Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it alright to breed ball pythons back to their sire? Im thinking of gettinga 100% het for piebald male. I want to breed it to a normal and then breed the offspring back to the het, so that i could possibly produce piebalds. I just wanted to know if this would cause problems like inbreeding.

It just so happens I have an extra 150,000 to spend this year and I want to try something new. The Skrewball was my first choice. Is this 3 headed individual a possible Hydra het.?

Not only are those ads terrible sales but they will only be attracting morons. Even if I wanted the particular animal for sale...after seeing an ad like the one I posted would make it enough for me to not do business with that person. Being that these are live animals we should at least be wanting them to go to people who are not complete idiots and thats all you can hope for with a "can this be something new" ad. Since my morals favor the animals I would just have to try and cheat people in another line of work ; )

"Not only are those ads terrible sales but they will only be attracting morons. Even if I wanted the particular animal for sale...after seeing an ad like the one I posted would make it enough for me to not do business with that person."

The original thread titled "High White, Clear Belly, Unusual, Pick of the Litter Ball Python!!!!" was somehow deleted just before I posted my original response. This is no doubt a glitch in the Kingsnake matrix.

However, I felt like clearing this up so that (1) nobody would be confused as to why this all falls under the thread "Somewhat of a genetics question" and (2) because the above quoted statement could be taken out of context to mean that MY suggested advertisement would only attract morons and should thus be avoided. That interpretation wouldn't be too good for business.

Chris =)
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"Wild balls suck...period...buy American." --jyohe

When feeding a 2/3 headed snake do you have to feed each head? Do the heads ever fight over the meal? Tho your asking price seems a bit high, I saw another ad for $125,000 but the third head might have been photoshopped, I'm not sure.
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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

I've seen that ad. Definitely Photoshop'd.

I am the only TRUE Screwball breeder out there! =)

Chris =)
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"Wild balls suck...period...buy American." --jyohe

.
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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

That is how the first $25 000 pieds were produced, greed sure took over outcrossing to strenghten pied bloodlines.

After all, how do you think land purchasing deals were made!

Inbreed for the first few generations BUT then outcross!

>>That is how the first $25 000 pieds were produced, greed sure took over outcrossing to strenghten pied bloodlines.
>>
>>After all, how do you think land purchasing deals were made!
>>
>>Inbreed for the first few generations BUT then outcross!

Greed?
Ummmmm...ok?

Line breeding is a major method of producing and proving many simple recessive morphs. I think most ball pythons could be bred succesive generations without problems. There may be some morphs that exhibit possible birth defects and those are ones to outbreed. Remember, we are dealing with snake genes that are quite primitave unlike many higher vertabrates. Breeding that het. pied male to normal females would only strengthen the bloodline - Kev
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www.newenglandreptile.com
The Most Extensive Collection of Ball Python Mutations in Captivity

Would you agree that the first Het pieds were bred back to the sire and on and on, this without any outbreeding?

Like I said, greed!

>>Would you agree that the first Het pieds were bred back to the sire and on and on, this without any outbreeding?
>>
>>Like I said, greed!

The first Pieds were bred to normals, that itself is going to dilute the first generation. That would be two distinct unrelated animals. The resulting "hets" would be bred back to the homozygous mutation and other hets. This is the beginning of inbreeding. That combination keeps producing and more normal females are added to the mix. This allows further outbreeding. Take hets or homozygous examples from different outbred animals to prevent the worry of immediate inbreeding. Pieds bred to pieds often yields less productive results than breeding hets to hets or hets to visible as I know. It does not take a great effort to outbreed the mutation enough to negate the worries of inbreeding. Some genetic traits are more sensitive to inbreeding and it would only yield better results to continue to outbreed them as time passes. As a breeder knows inbreeding something like that would be a negative factor if the resulting babies were malformed.

Greed? So the moral thing would have been to breed a pied to a normal, the resulting offspring to normals and then the possible hets to each other? That seems like a longer road and not the most sensible path. Imagine investing in the stock market and watching your stock soar to a point where it would be wise to sell. It goes up with a great potenetial for profit. You sit around hoping it would keep going higher and higher, as you wait it keeps dropping, was that sensible?

How is that greed? What about the chance the breeder took, the investment and time? What about the excitement of actually hatching it out? I don't think I could stand it!! I love to see new stuff, that is the excitement that keeps us going!

Kev
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www.newenglandreptile.com
The Most Extensive Collection of Ball Python Mutations in Captivity

but, DNA is DNA is DNA. There is no such thing as more primitive or less primitive genetics, it works the same in every species that reproduces by sexual recombination. Pick up a Genetics book and read it....I suggest "Genetics" by Klug and Cummings published by Prentice Hall. It is relatively easy to read and will dispell many of those nasty rumors like "primitive genes".

Some relatively simple organisms have by for more complex genomes than humans. For example, the 3300 megabase genome of humans is slightly smaller than the 4500 megabase genome of the common corn plant. Inbreeding of organisms has nothing to do with the "primitiveness" of their genes but has a lot more to do with the frequency of detrimental recessive genes in the wild-type population. If that frequency is low, you can get away with more inbreeding with fewer problems. If that frequency is high, you will end up with more problems when inbreeding. Almost none of those effects are linked directly to the visual morph gene (genetics simply do not work that way so it doesn't matter if you are inbreeding an albino or a pastel or a spider). However, reguardless of the frequency of these bad recessive genes in a population, inbreeding will always result in concentrating and increacing the frequency of bad genes. Therefore, inbreeding = more problems in the future. I will withhold obvious references to the Bush family.

>>but, DNA is DNA is DNA. There is no such thing as more primitive or less primitive genetics, it works the same in every species that reproduces by sexual recombination. Pick up a Genetics book and read it....I suggest "Genetics" by Klug and Cummings published by Prentice Hall. It is relatively easy to read and will dispell many of those nasty rumors like "primitive genes".
>>
>>Some relatively simple organisms have by for more complex genomes than humans. For example, the 3300 megabase genome of humans is slightly smaller than the 4500 megabase genome of the common corn plant. Inbreeding of organisms has nothing to do with the "primitiveness" of their genes but has a lot more to do with the frequency of detrimental recessive genes in the wild-type population. If that frequency is low, you can get away with more inbreeding with fewer problems. If that frequency is high, you will end up with more problems when inbreeding. Almost none of those effects are linked directly to the visual morph gene (genetics simply do not work that way so it doesn't matter if you are inbreeding an albino or a pastel or a spider). However, reguardless of the frequency of these bad recessive genes in a population, inbreeding will always result in concentrating and increacing the frequency of bad genes. Therefore, inbreeding = more problems in the future. I will withhold obvious references to the Bush family.

Pardon my ramble and incoherent thoughts.....
I am no genetics master and can not disagree with your points. I do know that breedings among higher life forms let's say monkeys can yield some bad results early in the inbreeding stages. Snakes then have less problems with that scenario. SO if there is then a less likely potenetial of that "bad" genetic quaility to exist I was using the word primative. Basically trying to denote the fact that it would tolerate more inbreeding without showing much for problems in the first few generations. It has less chance for those bad genes to occur than higher life forms.

So is that why Bush stinks about such things as the ENVIRONMENT, he is INBRED!

Now, that explains a lot!

Kevin
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www.newenglandreptile.com
The Most Extensive Collection of Ball Python Mutations in Captivity

F all you politics (SOULFLY). Don't bother telling this guy anything Kev, he knows all...LOL.

The Gerbil master CB...
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Chad Bachman

>>F all you politics (SOULFLY). Don't bother telling this guy anything Kev, he knows all...LOL.
>>
>>The Gerbil master CB...
>>-----
>>Chad Bachman

No more F'n HOOTY AND THE BLOW FISH!!!!!!!

Soulbug
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www.newenglandreptile.com
The Most Extensive Collection of Ball Python Mutations in Captivity

Hadn't you heard ..?...he sells hamburgers now ...lol
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Charles Glaspie

The more complex an organism is, the more things can go wrong. For instance in dogs and horses, it would be a bad idea to linebreed to the extent we do in ball pythons, because confirmation faults would be really accentuated.

With ball pythons we don't worry about the "topline" or the "front" of the animal...we basically just want a snake with no obvious faults such as spinal kinking, one eye, or some other deformity. There is much more room for error than if someone is breeding prize arabians where too close of line breeding might produce both fatal faults and non fatal but undesirable traits such as a swayback.

To think that a ball python is a more primitive form of life than a Arabian (I assume your talking horse crap now) is just wrong. Although BP belong to reptiles which are thought to branch off of the evolutionary tree earlier than mammals, that does not mean they are genetically "old" or "primitive". Genetically, every rule that applies to mammals applies to reptiles and visa versa. Without getting into too much Bushian double speak, inbreeding in any organism can lead to problems...in the first generation. It just depends on what your starting animals are hiding (in terms of recessive and detrimental genes). Maybe you get lucky and there aren't any hiding or you don't get a homozygous animal (or the homozygous animal dies before it hatches or is born). Eventually, inbreeding will catch up to you as it does with any human directed breeding...be it dogs, cats, horses, snakes etc...
Horses do not have any more genes than snakes on average and any one of the 30 thousand or so genes it take to make an organism can also break it. So there are just as many chances to create a messed up python as there are to produce a messed up horse. The difference is this... horses are already so inbred that they are a lost cause. Hopefully, with BPs it will never get as bad as it is in horses....

I can think of a ton of examples where inbreeding has caused problems and we are already seeing them in snakes...just wait.
Behavioral genes can be affected too. I wouldn't want a snake that loves to bite everything that moves, but hates eating. These things you may not find out are genetic until several generations down the line when it is too late. Like foundering horses....

Just my opinion (although i think morally every breeder should at least consider the consequence of their actions)

Do you have proof of what your saying or are you just speculating? Mammals are warm blooded, reptiles(snakes) are cold blooded.... That would make a difference in the way thing had to be I would think. Thanks David
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1.0 Pied(04)(RDR)
1.0 Albino(04)(RDR)
0.1 Spider(04)(RDR)
3.2 Pastels(03's)(04's)(ASF,Graziani,Bell lines)
0.1 Yellow belly(unproven)(04)
1.3 Yellow belly(unproven)(02,03,04's)
2.0 100% HET CLOWN(04's)(MHMR)
3.3 100% het albinos(03's)(high contrast bell line)
0.1 poss Het Albino(03's)
2.0 100% het pieds(03's)(Vin Russo,CRE)
0.2 100% het pieds(03's)(04's)(RDR,TWL)
1.2 Poss het pieds(03's)(PETE KAHL)
2.1 Poss het pieds(00's)(01's) hoping to get PIEDS this year(Vin Russo, Pete Kahl)
25 Normal adult females
60 04 females
15 normal mixed 03's
20 Assorted weird ball pythons 04's

The proof is volumous and many. Pick up a genetics book and read it. Genes and alleles work the same on every level from bateria to humans. Therefore, so does inbreeding. Each organism might have its intracacies, but on the whole DNA is the common theme that binds every living thing together and is a constant.

You don't have to take my word for it, just because I have my degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, but you might at least consider what I say to be an educated opinion and not a myth created by random speculation.

If what your saying is TRUE then why DON'T the BIG BREEDERS have any retarded snakes, Or do they just not talk about them? I know I have seen around 100 clutches from a well known breeder who I know inbreeds and I have NEVER seen any of HIS OFFSPRING DEFORMED.....NEVER. EVERY LIVING thing cannot be the same geneticly. Like I said I need PROOF. Show us PROOF of your degree also. Thanks DAVID
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1.0 Pied(04)(RDR)
1.0 Albino(04)(RDR)
0.1 Spider(04)(RDR)
3.2 Pastels(03's)(04's)(ASF,Graziani,Bell lines)
0.1 Yellow belly(unproven)(04)
1.3 Yellow belly(unproven)(02,03,04's)
2.0 100% HET CLOWN(04's)(MHMR)
3.3 100% het albinos(03's)(high contrast bell line)
0.1 poss Het Albino(03's)
2.0 100% het pieds(03's)(Vin Russo,CRE)
0.2 100% het pieds(03's)(04's)(RDR,TWL)
1.2 Poss het pieds(03's)(PETE KAHL)
2.1 Poss het pieds(00's)(01's) hoping to get PIEDS this year(Vin Russo, Pete Kahl)
25 Normal adult females
60 04 females
15 normal mixed 03's
20 Assorted weird ball pythons 04's

The proof is in the framed piece of paper...I suppose I could have photoshoped one up for you (like I would waste my time doing that), so feel free to do a google search on Ryan Woodyer. See what you come up with ...ehhh? You might notice that I am currently working towards my PhD at the University of Illinois.

As for the proof, I am not aware of anyone doing an in depth experiment on ball python inbreeding, so I can only assume there is nothing super special about them that makes them immune to genetic disease...since every other organism so far study is prone to some types of genetic disease...and they are always more common in inbred populations, period.

Your answer may lie in the simple fact that most developemental problems result in death before the egg ever hatches. Dont tell me that your big breeder friends never have any eggs go bad...I simply do not believe that...

I would believe that since BPs are not overly inbreed now and there is a fair amount of Wild-type genetics being brought in, that the majority of inbreeding problems have gone unnoticed so far...but that doesn't mean it will continue that way. Ultimately, since there is not concrete evidence one way or the other, you are right...this is just my personal (however well educated) opinion.

Can you prove me wrong? Show me evidence that 100s of snakes that were inbreed were just as healthy as the 100s of snakes that were not inbreed. Show me that the 100s of inbred clutches had just as high hatch rates as non inbred clutchs. If you have this data, please share it. Don't just tell me, prove me wrong...i'd sleep mutch better.

Not many people like to talk about this, but deformed hatchlings and juveniles often are being euthanised before anybody ever knows about their existance.There is no way that I'm aware of to prove this though.

Rob Reiding.

Yes, humans know who and what most of the persons in thier family look like and are. But in Snakes and animals I do NOT belive that inbreeding is a big factor. I have collected snakes in the wild for 20 years and have collected in some spots for MANY YEARS and find that they still PRODUCE the same number of snakes every year. With that said, Can you honestly say that the GROUP of snakes(Black kings for instance) at my spots that I have been collecting at have NEVER bred with the offspring? I DOUBT IT. I have collected over 100-200 snakes in these areas and have a good idea that some of them are related. Also how many deformed snakes have you seen in the wild? Yea they will probably get picked off in the wild but still. But anyway these are just my opinion with my observations of wild populations of snakes. Thanks David
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1.0 Pied(04)(RDR)
1.0 Albino(04)(RDR)
0.1 Spider(04)(RDR)
3.2 Pastels(03's)(04's)(ASF,Graziani,Bell lines)
0.1 Yellow belly(unproven)(04)
1.3 Yellow belly(unproven)(02,03,04's)
2.0 100% HET CLOWN(04's)(MHMR)
3.3 100% het albinos(03's)(high contrast bell line)
0.1 poss Het Albino(03's)
2.0 100% het pieds(03's)(Vin Russo,CRE)
0.2 100% het pieds(03's)(04's)(RDR,TWL)
1.2 Poss het pieds(03's)(PETE KAHL)
2.1 Poss het pieds(00's)(01's) hoping to get PIEDS this year(Vin Russo, Pete Kahl)
25 Normal adult females
60 04 females
15 normal mixed 03's
20 Assorted weird ball pythons 04's

Now I am gonig to ask you to pick up a ecology book and read it. Animals (almost every animal anywhere) has some mechanism to prevent inbreeding. For instance in some snakes, the females will stay close to the area were they are born, while the males will travel some distance to find a mate (thus males coming into the area are from out of town so to speak). In other snakes, there is some recognition of siblings (by smell or some other means). THere is also a large body of evidence forming that many animals can sense mates that have similar genetics and avoid them by recognizing a scent component (major histocompatibility complex. I'm not explaining this in any more detail b/c you will not understand even if I do).

The fact that you do not see many deformed snakes in the wild is due to 2 factors. 1) they do not often survive
2) there is not much inbreeding.

I am sure there is some inbreeding, but it is few and far between, not all the time like in the case of some breeders.

well I think that answers your questions....yep.....

I have been breeding snakes for many years. I have only seen problems in BURMS and CORNSNAKES. Don't get me WRONG I am not saying INBREEDING IS OK, But I am saying that I think SNAKES and Other reptiles can tolerate it more than Other animals or humans. HAS ANYONE DONE studies to see how far they can be INBRED before deformities show up, I am talking harsh deformities such as Kinked spines, No eyes and stuff like that, that is NOT CAUSED by temperature. That of course wouldn't count. Although I have witnessd that in 2 totally unrealated GTP, so I am sure it was due to Temperatures. I think Jeff Flavell made a good point a few posts from the top of another thread on this subject. I would think since SNAKES have NO boundries they can and will breed with anything. I have even witnessed 2 MALES breeding, What about that. Also if what you SAY about the snake in the wild being equipped with senses to detect and NOT breed with relatives is obserd, Because if they were equipped with a sense then they wouldn't breed in captivity now would they. Thanks David
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1.0 Pied(04)(RDR)
1.0 Albino(04)(RDR)
0.1 Spider(04)(RDR)
3.2 Pastels(03's)(04's)(ASF,Graziani,Bell lines)
0.1 Yellow belly(unproven)(04)
1.3 Yellow belly(unproven)(02,03,04's)
2.0 100% HET CLOWN(04's)(MHMR)
3.3 100% het albinos(03's)(high contrast bell line)
0.1 poss Het Albino(03's)
2.0 100% het pieds(03's)(Vin Russo,CRE)
0.2 100% het pieds(03's)(04's)(RDR,TWL)
1.2 Poss het pieds(03's)(PETE KAHL)
2.1 Poss het pieds(00's)(01's) hoping to get PIEDS this year(Vin Russo, Pete Kahl)
25 Normal adult females
60 04 females
15 normal mixed 03's
20 Assorted weird ball pythons 04's

...from what I understand, kinking is a good example of the phenotypic unmasking of a homozygous recessive trait through inbreeding...certianly more outbreeding needs to occur with this morph...sjm

I would hypothesize that the kinking in caramels doesn't seem to be caused by inbreeding but that out breeding of that line should continue on the off chance that it can help.

Here is my thinking. RDR once posted that about half of the original wild caught caramels where kinked. From posts I've seen and even talking to a breeder local to me that I happened to run into at a show it sounds like with breedings involving a het caramel only the caramel offspring have a high tendency to kink, I don't think I've heard of ANY of the possible het or known het caramel babies being kinked yet. I've had kinks in non-caramel projects so by chance eventually someone should have a kinked non-caramel from a caramel project but my point is that the high rate of kinking seems to be confined to the homozygous visible caramels. The whole litter should be the same amount inbred - the siblings that just happened to get two copies of the caramel gene out of many many genes are no more inbred than their siblings that only got one or no caramel genes.

So, if the kinking stays with the homozygous caramel siblings and isn't randomly distributed throughout caramel line breedings regardless of genotype for the caramel gene then it must be the caramel gene it's self or at least a gene very closely linked to it on the same chromosome causing the kinking.

Sure out breeding should continue. If the kinking isn't caused by the caramel gene it's self then perhaps a het somewhere will have the right crossover to produce a chromosome with the caramel separated from the kinking gene. If the kinking is actually cased by the caramel gene it's self there is still hope that out breeding might find another gene that somehow compensates.

So, I don't believe that the evidence supports kinking in caramels being caused by inbreeding but I hold out a little hope that out breeding might help it and of course it's a good idea anyway to avoid other possible problems down the line. Actually I think our best hope to compensate for the problem might be playing with incubation temps, humidity, or perhaps even vitamins. If someone can just figure out why all caramels aren't kinked then perhaps that variable can be used to virtually eliminate the problem.

Actually I think I've read that the first cb pieds where from pied X pied so the breading pair must have both been imported animals. I suppose the imported pair could have been siblings but I know that Peter Kahl pretty much cornered the market on imported pieds before proving them so should have had several to pick from and he had a track record of avoiding inbreeding with the founding of his albino boa project.

Actually the incredible level of out breeding early on in the pied project (as evidenced by many possible hets het males that where being offered - apparently even the het males where used to breed to as many normals as possible) is what led me to theorize that there might be a het pied marker before I finally found out what it was from a post on this forum.

I would agree that we should avoid inbreeding as much as possible but I'm not at all convinced that any of the few reputed ball python morph problems that we have heard about so far have anything to do with inbreeding.

I read an article written by peter in which they described line breeding the first pieds to prove that it was genetic. I even remember something about them making a window in the eggs after 45 days to see the offspring early. Just what I remember, this might not be the case.

On the issue of inbreeding, many of the problems associated with individual morphs are probably not due to inbreeding as you have said. Like kinking in carmels, it could be due to a linked gene, directly a cause of the carmel gene, or it could be due to other genes found in high frequency in the original line of carmels (and thus due to inbreeding has continued to be a problem), all of these are possible. However, problems not liked to morphs, like losing an entire clutch of eggs for some unknown reason, or other developmental flaws that few people talk about like deformaties or even runt hatchlings are probably due to inbreeding and the concentration of bad genes. Another huge issue is resistance to disease, the more diverse an individuals genetics are, the more resistant to disease that individual is, so inbred individuals will be much more susceptible to disease.

I think the standard message should be "inbreeding should be avoided if it is possible." I realize in some cases it can't be avoided, but if you should avoid it and outbreed whenever it is possible to do so.
Ignorance on the subject of inbreeding may end up causing more and more problem snakes to the point where captive bred BPs will be worse pets than WC BPs.

I re-read the article and it sure sounds like the first captive bred piebalds where from homozygous piebalds imported separately and quite possibly not closely related.
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