How Much Inbreeding is Acceptable?

First question - what are the right terms for the parents of a litter? Sire/dam? I'll just use that terminology - hope that's okay....

I was looking at some ads on KS, and I saw someone selling a pair of BPs (1.1, obviously, being a pair), and they had different dams but the same sire.
The way the ad was written and the way the person was selling the snakes, it was apparent that the intention of selling them together was for them to be bred.

Is that generally accepted?

How much inbreeding is deemed 'okay' for snakes? Are deformities/health issues common in snakes inbred to a certain extent? (Shortened lifespan, even)? How closely related do snakes need to be inbred before such problems are seen?

I know some (most, maybe?) snakes come with paperwork, but how far back in the line does paperwork usually go? I know with dogs, you can go back tons of generations. There are some pedigrees with German shepherds (just using an example) that can be traced all the way back directly to Horand von Grafrath - the first registered German shepherd. I don't expect snakes' bloodlines to be quite that inclusive, but how many generations are included on paperwork? Just the sire and dam? Or are there more?

Any insight would be appreciated!

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Originally Posted by Konotashi

First question - what are the right terms for the parents of a litter? Sire/dam? I'll just use that terminology - hope that's okay....

I was looking at some ads on KS, and I saw someone selling a pair of BPs (1.1, obviously, being a pair), and they had different dams but the same sire.
The way the ad was written and the way the person was selling the snakes, it was apparent that the intention of selling them together was for them to be bred.

Is that generally accepted?

How much inbreeding is deemed 'okay' for snakes? Are deformities/health issues common in snakes inbred to a certain extent? (Shortened lifespan, even)? How closely related do snakes need to be inbred before such problems are seen?

I know some (most, maybe?) snakes come with paperwork, but how far back in the line does paperwork usually go? I know with dogs, you can go back tons of generations. There are some pedigrees with German shepherds (just using an example) that can be traced all the way back directly to Horand von Grafrath - the first registered German shepherd. I don't expect snakes' bloodlines to be quite that inclusive, but how many generations are included on paperwork? Just the sire and dam? Or are there more?

Any insight would be appreciated!

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Inbreeding is generally frowned upon except in West Virginia...

From what I've read and seen it seems that breeders have been doing inbreeding or as it's called in the hobby line-breeding as an acceptable practice and it's been done for several years. I'm sure some people have a limit to the number of generations of offspring that they'll breed back their mothers in order to not risk any deformities. I'm planning to do it in the next couple years. If I get lucky and produce a male of the worlds first morph combo that I'm shooting for I will definitely be breeding it back to mom the following year for the chance at another worlds first.

Im no expert, but from what i can gather, inbreeding in reptiles does not cause the same problems as mammals. Its just accepted. Im pretty sure i read all clowns can be traced back to a group of 5 sibling snakes imported from africa, and these are bred together over and over. Ive read numerous times all spiders came from one WC specimen(obviously these cant be bred together) and im sure there are other morphs which can be traced back to an equally limited gene pool which are bred together.

If anyone cares to correct me i would be happy, as im here trying to learn, thats just my take on it!

That's interesting.
That also makes me winder if the inbreeding was the cause of spiders' head wobble.

I saw a quote somewhere once.
"When it goes as planned, it's called line breeding. When it goes wrong, it's called inbreeding."

So generally speaking, you can breed back and forth within the same family tree with little to no issues? As far as we know, anyway?

no. the original WC specimen had the head wobble and it seems its a genetic mutation thats tied to the mutation that causes the spider appearance(hope that makes sense) Spider x Spider always ends in fatality, i think the normals in the clutch would survive, but any snakes that had the spider gene from both parents would not hatch.

That makes sense. Like how the gene that shortens the legs in dogs and cats (corgis, munchkins) affects the heart, so they often have heart issues.

Inbreeding in reptiles is really common, even out in nature. They are a non migratory species that stay local so outcrossing to a new population is pretty rare. They couldn't tell if they were breeding a relative or not. That's why you get special locality based animals of the same species.

Yup. The original spider had the wobble and is part of the spider mutation. Non spider siblings don't typically have wobbles.

And yes, inbreeding doesn't have the same negative effects as seen in mammals. I imagine its part of their adaptation as non migratory animals. It just makes them have a higher homozygosity as well.

Personally, I wouldn't inbreed more than a few gens.
That's just my personal preference.

Not many people use pedigree charts for their snakes. But should have hatch records of direct parents, which could probably be traced to their parents and so on. No one usually puts more than parents on paper work.

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Spider x spider only becomes fatal in homozygous carriers, so 25% chance. Some spiders would still hatch.

Jury is still out on spider x spider, some say they have smaller clutches because spider x spider fails to fertilize and get reabsorbed. Some say they they see no difference in clutch size. IF there is any effect as a super form, it's VERY subtle, enough that even after years of pairings no one's really certain.

As far as the original question goes, reptiles are more resilient to line breeding than mammals. Most of these morphs started off as dinkers, they have to be line bred to prove them out. Personally I have no problem with 2 generations (or 3 if I was on a very special project), but after that I'd try to bring in outside blood.

darn that imaginary non existent homo spiders, lol

I wonder though, if its possible for a different spider to exist in the wild, without the wobble gene. That could open the door to Super Spiders < there, ya see how inbreeding starts lol

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Originally Posted by dprballs

I wonder though, if its possible for a different spider to exist in the wild, without the wobble gene. That could open the door to Super Spiders < there, ya see how inbreeding starts lol

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Its very possible. There are several countries that BPs are native to. Only one or two of those countries allow BPs to be exported/farmed. So imagine what sort of neat morphs are in those other territories? Especially since reptiles are so locally adapted.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

Its very possible. There are several countries that BPs are native to. Only one or two of those countries allow BPs to be exported/farmed. So imagine what sort of neat morphs are in those other territories? Especially since reptiles are so locally adapted.

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Yeah im aware of that. I reckon with the money involved though, snakes from those other countries are bound to make their way out of africa! I know from reading the VPI book that in some parts of africa, ball pythons are still so revered that they wont even allow them to be collected for scientific purposes, let alone exportation!! I also read that the first reported piebald was killed in some voodoo ritual in the 1960s!!!

E2a thats q contradictory, but ill roll with it lol

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Originally Posted by Badgemash

Jury is still out on spider x spider, some say they have smaller clutches because spider x spider fails to fertilize and get reabsorbed. Some say they they see no difference in clutch size. IF there is any effect as a super form, it's VERY subtle, enough that even after years of pairings no one's really certain.

As far as the original question goes, reptiles are more resilient to line breeding than mammals. Most of these morphs started off as dinkers, they have to be line bred to prove them out. Personally I have no problem with 2 generations (or 3 if I was on a very special project), but after that I'd try to bring in outside blood.

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Can you please explain how the part in bold works?
Seeing that follicles don't met the males sperm until ovulation after which time it is impossible for a female to reabsorb.

I don't know, maybe detailed studies have been done about snake reproduction but it also wouldn't surprise me if a lot of what we think we know is wrong. For example, is what we call ovulation really ovulation or maybe some later stage?

Anyway, there are a bunch of theories as to why no one has come public with a proven homozygous spider in the last 20 years:

1. No one cares enough to breed spider to spider and keep all the offspring, raise them up, and breed them to test for a homozygous spider. I know TSK was a few years into doing just that last time I heard but spiders had been around a long time before they started the big effort to finally figure out what sort of mutation spider is.

2. The homozygous spiders are such train wrecks that those that have produced them don't want to talk about them.

3. The homozygous spiders die some time in the reproductive process. This is where the idea of 3/4 sized spider X spider clutches comes from.

4. Spider is caused by an extra chromosome and the 2nd extra is eliminated in what would be the "homozygous" spider. I didn't completely understand this one but downs syndrome was mentioned as an example when this theory was proposed. Ironic if this interesting explanation turns out to be scientifically accurate because it came out of a discussion started by kid named Tommy Rosati who made up a bunch of fake data to sabotage the scientific discussion and then posted to fake his death when called on it, lol.

BTW, spider is quite possibly the very MOST outbred morph as almost no one ever breeds spider X spider.

But back to inbreeding, I believe it's been done a lot in corn snakes and I've not heard of major problems. Still, I try to avoid it. I had to do one generation to prove the super of my Garcia chocolate line but then rather than breeding back another generation I used a two generations outbred male just in case. Probably wouldn't have had any problems but seemed better safe than sorry.

I really do not think there is as much inbreeding going on as you think. Sure, maybe a generation or two, especially when proving a morph, but after that everything is being bred out to other morphs to get combos. Someone mentioned spider, came from one wild caught animal, like many other morphs. Yet how much do you think it was inbred, what happens when you breed a spider to a normal, what do you get, more spiders, not much reason to breed them together. Clown, or any recessive, once it was proved, people wanted to mix it with other morphs, so what happens, you outbreed to something else, then maybe back to the het mother, or two siblings together to try to get a visual, but this likely happens only one or two generations till you start getting visuals and then 100 percent hets then outbreeding you know what you get.

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Originally Posted by C&H Exotic Morphs

Can you please explain how the part in bold works?
Seeing that follicles don't met the males sperm until ovulation after which time it is impossible for a female to reabsorb.

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My bad, should have said slug.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

Its very possible. There are several countries that BPs are native to. Only one or two of those countries allow BPs to be exported/farmed. So imagine what sort of neat morphs are in those other territories? Especially since reptiles are so locally adapted.

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Do you think this opens up the possibility that even special locality ball pythons could exist, much in the way like we have locality Boa constrictors such as Sonoran or Hogg Island?

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Originally Posted by Badgemash

My bad, should have said slug.

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Slugs are slugs way before a female Ovulates.
They don't magically become a slug at the time of Ovy.
There are more than a few people that can feel them when palpating females with developing follicles.
Luckily for us we haven't had the opportunity to feel one yet. And hopefully it stays that way. :please:

If what you are referring to was true you would end up with infertile eggs(different than slugs) and that would be a very noticeable observation for people who have done Spider x Spider pairings.