Quality of breeding stock

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Originally Posted by RoseyReps

I'll let you finish reading for my explanation :)





Or, to sum it up:
A standard won't work, as the opinions differ to greatly.
Labeling up front can help visualize for new breeders the difference.
It's not meant to STOP people from breeding pet quality, but if it makes them think about quality AT ALL, it's done it's job (for me).
This is just something *I* want to use on my personal website, I don't think everyone needs or should have to, call it an experiment :)

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HAha thanks. I caught up between listening to powerpoint training stuff for work, then saw this after. I don't think it's a -BAD- idea at all I'm just afraid that if it were to become a 'standard' in the industry, then we are faced with other issues... or a system that is too specific for the nature of the hobby, that it creates a too rigid or limiting experience down the road. Like people who insist that butters are better than lessers simply because of their line, blind to the individual animals, for example. I've had multiple people give me a 'standard' for what they say a butter is, then when they see my lesser girl, insist she is a butter (she's not)... and love how she looks.. but once they learn she's a lesser, she's suddenly less desirable. It's silly. I'd like to see more focus on the individual animal :)

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Originally Posted by Anatopism

HAha thanks. I caught up between listening to powerpoint training stuff for work, then saw this after. I don't think it's a -BAD- idea at all I'm just afraid that if it were to become a 'standard' in the industry, then we are faced with other issues... or a system that is too specific for the nature of the hobby, that it creates a too rigid or limiting experience down the road. Like people who insist that butters are better than lessers simply because of their line, blind to the individual animals, for example. I've had multiple people give me a 'standard' for what they say a butter is, then when they see my lesser girl, insist she is a butter (she's not)... and love how she looks.. but once they learn she's a lesser, she's suddenly less desirable. It's silly. I'd like to see more focus on the individual animal :)

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I agree. A morph standard just won't work.


...lessers are better anyways...:rofl:

This is all quite fascinating

Lessers are better!
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/21/ze9esape.jpg

Although I appreciate the idea of having a grading standard, there are major problems with it. Since I come from a horse background like Sorraia, that's what I can compare to. The way quality is maintained in horses is by having a studbook. Animals are inspected at certain ages by trained judges who all agree on the standard for that breed, if the animal meets the standard, they are approved for breeding and registered in the studbook. If they are not approved, they can still be bred but their offspring will not be registrable as a member of that breed and therefore not command the premium pricing that approved offspring would command. With warmbloods this can be a price difference of over $20,000, so there is an incentive to breed good quality animals.

However in horses the breed standards exist because different horses exist to do different jobs. Draft horses are bred to pull heavy loads, they cannot perform on a racetrack like a Thoroughbred because they were not selectively bred for speed, you will never see a Clydesdale win the Kentucky Derby. Unlike a horse, the visible pattern on a BP has no effect on it's ability to sit in a tub and be a snake, which is all they've been bred to do. A normal does this just as well as a banana does. There is no performance requirement that requires standardization aside from avoiding kinks and other deformities that may affect the animals quality of life.

There is also no accounting for taste. There are a few general trends that people can agree on (such as preferring axanthics that don't brown out), but as we can see even in this thread, there isn't even a consensus for what makes a good pastel. I actually prefer reduced clowns, and lower white pieds. Just because a snake may not meet the standards of what some people think a morph should look like, doesn't mean that there isn't a market for that snake.

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Originally Posted by Luke Martin

This may be the only thing I kind of disagree with. Quality animals can produce sub par animals. Line breeding takes time and you're not going to be producing amazing animals all the time only because your breeders are nice looking. Most of the time, the reason you see the sub par quality animals for sale is because the breeder held back the best quality, or it sold before most people even saw the animal. A lot of the stuff you see on the classifieds are the lesser quality animals, because the high quality gets picked up first. Not disagreeing with your premise, just offering a reason for it over blaming most breeders for selling sub par animals based on their breeding stock.

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I am actually with you on this one. I agree a lot of snakes never see the open market. Some of mine are like that.

And I fully agree you get the gamut from even the nicest parents.

You hit on a key thing here in that line breeding takes time. My point with the Pastel and Enchi comment was that I really believe there would be more fine examples than bad ones if more people had started the line breeding process early versus just breeding whatever they can get their hands on.

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Ever wonder why you cannot find a nice Enchi or Pastel (or whatever)?

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Because I snatch them before others do? :rolleyes:

http://stewartreptiles.com/wordpress...po_enchi05.jpg

Seriously though I have been preaching that for years,yet every year I see people who basically put two snakes together just because they can and because they want to hatch a certain mutation.

For the longest time it was Spider and Pastel (especially when the price made them very affordable to the masses) all of the sudden many started putting dark pastels with VERY busy pattern spiders because they wanted to hatch out a bee.

I understand how exciting it is to hatch something yourself, I don’t think there’s a better feeling however because you have that mutation and that one doesn’t always mean they should be paired, yes you might hatch the mutation you wanted to hatch “insert name here” but will it be a quality animal you will be proud of and want to hold back and breed to other animals?

Selling an animal can already take time but having below average animals will take you a lot longer to sell if they even do, you can always wholesale them but if you get into breeding why not produced the best looking animals possible.

I don’t have a huge collection I keep it very small and the main reason is that I want to breed for QUALITY and not quantity; I want to produce some outstanding animals that I am proud of myself but that my customers will also be proud to ad in their collection.

I don’t buy a mutation because I have to have it or to be able to say I have it, I buy the mutation because it is something I want to work with and I only do the day I found the perfect example that would fit in my collection.

It took me 3 years to find the perfect reduced pattern albino, 2 to 3 years to found the enchi I wanted, (the hypo enchi I was lucky :D) anyway I am picky and I take my time even if that means I am way behind on what some other people are already producing.... it is all worth it to me.

since everyone agrees, ill guess i go for it and play devils advocate. After all i guess this thread will be more interesting if you have something to rip apart ^^

i think the individual genes breeders work with, and how these are combined, are in many cases still more important. is it really so bad when a breeder works with 3 or 4 nice genes and just wants the rest of the genetics of the snake to be healthy but random, and for new genes just occasionally buys very good looking normals, from different sources so that they are unrelated?

i still see two issues:

first, i think any codom or dominant base morph can be "fixed up", or be bred to high quality, in 2 generations of line breeding, for recessive its maybe 2 maybe 4 generations. Then you have kept the relevant gene and replaced 75% of the remaining genetics with genes from exceptionally good looking normals and had plenty of choices. and when choosing from different siblings that hit the gene, different parts of the remaining genome will be replaced, giving you control over what stays and what gets replaced. 2 generations is not too much time.

Then, if breeding standards get defined, people want to 1-up these, and when adding other genes is not an option breeders might turn to excessive inbreeding. Pythons seem to be quite resilient when it comes to inbreeding, much more so than mammals, but still, it weakens the genetics.

by the way, what might undercut it.... breeding farms in africa now start working with morphs, ive seen evidence for this when it comes to pastel, calico, cinnamon/black pastel, and albino. So big time breeders that are also dealers and importers will soon order 500 normals and 500 pastels instead of 1000 normals like they used to. And of course the best ones will be sorted out and get a higher price tag, just like its today being done with normals / dinkers / oddballs. Maybe this will set certain standards in the trade no matter what we do. I guess in that environment you just need to make your own plan, define a project, and work hard. And my opinion is that you can search for months to get the best animals to start with, or you can start with the genes you want and improve over the generations just with regular outbreeding to highest quality normals.

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Originally Posted by Kurtilein

since everyone agrees, ill guess i go for it and play devils advocate. After all i guess this thread will be more interesting if you have something to rip apart ^^

i think the individual genes breeders work with, and how these are combined, are in many cases still more important. is it really so bad when a breeder works with 3 or 4 nice genes and just wants the rest of the genetics of the snake to be healthy but random, and for new genes just occasionally buys very good looking normals, from different sources so that they are unrelated?

i still see two issues:

first, i think any codom or dominant base morph can be "fixed up", or be bred to high quality, in 2 generations of line breeding, for recessive its maybe 2 maybe 4 generations. Then you have kept the relevant gene and replaced 75% of the remaining genetics with genes from exceptionally good looking normals and had plenty of choices. and when choosing from different siblings that hit the gene, different parts of the remaining genome will be replaced, giving you control over what stays and what gets replaced. 2 generations is not too much time.

Then, if breeding standards get defined, people want to 1-up these, and when adding other genes is not an option breeders might turn to excessive inbreeding. Pythons seem to be quite resilient when it comes to inbreeding, much more so than mammals, but still, it weakens the genetics.

by the way, what might undercut it.... breeding farms in africa now start working with morphs, ive seen evidence for this when it comes to pastel, calico, cinnamon/black pastel, and albino. So big time breeders that are also dealers and importers will soon order 500 normals and 500 pastels instead of 1000 normals like they used to. And of course the best ones will be sorted out and get a higher price tag, just like its today being done with normals / dinkers / oddballs. Maybe this will set certain standards in the trade no matter what we do. I guess in that environment you just need to make your own plan, define a project, and work hard. And my opinion is that you can search for months to get the best animals to start with, or you can start with the genes you want and improve over the generations just with regular outbreeding to highest quality normals.

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http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__...enius-meme.png

I apologize for my previous post. I've entered the portion of my day where I'm constantly only seconds from stomping around like a 2 yr old and crapping my pants out of boredom. Mostly, I feel the devil's advocate position should be played when there is a legitimately useful or insightful alternative to a commonly accepted idea. Paraphrasing a bit, but "Disregarding genetics because they all get washed out or easily corrected anyway" is for the lazy, apathetic sort who put no thought into their actions and long term plans, and are, in my opinion, a major degenerative issue in our hobby.

WHY start off with crappy animals, when you can start off with great animals, if not for an impulsive need for immediate gratification (many quotes come to mind about good things being worth working for)

I have seen the word "Quality" used on this forum since I started lurking here. It cracks me up because all "Quality" means on this site is pretty, prettier, and prettiest. Nothing more. When you hear the word "Quality" used in other consumer references it means many things like better materials, tighter tolerances, longer performance, faster speeds, etc. Is there one breeder here who can say and back up with evidence, that their snakes eat better, live longer, lay more eggs, slither faster, use more efficiently the caloric intake of the rats consumed? No! In fact there are many of you who raise and breed animals with a known neurological disorder and talk about the "Quality" of your Bees, Spiders, etc. What they mean when they say "Quality", is they have a pretty example of a particular morph and likely have used good husbandry practices producing it.

That in mind, "Pretty" is pretty subjective. What you are supposed to look for in a quality pastel, is what the first people in the hobby decided was, in their opinion, a quality pastel and have now imposed as truth on those that followed. It is no different then what Vogue tells you is beautiful. And if Vogue were to use the same logic being applied to this thread, then heavy women and people who don't have good symmetry in their facial structure, are low quality humans and should only be regarded as "Pet Quality" and never be bred. Too bad as Stephen Hawking would be low quality.

Just my 0.02.

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

I have seen the word "Quality" used on this forum since I started lurking here. It cracks me up because all "Quality" means on this site is pretty, prettier, and prettiest. Nothing more. When you hear the word "Quality" used in other consumer references it means many things like better materials, tighter tolerances, longer performance, faster speeds, etc. Is there one breeder here who can say and back up with evidence, that their snakes eat better, live longer, lay more eggs, slither faster, use more efficiently the caloric intake of the rats consumed? No! In fact there are many of you who raise and breed animals with a known neurological disorder and talk about the "Quality" of your Bees, Spiders, etc. What they mean when they say "Quality", is they have a pretty example of a particular morph and likely have used good husbandry practices producing it.

That in mind, "Pretty" is pretty subjective. What you are supposed to look for in a quality pastel, is what the first people in the hobby decided was, in their opinion, a quality pastel and have now imposed as truth on those that followed. It is no different then what Vogue tells you is beautiful. And if Vogue were to use the same logic being applied to this thread, then heavy women and people who don't have good symmetry in their facial structure, are low quality humans and should only be regarded as "Pet Quality" and never be bred. Too bad as Stephen Hawking would be low quality.

Just my 0.02.

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Well, with your assessment, we should also be selling off human babies for profit / business. It is illogical to compare humans, and vogue, to breeders and their breeding/selling animals. You are absolutely right, people breed wobbly bee's, and there are beautiful "high quality" bee's that have wobbles. Just because a word is used differently between certain aspects of life doesn't mean it's wrong to use the word. Our hobby (when talking about BREEDING STOCK) is breeding bps, to make beautiful animals. If you don't care, or think it's wrong to choose a prettier ball python over a normal looking one, that is your call, and nothing wrong with that. But please don't come to a thread titled about breeding, and tell us all how we're wrong for judging these creatures based on their looks. It's honestly, very childish, and I know you're not usually that way, so I'm a bit confused as where this came from.

We are discussing it from a breeding a business standpoint, not if it hurts the brown pastel's feelings.

Also, just because we want beautiful snakes, doesn't mean we don't love normals, or brown pastels, or think they deserve a lesser home because of that. Every snake deserves a long healthy life, whether it is brown, purple, polka-dotted, or pure white.

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Originally Posted by RoseyReps

Well, with your assessment, we should also be selling off human babies for profit / business. It is illogical to compare humans, and vogue, to breeders and their breeding/selling animals. You are absolutely right, people breed wobbly bee's, and there are beautiful "high quality" bee's that have wobbles. Just because a word is used differently between certain aspects of life doesn't mean it's wrong to use the word. Our hobby (when talking about BREEDING STOCK) is breeding bps, to make beautiful animals. If you don't care, or think it's wrong to choose a prettier ball python over a normal looking one, that is your call, and nothing wrong with that. But please don't come to a thread titled about breeding, and tell us all how we're wrong for judging these creatures based on their looks. It's honestly, very childish, and I know you're not usually that way, so I'm a bit confused as where this came from.

We are discussing it from a breeding a business standpoint, not if it hurts the brown pastel's feelings.

Also, just because we want beautiful snakes, doesn't mean we don't love normals, or brown pastels, or think they deserve a lesser home because of that. Every snake deserves a long healthy life, whether it is brown, purple, polka-dotted, or pure white.

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Actually, I'll retract my childish statement, I guess it just seems like you're looking for an argument with your post. I mean, I do understand where you are coming from...but it's kind of like a "....really?" reaction I'm getting. I don't know, just seems.....well PETAish. That kind of argument...

I don't like your verbiage of better materials, faster speeds, etc. That's a wrong frame of reference when talking about animals. These aren't cars. These aren't houses, nor are they food. Their value is in the way they look, so the quality frame of reference you should adpot is the way they look. It's comparing apples to oranges really, and that's a bit of a farce in logic.

Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy SIII using Tapatalk 2

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

I have seen the word "Quality" used on this forum since I started lurking here. It cracks me up because all "Quality" means on this site is pretty, prettier, and prettiest. Nothing more. When you hear the word "Quality" used in other consumer references it means many things like better materials, tighter tolerances, longer performance, faster speeds.

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Every point you just made is irrelevant, simply because we are not talking about anything you referenced. We are talking about ball pythons, It's ridiculous comparing the definitions of quality for a snake to the definitions of quality for anything else, especially humans.

LOL I wish we could selectively breed humans. I'd castrate Jets fans. The world doesn't need anymore of them running around!

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

LOL I wish we could selectively breed humans. I'd castrate Jets fans. The world doesn't need anymore of them running around!

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Calm down there buddy, I believe someone tried that a few years back. Didn't work out to well for him in the end.

While we're at it, make people have to go through an application process to breed. That'd solve many problems, like ugly genetics lol. "you're a C, no breeding for you pal".

In all fairness I scored as a 8.53 out of 10 on anaface or something.

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I would obviously be a 10.....just saying ;) and I'm a proven breeder

1.0 male Rob proven breeder powerhouse

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Ohhhh too many evil inappropriate jokes here...

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

1.0 male Rob proven breeder powerhouse

Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy SIII using Tapatalk 2

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Oh I'm sure I've got a big ol' girl I could pair him with.... how much??

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

I have seen the word "Quality" used on this forum since I started lurking here. It cracks me up because all "Quality" means on this site is pretty, prettier, and prettiest. Nothing more. When you hear the word "Quality" used in other consumer references it means many things like better materials, tighter tolerances, longer performance, faster speeds, etc. Is there one breeder here who can say and back up with evidence, that their snakes eat better, live longer, lay more eggs, slither faster, use more efficiently the caloric intake of the rats consumed? No! In fact there are many of you who raise and breed animals with a known neurological disorder and talk about the "Quality" of your Bees, Spiders, etc. What they mean when they say "Quality", is they have a pretty example of a particular morph and likely have used good husbandry practices producing it.

That in mind, "Pretty" is pretty subjective. What you are supposed to look for in a quality pastel, is what the first people in the hobby decided was, in their opinion, a quality pastel and have now imposed as truth on those that followed. It is no different then what Vogue tells you is beautiful. And if Vogue were to use the same logic being applied to this thread, then heavy women and people who don't have good symmetry in their facial structure, are low quality humans and should only be regarded as "Pet Quality" and never be bred. Too bad as Stephen Hawking would be low quality.

Just my 0.02.

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http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8097/8...d33895d59c.jpg

Yeah.. I'm gonna go tell all my girl ball pythons that what REALLY matters is what's inside that counts and how they feel about themselves. In this discussion, quality is directly tied to aesthetic value. It's already been discussed that quality is determined by market. Ridiculous comparison.

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Originally Posted by nimblykimbly

Oh I'm sure I've got a big ol' girl I could pair him with.... how much??

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That is one lock I do not need pics of!

Hi guys, I'm a newbie here, and a newbie to ball pythons, although I've been lurking around for years... I feel I have something to chime in here though, as I'm a geneticist, specialising in animal genetics and animal improvement. I agree with the general idea of this thread, buying my snakes I went to well known breeders partly to avoid pewter/sterling dilemmas, partly to know the bloodlines I'd be working with. All you've said is true, that is until rlditmars' post. I don't know if he magically edited it or if you read a different post to me, but I absolutely don't see why you laugh him up. He talks about one sided view on the word "quality". As been said before, everyone has a different idea of a "good quality" look on a morph. However, he points out that in animal breeding there is more to the value of it, than just the looks! That's what is causing so many problems in dog breeding...
I bought my snakes with an intention of breeding them. Obviously, I want them to look as good as possible. But, like rlditmars, the look of the snake in question will be just a fraction of my breeding decisions. I would much rather take an average looking female that is feeding well, and is a good breeder, than a splendidly looking female that would have to be force fed all the time and would take 3 breeding seasons to lay 3 eggs, out of which 2 would be slugs. With the first female you can work with, with the second... well, you can admire her.

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Originally Posted by nykea

Hi guys, I'm a newbie here, and a newbie to ball pythons, although I've been lurking around for years... I feel I have something to chime in here though, as I'm a geneticist, specialising in animal genetics and animal improvement. I agree with the general idea of this thread, buying my snakes I went to well known breeders partly to avoid pewter/sterling dilemmas, partly to know the bloodlines I'd be working with. All you've said is true, that is until rlditmars' post. I don't know if he magically edited it or if you read a different post to me, but I absolutely don't see why you laugh him up. He talks about one sided view on the word "quality". As been said before, everyone has a different idea of a "good quality" look on a morph. However, he points out that in animal breeding there is more to the value of it, than just the looks! That's what is causing so many problems in dog breeding...
I bought my snakes with an intention of breeding them. Obviously, I want them to look as good as possible. But, like rlditmars, the look of the snake in question will be just a fraction of my breeding decisions. I would much rather take an average looking female that is feeding well, and is a good breeder, than a splendidly looking female that would have to be force fed all the time and would take 3 breeding seasons to lay 3 eggs, out of which 2 would be slugs. With the first female you can work with, with the second... well, you can admire her.

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You make a good point

I think the claim that we only line breed for looks is not accurate. Over time, breeders also refine things like clutch size.

This brings back the point made earlier about really looking at the Normals that you use in your projects. If you have Normal female that is a monster egg layer, it is not a bad idea to get her genetics into what you are working on. But, she still helps if she is a nice looking Normal, or at least carries visual traits that you are looking to integrate into your project.

But back to the bigger point. Fly by night breeders who are just putting together whatever animals are not looking to improve ANY of this. They are looking to make a quick buck and do not care if they are producing sub-par animals.


While discussing this topic over on the BLBC, a good point came up that some folks like the ones that may not be considered optimal examples. The example of using a browned out Pastel as a dark morph enhancer. I see the point here, and if someone wants to breed a line with a specific trait for a specific purpose, then bravo.

Once again, the folks I am complaining about are not thinking on this level. it is all about a quick $$$$$.

There are 2 sort of reasons why to breed animals. They're based on conformation or performance. Usually breeding for performance are working lines of animals. For example, race horses or dogs who herd.

But if you look at show animals. Any show animal(live stock, dogs, cats, rats, ferrets, etc etc) its based on body and look.
Ball pythons do not fall into the breeding for performance category.
Ball pythons are not selected for their ability to 'slither faster'. Perhaps that can be a plus trait, but not the reason people breed them. They are bred mainly for their looks and general health. I repeat, general health. We all want healthy animals. But as long as an animal is not suffering or is able to thrive and live a quality life, there is no reason to stop breeding certain morphs.

I personally don't like spider morphs due to their wobble and base look. I will never breed the spider gene. However, they live and thrive fine. Most can live a quality life just as well as the next snake. The original spider from Africa had a wobble. Clearly, it wasn't selected against yet..... Just a thought.

If you want the 'best performance' get a WC volta. Those girls get huge. I think Outback Reptiles just mentioned a female laying 15+ eggs. Most girls average at 7-10. Seems to me, they have the best fitness. Although they are poor eaters in captivity most of the time.

If you want a 'defect free' snake, breed normals. All morphs are genetic defects after all.

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Originally Posted by nykea

I would much rather take an average looking female that is feeding well, and is a good breeder, than a splendidly looking female that would have to be force fed all the time and would take 3 breeding seasons to lay 3 eggs, out of which 2 would be slugs. With the first female you can work with, with the second... well, you can admire her.

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If that is the case, I wouldn't breed either. Neither are good candidates.

If the second snake was that much of a problem, she probably would have died on her own or should be culled from a young age. That is not a good quality life if she can't thrive on her own. Especially as an adult.

The goal of breeding bps is for looks and general health. I wouldn't breed that average girl either then if she's muddy looking for example. Unless you're just breeding pet quality animals that shouldn't be bred in the future, breeding average and below is what is destroying the look of base morphs.


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the whole talk about how we dont really breed BPs for performance (that they slither faster) and only take care that they eat well and breed well and are overall healthy got me thinking....

and i think we could actually breed green tree pythons to performance. a healthy green tree python without neuro issues can climb a smooth vertical metal pole with elegance. And most gyms have these. We could have green tree python climbing competitions :D What do you think?

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Originally Posted by Breaking Balls

I'm going to constantly try to improve what I have and what I'm working with to produce the best representations I can for my own holdbacks and any future customers. I have a lot of thought into all my animals and what I was specifically looking for when I bought them. I try to take all of my future projects goals into account. I believe that breeding high quality animals and producing the same will not only help differentiate myself from everyone else but lead to the advancement of whatever morphs I'm working with. That's my idealistic goal anyhow and the standard I try to hold myself accountable to.

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There are lots of great points in this thread. Ultimately it means finding a breeder or breeders to do business with that actually sticks to that ideal instead of preaching about it and doing something completely different. How many people sell an animal that produced ugly babies? There is tons of responsibility in breeding animals. That responsibility rides within the person making the decisions. That is why it is important to stick to someone that makes good decisions.

I also agree with the point that many of the best animals DO NOT reach open market. They are held back for breeder upgrades or sold to close friends and acquaintances. I've witnessed this, participated in this (on both ends), and seen it happen on countless occasions. Let's face it, the stuff on the market has already been picked through before you ever see a shot of any of these animals.

We live in the Walmart generation where price overrides quality and service. I can not count how many times I've read a thread that started with the premise of finding an animal really cheap. There is a right and a wrong way to negotiate for animals. I always pick the animal and then negotiate a price. The honest truth is that I usually pay quite a bit under market (and many times less than a poor example of a morph) for a top notch example! People just have things so backwards with the "Got to collect them all" mentality. This mentality then extends to "Got to breed them all" and things really take a turn for the worse.

Overall this is a great thread and discussion with lots of interesting points being made. Thanks for starting this jinx!

Regards,

B

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Originally Posted by jinx667

I think the claim that we only line breed for looks is not accurate. Over time, breeders also refine things like clutch size.

This brings back the point made earlier about really looking at the Normals that you use in your projects. If you have Normal female that is a monster egg layer, it is not a bad idea to get her genetics into what you are working on. But, she still helps if she is a nice looking Normal, or at least carries visual traits that you are looking to integrate into your project.

But back to the bigger point. Fly by night breeders who are just putting together whatever animals are not looking to improve ANY of this. They are looking to make a quick buck and do not care if they are producing sub-par animals.


While discussing this topic over on the BLBC, a good point came up that some folks like the ones that may not be considered optimal examples. The example of using a browned out Pastel as a dark morph enhancer. I see the point here, and if someone wants to breed a line with a specific trait for a specific purpose, then bravo.

Once again, the folks I am complaining about are not thinking on this level. it is all about a quick $$$$$.

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I think a lot of the sub-par animals are also caused by people buying from local pet stores rather then from bigger and more reputable breeds or stores and then going home and thinking they can breed them. I know of breeders in my area that sell their seasons left overs to pet stores because they are lower quality and are unable to sell them to hobbyists because of it. Granted, I bought my first ball python from a pet store but I got lucky and she was from a breeder who had to get rid of his collection and the pet store had all paperwork and genetics for her.

Hi, my name is dave. I thought I should make my username my real name so there would be no way to hide when the townsfolk come out with the torches & gear at midnight looking for me. I saw a link to this thread posted by Pro Exotics on the facebook and thought, "Hey, it's almost as much drama as cornsnakes.com, but not quite". I'm a cornsnake guy. Don't have a BP yet, so I'm dissable. Got about 600 of the wriggly corns, and a fair grasp on the genetics vortex. Keep looking at these BPs out of the corner of my good eye at expos, online, all the familiar places. Some of them stop me in my tracks.

Reading through all this thread, there's a few words which leap off the page at me like a hungry chigger in a dry swamp. So I thought, "Hey, I'll get a username, and post some pot-stirring words of dumbdom". Please keep in mind I'm just learning new terms about things like "double hets" and "Killer Bees" and "Bloody Pangolins" and morph names. So some of the morph names might not be quite accurate, but hey, I'm learnable. And sometimes delusional. I hope I'll fit in here. Okay okay I'll get on with it.

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Originally Posted by jinx667

(I understand there are a handful of "ugly" snakes that throw great babies, these are not the rule)

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Cherry picked this single sentence out of the post which started this thread.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and wildly assume the little I know about genetics in one Genus of snakes can be applied to snakes of another Genus. There are probably not enough "ugly" snakes (Assuming you mean "classics" or "normal" or "non-homozygous for recessive traits/gene combos" when you refer to "ugly" snakes).

"Incromulents" are the morph-name I am using for this post. I suspect they do not exist yet in the trade. Hope springs eternal & all that stuff. Perhaps(?) "ugly" snakes are necessary for producing healthy morphs/?. I often see persons acquiring a 1.1, 1.2, etc, of future breeding stock from an individual producer, with no knowledge of if they are F1, F2, F5, F293... with the goal of breeding them together to produce more of the same morph. If one can acquire unrelated stock for breeding them to the first year they are ready to breed, and produce some "holdbacks", this is a good way of getting 50% unrelated blood/genetics into the breeding program. By "unrelated", I do not mean simply buying some Incromulents from another table at the expo, but asking lots of questions, to make sure the stock has been out-crossed and brought back through a couple of generations. There seems to be some kind of urgency to get back one's investment as fast as possible before there are ten thousand producers of Incromulents and the market crashes. So okay, you got a clutch of baby Incromulents and they all roll over on their backs when they swallow the FT meals, and that's cute to watch so it's a marketing advantage, and they're all chimney red and Halloween orange and they do some other jigglemaster tricks as well, but focusing on the color makes them better then the Incromulents on someone else's table at the expo. Plus, they're funner to watch. Heck, I'm ready to shell out 9K for one right now!

Running with scissors. Does anyone "Line Breed" BPs? This does not mean breeding babies to babies from an original 1.1 for several generations.
So you find the perfect high color/pattern/recessive-genetics-&/or-traits male, he is everything you want him to be.
Then you find three UNrelated females from three OTHER sources which are WHOLLY unrelated to each other, unrelated to the male.
(One could use 4 or more other females, depending on how far down the road you want to go with BPs into many years into the future. There are many variables to look at during this original nexus of making a decades long decision around the goals of one's breeding program; the three females may well be three different high color recessive genetics [genes or traits] morphs).
Breed the male to each of the three females.
Holdback ALL.
Label them! G1 = Giving the offspring of female#1 the designation of "G1". Do not discard the extra males, you never know if an "ugly" male is going to toss out awesome babies.
Group 1 (G1)
Group 2 (G2)
Group 3 (G3)

Keep the 3 groups separate. This is imperative.


Raise up G1 and breed F1 X F1; hold back targets.
Raise targets up, breed F2 X F, raise up, repeat: F3 X F3.


Do the above steps with G2 and G3.


Hitting F4 & F5:
G1, G2, and G3 are only 50% related, because they came from different mothers.
G1-F3 X G2-F3. = F4. Holdback, group. Repeat. F4 X F4 = F5.


F5 from G1 X G2. Breed these into G3. Has your cerebral cortex imploded yet?


By doing so, you are interlacing the genetics through several line-bred generations, so when you out-cross in F7 or F8 X a new wild-collected or otherwise un-related BP, genetics of the target are so thickly interlaced, that one should get back around 35-50% Target in the F2. So the Target, whether caused by a gene, set of genes, or genetics-- in this instance appears to behave like a gene, when in fact, there may be no specific gene causing the visual phenotype. Hence, Incromulents "appear to be a gene" but in fact they are simply a line-bred morph.

There are other ways to look at a lot of these high-color line-bred morphs, that is, that het genes can influence the visual color of a morph. Different het genes can change the visual appearance of an individual critter. Only by working with them for several generations will this become apparent.

Of course you'll get some odd stuff to leave at the local petshop along the way, and then forum people will call it "sub-standard" stuff. but to protect one's own personal vestment, sometimes it is necessary to leave some "ugly" snakes at the petshop, rather then listing them with all the hets, to try to get ten dollars more for them in the short-term.

Hope this wasn't a waste of otherwise good space. Special thanks to Pro Exotics. Man o man, I gotter git me some BPs.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers, dp. it's like a dyslexic bp, dp is.

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Originally Posted by dave partington

Has your cerebral cortex imploded yet?

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rather exploded. it's all over the floor. now i have to go get the mop.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

There are 2 sort of reasons why to breed animals. They're based on conformation or performance. Usually breeding for performance are working lines of animals. For example, race horses or dogs who herd.

But if you look at show animals. Any show animal(live stock, dogs, cats, rats, ferrets, etc etc) its based on body and look.

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I'm involved in dog breeding and this division you are talking about is the cause of many many many problems we see in pedigree "show" dogs. Sure, most show-line breeders will tell you that they breed for looks and general health, but what do they mean? Usually that the dog in question is able to walk from the van to the ring and run around the ring without tripping over its own legs, or without overheating. There is a growing number of people who actually test breeding dogs, but this is partly due to the outcry of general public, which until recently was blissfully unaware, that e.g. 75% of English Bulldogs are unable to give birth naturally, or that skulls of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are too small to contain their brains... IMHO if we decide to breed animals, their health and wellbeing should ALWAYS be a priority.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

But as long as an animal is not suffering or is able to thrive and live a quality life, there is no reason to stop breeding certain morphs.

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Agreed. I'm not saying that we should stop breeding morphs at all. I'm just saying that when selecting out of 3 pastels, one muddy looking with good feeding response and good clutch size, one with good, but not outstanding colour and good feeding/clutch, and one with outstanding coloours and pattern, but tricky to feed and breed - I would definitely go with the second one, breed to a better coloured male and use seleciton on the babies, improving on colour and keeping "fitness" as it is.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

If you want a 'defect free' snake, breed normals. All morphs are genetic defects after all.

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Not sure why you say that. I didn't say anything about mutations or "defected morphs". By the way, mutations can be neutral to fitness and deleterious. Majority of morphs are neutral mutations, at least in captivity (in wild they could be deleterious as they would make the snake more visible to predators) so I see absolutely no problem in breeding them, that's what I'm planning to do! I'm just saying that while breeding ANY kind of animal, dog, snake, wild type or morph, the looks should NEVER be the sole factor in selection decisions.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

If the second snake was that much of a problem, she probably would have died on her own or should be culled from a young age. That is not a good quality life if she can't thrive on her own. Especially as an adult.

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Hm, I'm lurking on several forums now and I have seen numerous topics where a breeder admits that a female was a nightmare to feed, laid one or two clutches with mostly slugs, but she's sooo pretty that they just HAVE to try again and again, until they get offspring from her...

I agree about quality but my question is this... what do you do with a low quality morph? You don't want to keep it and you shouldn't sell it. If you decide to drop the price then whoever buys it might breed it and get more of these low quality snakes.

M

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Originally Posted by nykea

Not sure why you say that. I didn't say anything about mutation.

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Because I wasn't referring to you.

The only part I responded to you, I quoted then wrote my opinion after. It was about breeding the average good eater layer vs beautiful bad eater layer.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

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Originally Posted by digizure

I agree about quality but my question is this... what do you do with a low quality morph? You don't want to keep it and you shouldn't sell it. If you decide to drop the price then whoever buys it might breed it and get more of these low quality snakes.

M

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these make great pets. no problem, just sell them as pets, i dont see why they shouldnt be sold. then we have to differentiate between valuable genes and low-budget genes. if you sell your low-quality pastels for 80 dollars or to a pet store, noone will breed them. if you sell your low-quality het toffee or toffino for 1100 dollars, people will likely pick their very best albino, or buy the very best albino they can get their hands on, and breed it to that. But even then i see no problem.

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Originally Posted by Kurtilein

if you sell your low-quality pastels for 80 dollars or to a pet store, noone will breed them.

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You sure of that? Unfortunately there is absolutely no way of ensuring that a sub-quality animal that we sell won't be bred. So my plan is to keep my own standards as high as possible, source from high quality stock and sadly, forget what other people do... However, that goes only for visual quality. If (touch wood it never happens) I have the misfortune of producing an animal with obvious physical abnormality but surviving on its own (when I decide it is a defective but viable snake) I'll either keep it as long as it lives, or place it with my close friends where I can keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get bred. I will be happy to pay for his/her accommodation, as I believe it's my responsibility as a breeder - person who brought it to this world.
I already have a "waster" like that living under my roof, a very expensive dog, imported and after champions, was supposed to be a top stud... Well, after his health tests, sadly he will stay a virgin and instead of winning titles he occupies my sofa ;)
Alternatively that defective snake will be put down.

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Originally Posted by nykea

.. IMHO if we decide to breed animals, their health and wellbeing should ALWAYS be a priority.



Agreed. I'm not saying that we should stop breeding morphs at all. I'm just saying that when selecting out of 3 pastels, one muddy looking with good feeding response and good clutch size, one with good, but not outstanding colour and good feeding/clutch, and one with outstanding coloours and pattern, but tricky to feed and breed - I would definitely go with the second one, breed to a better coloured male and use seleciton on the babies, improving on colour and keeping "fitness" as it is.




Not sure why you say that. I didn't say anything about mutations or "defected morphs". By the way, mutations can be neutral to fitness and deleterious. Majority of morphs are neutral mutations, at least in captivity (in wild they could be deleterious as they would make the snake more visible to predators) so I see absolutely no problem in breeding them, that's what I'm planning to do! I'm just saying that while breeding ANY kind of animal, dog, snake, wild type or morph, the looks should NEVER be the sole factor in selection decisions.





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I never said not to breed for health. I did say in my post that breeders breed for the paint job as well as general health. If a baby cannot thrive, it is culled or dies on it's own. Severely Kinked and fused animals are euthanized for example.
But in general, captive ball pythons are hardly unhealthy.

Yes, Im aware of all the issues with dogs. I honestly don't think anyone is 'improving' the breed. And if a dog can't breed on its own or it need C sections every birth, it should just die out. (English Bulldogs or Yorkies for example). Also the reason we don't breed female deserts. The only reason they're still around is because the males are still able to breed safely.

But the difference between pedigree dogs and BPs is that BPs, no matter what type of morph, is physically the same and have the same number of chromosomes as their wild counter parts.
They move, breed, eat, drink, kill, poop etc etc just the same. The snakes who are fatal die in the egg or shortly after hatching, which is the only natural 'selection' occurring in captivity.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

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Originally Posted by nykea

Not sure why you say that. I didn't say anything about mutations or "defected morphs". By the way, mutations can be neutral to fitness and deleterious. Majority of morphs are neutral mutations, at least in captivity (in wild they could be deleterious as they would make the snake more visible to predators) so I see absolutely no problem in breeding them, that's what I'm planning to do! I'm just saying that while breeding ANY kind of animal, dog, snake, wild type or morph, the looks should NEVER be the sole factor in selection decisions.

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I agree with everything Jinx stated, but I also like this point you brought up (I didn't read the whole thread :oops:). My calico came from Chris Berrios, and when I did a BOI check before buying, everyone said that Chris' calicos are piggies! I thought they were just being nice, but after almost a year of keeping her, she is most definitely more pig than snake :P. She only refused probably 4 meals the entire time she's been with me, and each of those were either her deep in shed, or the rat exploded because I thawed it for too long :D.... I'm hoping her babies will be the same :gj:.

At first, I thought about reducing the price on lower quality morphs but that will not work because whoever buys them might end up breeding them. I will not have any control over that so... that means I should sell them for the same price, or maybe $50 bucks less than a higher quality morph. That doesn't stop the breeding of lower quality morphs though, but that's part of the competition?

M

That's an interesting point! People who have low standards (in any aspect of breeding), want to breed for $$. They don't care about health, they don't care about visual quality of the morph. When buying their stock, they are likely to go for cheapest snakes they can find. Perhaps pricing lower quality animals at lower price than high quality is what causes the average quality to go down? Perhaps low quality animals should be priced higher than high quality, so these "multipliers" or "hatchling-farmers" produce large quantities of good quality stock? :rolleye2:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nykea

That's an interesting point! People who have low standards (in any aspect of breeding), want to breed for $$. They don't care about health, they don't care about visual quality of the morph. When buying their stock, they are likely to go for cheapest snakes they can find. Perhaps pricing lower quality animals at lower price than high quality is what causes the average quality to go down? Perhaps low quality animals should be priced higher than high quality, so these "multipliers" or "hatchling-farmers" produce large quantities of good quality stock? :rolleye2:

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these mysterious breeders that care about nothing have now been mentioned time and time again in this thread. But i doubt that these even exist in any meaningful quantity. Maybe somewhere between 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10000 breeders are like that. They either care about health, or about optics, or about both, with different priorities.

Also, people seem to be eager to attack these mystery rogue breeders as if there were some of them posting in this thread. But noone here is defending that position, its nowhere to be found in the thread. The position that is closest to the strawman that is being properly dismantled in this thread is simply: health first, and no inbreeding please.

What if a lot of those 'low quality' morphs were simply het for undisclosed wonderful things?
If there were no 'low quality' BPs, would there would be 'high quality' BPs?

You have some good arguments but unfortunately not everyone has the money for quality breed. In order for me to have any money at all for Vet / Feed costs, Cages, I need to stick to $200-300 pythons. not to say I won't look for quality in the pythons I buy. I want the best of the best, but it's not always a option for everybody. I just need to stay in my ball park while looking for quality breed.


What ever happen to start out small and work your way up?

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Originally Posted by Newbie Ball

You have some good arguments but unfortunately not everyone has the money for quality breed. In order for me to have any money at all for Vet / Feed costs, Cages, I need to stick to $200-300 pythons. not to say I won't look for quality in the pythons I buy. I want the best of the best, but it's not always a option for everybody. I just need to stay in my ball park while looking for quality breed.


What ever happen to start out small and work your way up?

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What they're saying is that there is no "there's not enough money". If you are trying to pay minimum everything just because you want to breed for whatever reasons, you shouldn't be breeding.
The point is if you're breeding, you NEED to give it your all in order to improve the genes out there.
Starting small and working up is good for your breeding plans, but not for the quality of your breeder morphs.

Just my 2 cents...but isnt low vs high quality quite a subjective issue rather than objective for the entire community....

I have read countless threads that have people saying they like dirty morphs over super clean ones (I can't remember the exact 2 or 3 morphs being discussed)

seems like its just a helluva lot of personal opinion as to what makes something high or less than high quality.....?

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Originally Posted by Newbie Ball

You have some good arguments but unfortunately not everyone has the money for quality breed. In order for me to have any money at all for Vet / Feed costs, Cages, I need to stick to $200-300 pythons. not to say I won't look for quality in the pythons I buy. I want the best of the best, but it's not always a option for everybody. I just need to stay in my ball park while looking for quality breed.


What ever happen to start out small and work your way up?

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If you want to breed simple one or two gene morphs, there is no reason for you to go out and spend tens of thousands on the latest multi-gene morph. If you prefer single gene morphs, that's where you should spend your money. But that being said, you should be willing to pay whatever it takes to buy the highest quality of that morph you can find. Don't have the money now? Wait until you do. There's no need to sacrifice the vet fund, but there is a need to be patient.

I personally am starting "small" with a few single and double gene morphs. I'm new to all the different morphs (though not new to genetics by any means), and need some time to figure it all out. I'm also starting out with babies that won't even be old enough to breed for a couple years. That gives me time to really read up on everything I need to know before starting, and figure out if that's what I really want to do. HOWEVER, I also personally prefer the simple single and double gene morphs. I *personally* am not a huge fan of the "powerhouse" morphs that have multiple genes. That's personal preference and that's ok. So I will work on breeding the best quality of the simple morphs, if I decide to breed,and be successful at that. If a certain simple morph's market value is $150, I'm probably not going to have to worry about spending $600 on even the best one I could find.

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Originally Posted by dave partington

What if a lot of those 'low quality' morphs were simply het for undisclosed wonderful things?
If there were no 'low quality' BPs, would there would be 'high quality' BPs?

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This is one thing I noticed while breeding rats... A "low quality" black rat (one who is faded or browned out, not good for show) had very strong potential of carrying hidden recessives, especially mink and beige. Also when the Burmese rat became popular a lot of breeders started advocating breeding low quality Siamese (one without good shading) into the Burmese to strengthen up the points of the Burmese. (I personally preferred to breed a high quality Siamese into my Burmese and get very good points and keep good quality Siamese instead of sacrificing one for the other, and personally never saw a problem with having shading on a Burmese, personally thought it made them look nicer actually!) If that can be transferred to snakes as well, it is possible there may be a place for "low quality" in improving or producing other morphs. Someone just needs to prove that now! ;)

quote sorraia This is one thing I noticed while breeding rats... A "low quality" black rat (one who is faded or browned out, not good for show) had very strong potential of carrying hidden recessives, especially mink and beige. Also when the Burmese rat became popular a lot of breeders started advocating breeding low quality Siamese (one without good shading) into the Burmese to strengthen up the points of the Burmese. (I personally preferred to breed a high quality Siamese into my Burmese and get very good points and keep good quality Siamese instead of sacrificing one for the other, and personally never saw a problem with having shading on a Burmese, personally thought it made them look nicer actually!) If that can be transferred to snakes as well, it is possible there may be a place for "low quality" in improving or producing other morphs. Someone just needs to prove that now! ;)[/QUOTE]

This is a very good post.
It's easier to grasp how (genes, traits, and line-bred) visual (homozygous) appearances, on a faster generational timeline which rodents provide us with, can be applied to other goals. Whether they prove out exchangeable with other goals, or not, is probably contained in many (perceived as 'low grade') visuals.

Is anyone here able to remember when all royal pythons were wild-type-&-"classic" color?

Hey, I have a real question.
Please tell me how much the first amel ball pythons sold for? And if a pic can go with that, was it a low grade amel?
thanks for sharing, dp

One of my bigger points that I think got lost in the "quality" debate is this: if the snake does not blow you away or "wow" you, why breed it? Whatever it is that you find pleasing aesthetically, you should find that in your breeding stock. I think despite what any of us feel about standards, we can all agree on that.

For the vast majority of my purchased animals, when I see them I say "I have to have that snake" before even looking at price. Now I have said that a lot on snakes I cannot afford, and therefore do not have them. But the ones I DO have, pass that test. If everyone shopped for their breeding stock in this manner, no matter what the trait is that floats your boat, I think we would be moving in the right direction. In other words, find and make the best darn brown Pastels you can make.

If you are just putting a couple of genes together because you think they might sell, put down your paintbrush and go home. Find something that you are actually passionate about and leave the snake breeding to the rest of us. (Not directed at any specific person, but the point is universal.)