Line breeding for temperament?
Like the title asks, can you line breed for temperament? Essentially only breeding those that have the best attitudes towards being handled and that eat well with looks being secondary. Are these traits that can eventually be passed on to be a new norm for your line of the species?
Thanks,
Kyle
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Re: Line breeding for temperament?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JodanOrNoDan
I have multiple breeding programs going with balls. Most of them focus on producing specific morphs, however one program leans heavily to producing animals with exceptionally good temperaments and are easy feeders. Most of this line are relatively large animals.
Gen 2 produced about 25 babies from 3 different mothers. Out of the 25 2 had initial feeding issues. 1 of those got over it, one is still a pain in the butt.
50% of the animals are larger than average, the largest girl hitting 1300 grams at seven months.
One of the boys from this bunch bred at 3 months old. Out of the 25, 24 had perfect attitudes. The one that was not "perfect" hissed at me once. How much of the behavior is genetic and how much of it is the way I handle my animals in the beginning is an unknown right now. I have never produced an exceptionally pissy baby. This is the first season I have bred animals where one of the parents have a bit of an attitude problem so we will see what happens. I am guessing attitude is 50% genetic and 50% rearing.
I am in gen3 of this experiment is in the incubator now. We will see how many traits hold true.
The question is do people really care about attitude, size, and ease of feeding?
i think that's how BP's (and other snakes/herps) would go more mainstream. for a lack of better words (or education), it's kinda like the domestication process. herpers are still in this bubble. it's a niche and we're all still breeding for morphs - colors and patterns. a friendlier and easier to care for/feed BP would gain more acceptance. and if it looks great, awesome!
i've been watching alotta JKR vids recently. in a recent vid, he visited a breeder in South Africa who was breeding Cape File Snakes. in the vid below, he switched them to rodents over a few clutches (9:40) and his most recent batches open their mouths to accept the food (13:40).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDPmjddX0aI
i dunno the science (or math behind it) but i think it's possibile.
Re: Line breeding for temperament?
That's awesome your working towards that goal!
I agree that it's a good idea and that more docile, easier to care for royals would make them even more popular than they are. Especially since the reasons I see that most herpers have for not wanting a royal is because of there seclusive and finicky feeding habits.
Right now two of my three adults don't like being handles and try hard to find a dark hidy hole instead of being held. The male doesn't care and seems to almost enjoy exploring. To me, if we could get that attitude mixed with my bigger girls feeding response, who seems to feed more like a rat snake at the moment. Eating every time she has a chance and only turning down a couple of meals while she's. Then to me they would be the perfect pet snake. I'm starting breeding young enough, that I might be able to see some good progress in the future. And mix in some aweskme patterns while in at it. The worst part will be keeping all the babies long enough to get a good idea of there habits and attitudes.
Kyle
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Re: Line breeding for temperament?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ax01
a friendlier and easier to care for/feed BP would gain more acceptance. and if it looks great, awesome!
Gen2 Female 8 months.... Pretty enough Ax? She is really not quite that fat, she had eaten a couple hours before.
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...16fdf0aabd.jpg
Now I need to figure out a way to market size, temperament and easy feeding.
