Lucy bug eyed ball python for $400

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Originally Posted by scutechute

duck bill - flat looking face.

Seen pictures, never seen one in person. Just regurgin what i've read.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=93283

check out the link in post #4

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Have to insert: I have also seen the "duckbill" on an Albino that had none of the above genes.

I guess it's just one of those things. Sometimes even people with "perfect" genes can have a deformed child.:tears:

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Originally Posted by NathanV

Super butter, is it worth it??

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I won’t enter the ethical debate (because I could go on all day) but I will answer the “ is it worth it?” question.

Let say that personally I would not take it even if it was free. :cool:

So now the question is, is it worth it to YOU?

Do you want a morph just to say you have a morph or do you want the best example of the morph you want?

oh...I think the duck bill is super cute. But that is just me and I tend to be a little quircky...lol just makes me wanna kiss him on the nose even more!!

I personally think that all spiders show some type of trait. Even if they didn't hasn't it been proven that ones that don't show signs can throw out babies that have it and vice versa.

I think that as long as it does not effect the quality of life of the reptile then so be it. Kind of like if you had a german shepard...with hip problems...obviously you wouldnt want to breed it as this will effect the quality of life of the animal and cause pain later on. However with that being said....I would never sell an animal without letting ppl know about it. To me I would feel as though I was lying....and there is no excuse for that. ;)

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Originally Posted by wilomn

How do you know this for certain?

Are you a geneticist or are you merely stating your opinion as fact? Again.

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I would rather refer to it as an educated guess. If he original animal had the genetic issue, then the rest will also. It seems fairly simple to me.

Genetic deformities are bound to happen when breeding any animal. The reputable and responsible breeder should strive for breeding the best examples of the morph/breed as to improve it. If/when a deformity rears its ugly head then the breeder needs to make an ethical and educated decision as to how the deformity will effect the animals quality of life.

In most cases the animal will be a great pet. Who would want to put down an animal the acts and seems perfectly happy? Not me. I find no issue with a breeder selling or trying to adopt out animals with defects as long as they are HONEST to the perspective owner about any and all issues it may have.

Personally, I would try to find the animal a home with someone I knew or knew wouldn't be breeding said animal. I would go as far as to possibly have them sign something stating they won't breed it.

To the OP, if you are comfortable owning a not so perfect animal an are willing to take the responsibility of any problems that may arise then I say go for it. It deserves a good home. I wouldn't suggest breeding it however.

Sorry for the run-on...my two cents. :D

I wrote a long response to the genetic issues, but I've decided to erase it and just say, do what you want. If you can get the snake for $400, buy it, breed it if you want, keep it as a pet if you want. I don't know of anyone that hasn't done something wrong in our industry. It would be a great buy, just make sure there's no kinks in the spine.

Good Luck!
Jim Smith

Ok, here's why spider wobbling isn't a gene that you can breed out.

A) The first spider wobbled. Some of the first spider's offspring also wobbled. It did not matter which female the spider was paired with--some offspring wobbled.

That means that the wobble trait must be dominant, and not recessive, if it is a gene.

B) When you breed a non-wobbling spider to any normal snake, some of the offspring may wobble. If the gene were dominant, then a non-wobbler could not produce wobbling offspring.

Wobbling is vanishingly uncommon in any ball python other than the spider morph.

The spider lines have been almost exclusively outcrossed since it was discovered that you can't make a super-spider (probably homozygous lethal). No one has verifiably managed to eliminate wobbling from their spider lines.
Official studies can be done to determine what goes on with the wobble trait, but logic and genetics information alone suffices to explain why this isn't a gene that can simply be eliminated by only breeding non-wobbling spiders.

The same situation is likely to be true of duck-billing in cinnamons. I cannot be the only person who has noticed that the facial structure of a cinnamon or black pastel is NOT normal. Doubling the gene is likely to produced some extremes of form, because one copy of the gene already malforms the face slightly. Fortunately, duck-billing doesn't appear to cause any problems for the snake whatsoever.

As for bug-eyes in BELs, that really DOES remain to be seen. Repeated lesser X lesser crosses may be revealing--if you get bug-yes consistantly from some pairings, and never from others, then it isn't something related exclusively to lesser X lesser BELs, but is instead another recessive gene coming to light, and it should be bred out.

One thing a good friend of mine told me was the more you have the more you see. With the thousads of snakes hatched each year there's bound to be some crazy stuff pop out.
Two head's, no eye's, Little eye's (ask Tim Bailey about his Pinstripe with the little eye), heart outside the body loads of stuff..

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Originally Posted by BPelizabeth

Thank you for that. Do they ever "grow" into their eyes?? Is this a common thing with BEL's?

I would think that $400- is really cheap even for a bug eye'd BEL. I could be wrong. Check out the sellers info on the Board of Inquiry on Fauna Classifieds. There are some ppl that are truly rip off artists out there.

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bugged eye is bugged eye....they don't grow into their "eyes" it's a genetic flaw ....it's somewhat more common with lesser x lesser breedings.

Pitoon

Quite honestly, the only way to know if it's genetic is to breed it (going with the idea that people haven't. Fairly new to ball pythons and such). Only then would anyone if it was truely a genetic thing, or if it was just a random genetic oops, as I like to call them.

If it was dominant, some of the offspring would have it. If it was recessive, the offspring would either have to bred bred to each other, or back tot he affected snake. But I'm sure everyone already knows that, lol. While it may be proven to be genetic in a different species that happens to be leutistic, that doesn't mean it's the same for bps.

If it's been done with bps, feel free to ignore my ramblings. If not, it's something to think about. I'd think that if it was genetic, the siblings would also have the issue/repeated pairs of the parents would result in more. Personally? I'd buy it, but I love oddities like that.