Breeding Ethics

[ddbjdealer]

I only ask this question as a "retired" German Shepherd Dog breeder.

Aren't there any ethics involved in BP breeding? It seems as if everyone that owns one wants to breed it and come up with new morphs, etc..

Is this a common practice? Is it encouraged to breed and raise snakes for profit? I'm a new BP owner, and am CERTAINTLY not slamming anyone. I'm excited about the possibility of future breedings and the purchasing of morphs and hets for breeding purposes.

I guess the fact that bp's are such great starter snakes make them ok to breed the heck out of because they'll be easy to sell.

Once again, asking for opinions and general acceptable guidelines, not slamming or flaming.

Ken

[Adam_Wysocki]

I'm not really sure what your question is?

Are you expressing a concern about the numbers of ball pythons being produced by captive breeding?

When you compare the several thousand captive bred ball pythons produced each year by private breeders to the hundreds of thousands of wild ball pythons exported out of Africa each year, captive bred ball pythons don't even scratch the surface.

Ball pythons are a very popular pet snake and their popularity increases each year. The demand for them is huge right now (fueled in part by the morphs) and the numbers of private breeders are increasing to meet that demand. In the future if the demand lessens, I am sure the number of private breeders will decrease.

I don't see the ethical dilemma?

-adam

[Forrest]

(Qoute): "I guess the fact that bp's are such great starter snakes make them ok to breed the heck out of because they'll be easy to sell".



Well, As Adam stated in the thread above it is based on supply and demand, otherwise their wouldn't be a market out there. Any reputable breeder does hold ethics as a high priority otherwise you would be getting under-fed, mite infested, dehydrated, dead on arrival BP's. Which is a bad business. As far as bredding the heck out of them I highly doubt that. It is my understading that BP are seasonal breeders (Adam is that correct info?) so you really can not breed the heck out of them. The Market for BP's is based on "The next big thing" so morph's will continue to drive the market on these truly amazing creatures, but the beauty of it is only a select portion of the breeders will be able to obtain theses new morphs. Which in return keeps the numbers down and the prices up. I hope this can answer your question.

[ddbjdealer]

Adam,

Again, was just wondering if there was one... not particularly stating THAT there was one. One of the questions I guess I had that I didn't state was: Is there any possible genetic problems with some of the morphs. i.e., could morphs (especially inbred ones) be more prone to disease. I realize a lot of these questions are un-answerable because a lot of the newer morphs are just that... too new.

Was just wanting some opinions. Almost knew in the back of my head that this would open up a can of snakes... errr. worms that is. (Although this wasn't my goal)

Ken

[Adam_Wysocki]

I don't think it's a "can of worms" .... You had a valid question which on a message board will inevitable stir a discussion. That's what we're here for, right?

Forrest - It's not so much that ball pythons are "seasonal" breeders ... they can be bred at any point during the year ... but, they will only breed once a year ... if that.

Ken - No, there have been no wide spread health associated problems when breeding ball python morphs. Real breeders that are breeding these snakes for passion and money use every opportunity to outcross their bloodlines as much as possible. But, snakes being lower ordered organisms, their genetics are not as complicated as higher ordered animals (like mammals) and not as susceptible to defect and health problems. If you look at corn snakes (which have been bred in captivity for what seems like forever), some strains have been inbred for as many as 13 generations with no ill side-effects .... ball python breeding is in it's mere infancy comparably with only a handful of captive bred generations.

-adam

[bait4snake]

I remember when I first started reading up on the morphs... there was a breeder who had gotten ahold of an unproven line of Axanthic. He bred it, and said, "I can't wait to breed his offspring back to him to see if this is genetic." I felt a little... what's the word... icky when I read that. I understand now that to prove a morph, it's easier and necessary to inbreed at first. And like Adam said, they're a primative species... there's not much to mess up. I know a lot of breeders who will keep on inbreeding, but for me I'm breeding all my HETS to normals to have a healthier stock to work with. If you want to get into morphs and are concerned about inbreeding, research the breeder. There are plenty out there now. If the demand is for outbred specimen, then that will in turn force inbreeders to start outbreeding if they want any business. It's one of my selling points.

As for the whole "breeding for profit" thing... c'mon on. There are such things as moral capitalists :-S I think we're doing a good thing here. We're keeping wild pythons where they belong, selectively breeding really pretty snakes (even normals), and providing for our families at the same time. Cumbaya.

[ddbjdealer]

Ken,

Learned a lot on your site about genetics. It all is very interesting, and as a new herper, I'm just starving for more information!

Thanks for providing even more. I'll plan on talking to you and Adam and a few other breeders to find out more about hets and how I can get involved.

[RandyRemington]

There are potentially tricky ethical questions in ball python breeding already.

Possible hets for one. There is good evidence that some recessive mutations have co-dominant tendencies. In Burmese pythons some het granites have the puzzle pattern and some het green’s have the cinnamon pattern but other hets for these morphs look completely normal. In ball pythons the only morph I've heard about with good evidence of this is piebald where a disproportionately high number of het piebalds have the wide white belly (close to 3 scales wide) with strait dark marks on the edges. Not all het pieds have it or it would be considered a co-dominant morph. There are also some presumed normals with those markings but no where near the rate at which it's seen in het piebalds (70-80% from informed post's I've seen).

Where this gets ethically tricky is when selling possible hets. If there is anything to the marker then the possible hets with it have a better chance of being hets than the possible hets without the marker. Who decides who gets the markered possible hets? A breeder could keep all the markered possible het females back for themselves or their friends and only sell the unmarkered ones which would still be possible hets because not all hets have the marker but the odds would be less than expected. The marker greatly complicates marketing of possible het pieds so I don't think it necessarily says anything bad about the early pied breeders that they didn't post info about it publicly for years and years. I think some of them used strategies like promoting selling entire clutches of possible hets together to avoid having to pick for their customers who where uninformed of the marker. Still there was potential for abuse and I'm glad that the information about the marker eventually became public. Now each potential purchaser can read up about it and make up their own mind if they want to pay extra for a markered possible het or if they believe the marker is purely random save some money on an unmarkered possible het.

Another similar ethical gray area is in regards to dissemination of information about the nature of new morphs. Some spider balls apparently have a tendency to roll their heads back. Information is still sketch as to how common this is and if it is something they tend to outgrow or not. Apparently it hasn't hurt their breeding ability as a group. Again this information was not made public for years and years into the spider project. Should potential (and actual) buyers have been made aware of this issue? Even now there is a lot of mystery as to if a homozygous spider is possible and what it is like.

[Adam_Wysocki]

There are potentially tricky ethical questions in ball python breeding already.

Possible hets for one. There is good evidence that some recessive mutations have co-dominant tendencies. In Burmese pythons some het granites have the puzzle pattern and some het green’s have the cinnamon pattern but other hets for these morphs look completely normal. In ball pythons the only morph I've heard about with good evidence of this is piebald where a disproportionately high number of het piebalds have the wide white belly (close to 3 scales wide) with strait dark marks on the edges. Not all het pieds have it or it would be considered a co-dominant morph. There are also some presumed normals with those markings but no where near the rate at which it's seen in het piebalds (70-80% from informed post's I've seen).

Where this gets ethically tricky is when selling possible hets. If there is anything to the marker then the possible hets with it have a better chance of being hets than the possible hets without the marker. Who decides who gets the markered possible hets? A breeder could keep all the markered possible het females back for themselves or their friends and only sell the unmarkered ones which would still be possible hets because not all hets have the marker but the odds would be less than expected. The marker greatly complicates marketing of possible het pieds so I don't think it necessarily says anything bad about the early pied breeders that they didn't post info about it publicly for years and years. I think some of them used strategies like promoting selling entire clutches of possible hets together to avoid having to pick for their customers who where uninformed of the marker. Still there was potential for abuse and I'm glad that the information about the marker eventually became public. Now each potential purchaser can read up about it and make up their own mind if they want to pay extra for a markered possible het or if they believe the marker is purely random save some money on an unmarkered possible het.

Another similar ethical gray area is in regards to dissemination of information about the nature of new morphs. Some spider balls apparently have a tendency to roll their heads back. Information is still sketch as to how common this is and if it is something they tend to outgrow or not. Apparently it hasn't hurt their breeding ability as a group. Again this information was not made public for years and years into the spider project. Should potential (and actual) buyers have been made aware of this issue? Even now there is a lot of mystery as to if a homozygous spider is possible and what it is like.

Hey Randy ... How about posting those spread sheet?

-adam

[bait4snake]

I have a normal female that I bought a couple years ago that has the white belly and the black edging... and she has this off-white marble coloration for the rest of her belly... slightly dark, slightly yellow... might be on to something here...