inbreeding?

[mainbutter]

First off let me state that I am NOT interested in breeding ball pythons anytime soon. I don't even have my first ball python yet. Mostly I've been doing some research and my curiosity has been piqued on breeding.

I've been wondering how much inbreeding goes on with all these BP breeders trying to produce color morphs and mutations. I can see how this might be especially prominent with recessive traits. If you got your hands on one 100% het albino male, the cheapest route to producing an actual albino animal would be to mate the 100% het albino male with a normal female, and then inbreed the male with any female offspring in the hopes that one was also het albino.(did I make that clear? kind of wordy)

I assume that ball pythons are every bit as susceptible to inbreeding problems as just about any other complex creature on this planet. Is breeding BPs fairly sell self-regulated by the breeders to prevent inbreeding? I could see how it would be not uncommon to get two BPs from seperate locales(say, two yellow bellies with the intention of producing ivories), and have it turn out that they are brother and sister or first cousins or some other relation that would lead to possible inbreeding problems.

Or is this not really an issue, and there are enough wild caught or captive hatched BPs introduced that there is plenty of genetic diversity? I've been reading about BPs as much as I can a couple hours a day for the past few days, and never once have I even come across the word "inbreeding".

[rabernet]

Here's a discussion about this topic you may find interesting!

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ght=inbreeding

[mainbutter]

thanks

[Beardedragon]

Only inbreed if you have to. Like stated in the other post only do it if your trying to prove something out, but if your not, do not do it. What I would do is buy two unrelated het albino males to solve that problem, because of how cheap they are, and breed the other male to the ph females from the other other male.


Though, I have yet to see any ball pythons that have grown extra limbs because of it

[Gloryhound]

What I would do is buy two unrelated het albino males to solve that problem, because of how cheap they are, and breed the other male to the ph females from the other other male.
P

The issue with doing this is you end up with a bunch of possible het males by the time it is done! If you want to make your own albino through breeding just fork out the money and get a male and female het. Ultimately speaking though if your goal is to have an Albino as a pet you are better off to just buy an Albino. By the time you raise up hets to the right size for breeding you will have a significant amount of time and money invested. You figure if you buy 2 baby hets you will spend at least 2 dollars a week each for food. That comes up to $4.00 per week for food alone. Total of $208.00 a year. In general you are looking at a minimum of 2 years before you have eggs to incubate. Now we are up to $416. The het male and female "babies" together may have cost you $250 to $300 so on the low end you are already up to $666.00. Now we have not even got into the cost of bedding and multiple enclosures, multiple water dishes, Oh did we have to take either of them to the Vet? (All our snakes that have been purchased are given an appointment with the Vet in the afternoon of the day they arrive or the next day at the latest.) You easily end up with over $1500.00 invested in a pair of hets to make your first Albino. When you could go out and just buy the Albino for around $700 and set him up nice for another $300. Does any of this make sense?

[aaramire]

I think what scares people about buying visual morphs outright instead of buying hets is the one big purchase price, whereas with hets its lots of little purchases spread out, which gives you time to earn the money, save up, etc.
I know personally, there are some combo morphs that I want to produce myself, like bees, pastel yellowbellies, spider yellowbellies, granite yellowbellies, and ivories. I want to hatch them myself and know that I produced it and I know where it came from. Plus its the gratification of producing something myself...

[littleindiangirl]

Considering most of our morphs are co-dominant, means that in general they are greatly outcrossed and very little inbreeding actually occurs. With more and more people breeding these morphs, they are more easily available and less often inbred.

[danthony428]

I think what scares people about buying visual morphs outright instead of buying hets is the one big purchase price, whereas with hets its lots of little purchases spread out, which gives you time to earn the money, save up, etc.
I know personally, there are some combo morphs that I want to produce myself, like bees, pastel yellowbellies, spider yellowbellies, granite yellowbellies, and ivories. I want to hatch them myself and know that I produced it and I know where it came from. Plus its the gratification of producing something myself...

exactly how i feel, i wanna make them myself

[Gloryhound]

I know personally, there are some combo morphs that I want to produce myself, like bees, pastel yellowbellies, spider yellowbellies, granite yellowbellies, and ivories. I want to hatch them myself and know that I produced it and I know where it came from. Plus its the gratification of producing something myself...

I know exactly where you are coming from, but until you really start to try and breed snakes a lot of people do not realize what it costs and all the personal time involved. As long as they are going in with their eyes open all is good. Too often I see new people coming on that want a specific morph and plan to breed for it which is a great learning experience, but ultimately they don't add up the true price tag and I think a lot of them drop out of the hobby cause they get discouraged by taking the long road and realize they are spending more!

[Somed00d]

You easily end up with over $1500.00 invested in a pair of hets to make your first Albino. When you could go out and just buy the Albino for around $700 and set him up nice for another $300. Does any of this make sense?

1 thing, you can continue breeding those fully grown hets and constantly produce more albinos and recover your costs or sell the hets for more than you paid because they are adults.