Head wobbling spider gene snake affect breeding?

Hi there,

I am new to this, so please forgive me if this is an elementary question.

I have kept snakes before and have bred corns before but I am just getting into balls and want to breed in the next couple years. I just saw a bumble bee female at a shop available for very cheap. She eats properly, but she has that spider gene head wobbling thing and it is quite extreme. She is twisting and turning the head up and down like crazy and it is quite disturbing to look at.

My friend who has bred balls for years told me that it won't affect breeding if you don't mind looking at that wobble, and that the offspring won't have this problem unless I breed it to something else with a spider gene.

I had already known that the spider gene can sometimes lead to head wobble, but I always thought it was just spider sometimes having this. My friend said that it was only if two spiders bred together and the two dominant spider genes crash (leading to, for want of a better term, a "super spider") that causes this. So that as long as I don't breed it to something else with spider, then I'll be ok.

The snake seems otherwise healthy and is eating and growing, has the genes I want, and is female as I need, but I don't know if I should get it because I don't want to if it will affect breeding, or if it means that the offspring will all have this (at least more likely than just any ole' spider being bred). Can someone advise me on this?

Wobbling doesn't seem to affect breeding. Spiders and spider combos breed just fine.

Any snake with spider in it can wobble... whether it's just a spider, a bumblebee, or a spider mojave pastel pinestripe granite (you get the idea).

Some spiders have it worse than others though. My male spider twists and twists. He also makes some really poor strikes. My female bee doesn't display any wobble at all and her strikes are dead on. I am sure she'll develop it sometime though. My female lesser spider doesn't display any oddities either. The question is more WHEN they will develop it... not IF.

Is the severity of the wobble passed on as well? i.e., if a parent has a severe wobble, is it more likely that the offspring also has more severe wobble?

ALL snakes with the spider gene have the wobble, or will develop the wobble in the future, yes. I swear there was another thread about this, people discussing when their spider-gene ball developed wobble, how severe it was, and whether it was that way from hatchling... let me see if I can find it.

And yes, the wobble is a neurological disorder associated with the spider gene. If you breed a pastel to a spider, and you get:

Spider, Pastel, Normal, Bumblebee
Only the spider and bumblebee will have the disorder.



here it is: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ghlight=wobble

LOL thankyou for being nice and answering my question. I was researching more after I post and I see people going "oh no! another spider wobble post!" LOL

Hope everyone doesn't hate me now. Yes, yes ok ok, I should probably not post WHILE researching next time. :P

I did not find anything about whether the level of severity of wobble is passed on though.

I hope the thread I linked helps :) It's a really good resource for seeing other people's experience with spiders and the spider combos.

I don't think severity passes. I think it might be random. Not sure though.