backcrosses to parents are very common in ball python breeding as well as herp breeding in general. Herps tend to be very resistant to inbreeding depression, as it has been going on in nature for millions of years, and as such most of the deleterious genes have been selected out. Some morphs however have bad genes that sometimes come with the good ones and therefore will have to be selected out by us through ruthless culling of defective animals from breeding programs and controlled outcrossing.

Examples where undesireable genes have come along with good ones are bug eyed-leucistic Texas rat snakes, scale deformities in albino western diamondbacks, cataracts in Angolan pythons, eye deformies in albino boas, and word is (unfortunately) spinal kinks in caramel albino balls. Now this doesn't mean (to me anyway) that we should shy away from these mutations, but that we need to be very selective when purchasing initial breeding stock of these types. Very simply choose animals that don't manifest the bad trait, as not all of the animals representing the traits mentioned above are affected. We can ensure that we can do our part to minimize these piggybacking traits and eventually select them out by careful pairing of animals to lesson the chance that the trait will be unconsciously selected for. For example, I purchased a het caramel albino male and bred him to several hardy, stout normal females. I kept back all of the resulting females and plan to (hopefully soon) breed these girls to a non kinked caramel male from a different blood line in order to insure diversity and hopefully produce non-kinked caramels.

So inbreeding in general is not necessarily a bad thing, we just need to keep selecting out the bad traits that come along with the good ones, if and when they show up. Take care.

Will