Scaleless Rats and Corns?

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Originally Posted by ev477

I'm starting to disagree with the idea of continuing to produce scaleless snakes. I am not saying it is cruel to own a scaleless snake, but if people keep inbreeding the same lines of scaleless snakes, certain negative traits may come out that are undesirable.

If the snake seems healthy, if it eats, sheds, poops, there's no reason to believe it's unhealthy. I'm not disagreeing with anyone about whether it's cruel to keep a different creature. This is not about being accepting of diversity though, it is about selectively reproducing the trait.

If people breed for this trait continually, there may be some genetic deficiencies that arise from this inbreeding. Some breeders might be more interested in the money than the well being of future generations of snakes. I'm not saying that all breeders only care about only money. Spiders are known to have head wobbles. This could be because of this type of inbreeding to keep the trait, but I'm really not going to say that I know how it works. What I'm going to say is that if a degree of care isn't taken in the delicate process of introducing the scaleless morph, the money will overrule the well being of the snakes and every local pet shop may be trying to sell scaleless snakes that don't know how to balance.

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How is it any different from any other morph, which is a mutation as well? How do you know they aren't outbreeding the scaleless to make het for scaleless and breeding those back?

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Originally Posted by rabernet

I would imagine that the scale-less morph would be produced like any other morph - determining if it is recessive (and creating hets by crossing with scaled animals to produce hets) or dominant, and breeding it to scaled animals, further diversifying the genes.

I wouldn't believe that there's any risk of not being able to outcross the animals to scaled and breeding them like any other recessive or dominant morph.

IE, the newest identified recessive morph of ball pythons, the tri-stripe, isn't contained to just a small pool of tri-stripes. The Sutherlands will be able to create hets by breeding to different normal girls and diversifying its bloodline.

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I agree, this is what needs to occur in order to have a healthy future morphs. If the out-breeding does not occur, there may be some traits that become associated with this morph, as of any morph I'm assuming. If scaleless snakes come on the market too quickly, I would believe that this out-breeding might become a smaller and smaller concern for breeders who are smaller and smaller in size.

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Originally Posted by ev477

I agree, this is what needs to occur in order to have a healthy future morphs. If the out-breeding does not occur, there may be some traits that become associated with this morph, as of any morph I'm assuming. If scaleless snakes come on the market too quickly, I would believe that this out-breeding might become a smaller and smaller concern for breeders who are smaller and smaller in size.

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Considering Brian has years and years of experience with breeding recessives and dominants with ball pythons, I'm quite sure it's something that he's thought very carefully about. And when people start to buy the hets (if recessives) or dominants, the blood lines get even further diversified as they enter other collections. In a nutshell, I don't think genetic diversity is too much of a concern at this point.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Considering Brian has years and years of experience with breeding recessives and dominants with ball pythons, I'm quite sure it's something that he's thought very carefully about. And when people start to buy the hets (if recessives) or dominants, the blood lines get even further diversified as they enter other collections. In a nutshell, I don't think genetic diversity is too much of a concern at this point.

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Thanks for the clarification. I know Brian is very experienced and knows how to deal with morphs. In all honesty, I was just trying to take a perspective on the other side of the fence with this issue, it seemed like everyone was attacking a certain belief.

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Originally Posted by ev477

Thanks for the clarification. I know Brian is very experienced and knows how to deal with morphs. In all honesty, I was just trying to take a perspective on the other side of the fence with this issue, it seemed like everyone was attacking a certain belief.

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Evan, a good discussion is always a good thing! No worries!

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Originally Posted by Carpet_Boa

Just cause its cb doesnt make it right. Its WRONG, no other word for it. People who breed snakes in such a way are in it purely for the money and not for the love of keeping reptiles.
If you had a child, and it was born with no skin or its skin falling of? would you count that as ok or normal just cause the child wasnt born out in the woods????//// NO i dont think ya would.

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I was willing to roll with ya on what you are saying but what the heck are you trying to say in this. What do the woods have to do with this. You need to read your posts aloud before posting. Maybe they will come out with the intended meaning that way. Not just jumbled up nonsense.

Spanners.