Do you avoid morphs with known genetic flaws?

I think the pop-eyed goldfish are pretty hideous, personally. I also think the ones with huge bulging bellies, or weird jelly cheeks, are horrifying. They do, however, have their fans...which makes them a successful animal, in evolutionary terms, because they're propagated and cared for. Do they suffer? Probably not usually, though I'm sure they're more prone to certain accidents.

As for scaleless snakes....they don't appear to come to any harm, either. They have been found as wild adults, too. In captivity, it's just not an issue for them, so we may as well enjoy the wonder of the oddity that nature has created.

It's difficult for me to imagine an alteration to the form of a snake that would cause it distress, but would still be a viable animal. Remember, ball pythons just don't cope well with being uncomfortable. They aren't like mammals, or like fish.

But again, where is the logic in complaining about today's morphs, just because of something that might happen down the road? Talking people out of breeding spiders now won't change that.
You will have to wait until that happens, and complain about it then, because doing so now has no effect.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

I think the pop-eyed goldfish are pretty hideous, personally. I also think the ones with huge bulging bellies, or weird jelly cheeks, are horrifying. They do, however, have their fans...which makes them a successful animal, in evolutionary terms, because they're propagated and cared for. Do they suffer? Probably not usually, though I'm sure they're more prone to certain accidents.

As for scaleless snakes....they don't appear to come to any harm, either. They have been found as wild adults, too. In captivity, it's just not an issue for them, so we may as well enjoy the wonder of the oddity that nature has created.

It's difficult for me to imagine an alteration to the form of a snake that would cause it distress, but would still be a viable animal. Remember, ball pythons just don't cope well with being uncomfortable. They aren't like mammals, or like fish.

But again, where is the logic in complaining about today's morphs, just because of something that might happen down the road? Talking people out of breeding spiders now won't change that.
You will have to wait until that happens, and complain about it then, because doing so now has no effect.

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Some do actually suffer, at least until they die. I have heard of people say that the ones with the cheek pouches can 'pop' on sharp rocks, plants, or aggressive fish in the tank. They die with the skin floating around, being exposed to bacteria.

That obviously is not the same as ball pythons. I also don't think that there will be many successful mutations that cause the animal stress. What I do think is that there will be some that look disgusting, like you said, with the mutated goldfish. I can easily imagine a 'short bodied'/balloon bodied ball python.
I could also imagine people line breeding for size, unaware of other factors being affected through altering chromosomes accidentally at the same time.
I think it would be pretty easy for someone to try to breed for a 'dwarf' ball python.

I'm not against scaleless snakes, as long as there are no problems that I don't know about, because it doesn't actually alter the animals 'shape' or brain. Scales are hardened folds of skin covering snakes. Being scaleless alters the skin, similar to pigment changing.

You're right about it not happening yet, but hopefully people won't be stupid enough to propagate morphs with more extreme problems down the road. I doubt that there will be many people who make the choice to let a morph they just proved out 'go extinct', even if they have extreme problems. There haven't been many yet, but when there are, I'm sure people will still breed them.