Piebaldism?

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Originally Posted by h00blah

i understand the question, i would like to x2 it too =p.

like if someone named the green tree boa an emerald green bc its literally made of emeralds, or is it just bc it resembles it.
did someone name the piebald pied bc it literally is pied? or is it just bc it resembles one?

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Those are 2 different snakes, but very similar.

You are wading into a very deep pool but I would like to offer this as some consolation. Holstein cows are widely breed and kept in the US and they are doing fine. Now I know some people will bring up negative points about Holsteins but my point is that they have been breed in captivity much longer than snakes and for the most part are fine. Thats not to say that we won't find a corellation between piebaldism and some negative trait but guess what. Negative pop out of wild populations all the time. I would be much more concerned with kinking or wobbling in carmels and spiders respectavely.

Randy that is very, VERY interesting to me about the lack of musculature in the bowel of your het pieds. It does seem to be incriminating as, without a doubt, megacolon and other digestive disorders are strongly associated with piebaldism in mammals (as already stated) due to the contribution of neural crest cells to enteric nerve plexuses.

However ... Yours were *het* pieds.

Does anyone know if heterozygous piebald mice have any digestive (or other health) problems?

Of course, then the really big question -- which I'm sure folks are reluctant to answer -- is: do pied ball pythons have a higher mortality rate than other mutations?

JayCee, I think you're very right that messing around with conformation, size, etc., definitely tends to lead to genetic health problems in animals much more often than color mutations ... However, all of these single-gene color mutations are due to SOME sort of defect in a protein SOMEWHERE in the animal. And for all those defective proteins, you would think at least SOME would have epistatic effects (effects on things other than just color/pattern) ...

My pied has zero issues with eating or digesting (that I'm aware of). I'll be breeding her next year (not sure to what yet) but if I ever have any issues I'll be sure to post them.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

Not having any piebalds much less having raised a large number of piebalds for years I really can't say one way or the other.

I can report that I have lost two unrelated POSSIBLE het piebalds years apart to chronic constipation (and no non piebald project animals to this). The first one after soaking didn't work I took her into my vet who massaged a large bowl movement out. She then ate again but the problem came back shortly and she died. I took her in to the vet who dissected her and said that her intestine was thin and non muscular similar to a known genetic condition in cats called Megacolin. Doing some research and it sounds like its piebald cats that tend to develop this condition.

So, very circumstantial, especially given that I don't know if either ball even was het piebald. I’ve got lots of other possible het piebalds that I think are very likely het pieds that I’ve had for years without this problem. I've posted several times asking about constipation seen with the piebald gene and NOONE has come forward with any similar accounts of problems with homozygous piebald ball pythons.

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Megacolon is also a big problem in breeding high white rats as well.

An animal with megacolon has serious issues passing feces and fails to thrive and eventually dies. Anyone interested in megacolon in rats can read this article, i read it a while back and it had a ton of useful info.

http://ratguide.com/health/digestive/megacolon.php

Useful especially because a bunch of people on these forums breed their own feeders.

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Originally Posted by Serpent_Nirvana

However ... Yours were *het* pieds...

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Actually it's worse than that, mine where only possible het pieds. So my experience may not be useful at all except to raise the question based on the problems seen in other species as to if problems are seen in piebald ball pythons.

As far as problems in hets vs. homozygous that is also a very interesting question. I heard from one person that het caramels are also often kinked. I've not heard this from others and in fact have heard the opposite; that it's only the homozygous caramels where the kinking is seen in a het and homo mixed clutch.

Also, both of my animals where several years old before I noticed any problems. Even if people kept records and where willing to report it would be very hard to get an idea if certain morphs tended to be shorter lived than normals due to the long normal ball python life span. But it would be interesting to know which founder animals are still alive. I think Bob Clark's original albino was stolen, right? Was it ever recovered? I understand that the original clown and spider where both imported 20 years ago, are they still around? Most other founders would be much younger.