Genetic Diversity in a Collection

[Pythonfriend]

for me, maybe my opposition to continued inbreeding has a lot to do with what i know from other species, and there also is a sense of aesthetics involved.

in nature these pythons evolved over millions of years, and while other species are struggling there still are millions of ball pythons in the wild. their official conservation status is LC, the lowest, it stands for "least concern". and all ball python breeding is still closely connected to that gene pool, even a high-end 5 gene combo still has a whole lot of normals from africa in the ancestry. the outbreeding and recombination and the continued imports keep that connection alive. i think this concept has aesthetic value and will also keep the species strong and resilient.

the issue i have with line-breeding is that you start with a founding population of breeding animals, and then you breed these to each other, homozygoity goes up, you lose the genetic diversity and you lose the connection to the natural gene pool. you may get benefits, like pastels that never ever brown out, or polygenetic traits. but the benefits based on homozygoity are fragile, in that they are lost when you breed it to any other BP. i see how this is going terribly wrong in other species, especially pedigree dog breeding. there is only one way to produce a dog that can be accepted as a cocker spaniel: the parents and grandparents must be accepted cocker spaniels. any outbreeding will mean the animal will not be listed, will be rejected at auctions and shows, and will be labeled "mutt". this is going on for a large number of dog breeds, all isolated. and the result is genetic fragility and an avalanche of serious health problems. i see this as a possible and quite logical consequence of line-breeding: once you get your polygenetic line-bred trait fixed, it seperates from the rest of the gene pool and goes its own ways.

i like how in BP breeding, everything is still connected to everything else, and there is an influx of genes from the wild population in africa. and i dont like how that is not the case for dogs and horses and rabbits and so many of the other animals we domesticated. let alone animals for food production like chicken, pig, cattle. the original horse went extinct and had to be recreated from different breeds, wolves almost went extinct, and i have no clue where to find the original wild ancestor of our modern chickens and cats. BPs, even the most fancy multi-gene combos, still have that connection to nature.

dont get me wrong, i still think that a high inbreeding coefficient will weaken the immune system and make the snake more fragile when it comes to health. i dont have evidence for this in ball pythons specifically, but when you consider all that is known about all sexually reproducing species, you get a picture. but there also are aesthetic reasons for why i like it the way it is. this may be very subjective, but i think it explains the opposition. there is a kind of beauty in the way things are, and i dont see it when i look at a pet bunny or pony or dog.

[T&C Exotics]

for me, maybe my opposition to continued inbreeding has a lot to do with what i know from other species, and there also is a sense of aesthetics involved.

in nature these pythons evolved over millions of years, and while other species are struggling there still are millions of ball pythons in the wild. their official conservation status is LC, the lowest, it stands for "least concern". and all ball python breeding is still closely connected to that gene pool, even a high-end 5 gene combo still has a whole lot of normals from africa in the ancestry. the outbreeding and recombination and the continued imports keep that connection alive. i think this concept has aesthetic value and will also keep the species strong and resilient.

the issue i have with line-breeding is that you start with a founding population of breeding animals, and then you breed these to each other, homozygoity goes up, you lose the genetic diversity and you lose the connection to the natural gene pool. you may get benefits, like pastels that never ever brown out, or polygenetic traits. but the benefits based on homozygoity are fragile, in that they are lost when you breed it to any other BP. i see how this is going terribly wrong in other species, especially pedigree dog breeding. there is only one way to produce a dog that can be accepted as a cocker spaniel: the parents and grandparents must be accepted cocker spaniels. any outbreeding will mean the animal will not be listed, will be rejected at auctions and shows, and will be labeled "mutt". this is going on for a large number of dog breeds, all isolated. and the result is genetic fragility and an avalanche of serious health problems. i see this as a possible and quite logical consequence of line-breeding: once you get your polygenetic line-bred trait fixed, it seperates from the rest of the gene pool and goes its own ways.

i like how in BP breeding, everything is still connected to everything else, and there is an influx of genes from the wild population in africa. and i dont like how that is not the case for dogs and horses and rabbits and so many of the other animals we domesticated. let alone animals for food production like chicken, pig, cattle. the original horse went extinct and had to be recreated from different breeds, wolves almost went extinct, and i have no clue where to find the original wild ancestor of our modern chickens and cats. BPs, even the most fancy multi-gene combos, still have that connection to nature.

dont get me wrong, i still think that a high inbreeding coefficient will weaken the immune system and make the snake more fragile when it comes to health. i dont have evidence for this in ball pythons specifically, but when you consider all that is known about all sexually reproducing species, you get a picture. but there also are aesthetic reasons for why i like it the way it is. this may be very subjective, but i think it explains the opposition. there is a kind of beauty in the way things are, and i dont see it when i look at a pet bunny or pony or dog.

I do see your point and the logic behind it. Everything you said is very well thought out and put together. But I must disagree still. The main reason for this is due to the simple fact that with proper selection of animals there are no issues with inbreeding/line breeding BPs. The exact same can and should be said for outcrossing.

If you look more at recessive genes and combos of them you will see more and more inbreeding. Let's use an existing combo. Ralphs first lav pied. That was first gen inbreeding to produce, at least the second gen were also inbred. With this we are only looking at a dbl recessive. Taking it a step further for a triple recessive would have an extreme amount of inbreeding because of the odds. Let's say a lav pied clown. If you hit a male you are going to breed that back to the mother asap to get another and hope for a female. Once you have the female you will breed them together to only produce that triple recessive combo to get finances moving with the project. After that you may outcross or you may keep producing more and more through inbreeding. Odds are both will be done to stack more on top and keep production up on them. With this example if you choose healthy animals from healthy stock you decrease the chance of issues down the line. It is all about selecting the healthiest animals to use in the project. The same goes for any breeding attempts. Healthy starting stock leads to healthy offspring. Proper documentation of each animal is needed to assure healthy offspring.

I am not saying as a blanket statement inbreeding is good because that is not true. I am only saying that it is not bad with proper selection of the stock used for each step if the way.

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[jdhutton2000]

Just to cause this to resurface, Line breeding (or inbreeding) Cinnamon and Caramel are what causes the deformities of kinks. Just thought I'd throw that out there. But I will say that people are noticing what inbreeding is causing problems and are avoiding it. I can take two different "lines" of cinnamon and make supper cinnies with zero defects, breed them back to the parents.. well it has been my experience and from what I have gathered from others, whatever alleles are attached to the cinnamon phenotype are causing genetic kinks, separate from incubation issues. But this only shows when the Cinnamon genotype from a parent connect to the Cinnamon genotype of an offspring. Cinnamon to unrelated (atleast 3 generations separation) Cinnamon = Healthy clutch.

With that said, I am really tired of reptiles genes being compared to mammals.. Mammals developed and thrived because of a main factor, warm blood made migration possible. This is why we are all over the planet and most reptiles are concentrated at the equator. Mammals evolved to move around and in doing such our genome was spread and out genetic flaws were concealed through diversity. Reptiles however survived by conserving energy, not migrating (for the most part), and doing something us mammals suck at, letting nature take its course. 99.9% of all the species that ever existed on this planet are extinct. Every subsequent generation has found a way at surviving better than the last, low and behold that has lead to mammals being everywhere.


The weakness of reptiles is also their biggest reason for being so genetically pure. They die when pairings produce weak offspring. Mammals for the most part encourage and take on the weak and help them in a pack mentality, but do allow them the chance of spreading their bad genetics. Reptiles, for the most part, do not. The weak die in the egg, die after, or just die in general. Because they are so localized the parents will eventually die without viable offspring to carry on the genetics, and the ones that do survive either don't have that genetic flaw or have another trait that allows them to overcome it.

But just as the docile wolf has become father of all dogs, domestication of pythons has led to what we have today. Hate it or love it, you apparently are interested in it since this is a ball python forum.. Just saying. =)