Spider ? To Breed or Not to Breed?

[starrlamia]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever done any sort of testing to determine if the wobble gene is passed on to offspring, in the sense of can you breed it out etc?

Im new to snakes and genetics so Im the lonely person who voted no, because i dont like perpetuating genetic problems for looks. But again that depends on the answer to the above question.

[ScubaDiver007]

I guess thats why I was asking as well. I'm also new to this and to thinking about breeding. I have a Spider Het Ghost and two lovely ladies Het Ghost that are HUGE ready for him. So I thought I would ask about that to see if its something that is passed down from generation to generation..

Sorta like I heard that Caramel's had Kink back issues.

Thanks, for setting up the poll, and thanks for the feed back. much appreciated.

Scuba

[MarkS]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever done any sort of testing to determine if the wobble gene is passed on to offspring, in the sense of can you breed it out etc?

Im new to snakes and genetics so Im the lonely person who voted no, because i dont like perpetuating genetic problems for looks. But again that depends on the answer to the above question.

Well, I also voted no and have been breeding snakes for 20 years. There are enough spiders out there and the prices are low enough that there really is no reason anymore to use a badly wobbling spider for breeding. It may very well be that you can't breed the wobble out of the line, but with so many potential breeders available to choose from, why wouldn't you at least try to use the one with the least problems?

[Mike Schultz]

My bee spins so much he does backflips when he strikes at his prey. All spiders wobble, the difference is to what extent?

Breed em!

[sho220]

My male breeder spider has never shown any signs of wobbling. He's sired two clutches and had a few babies that showed a little wobbling when feeding, but other than that no real signs. I have a two year old female from him that has shown no signs of wobbling either.

[kc261]

Well, I also voted no and have been breeding snakes for 20 years. There are enough spiders out there and the prices are low enough that there really is no reason anymore to use a badly wobbling spider for breeding. It may very well be that you can't breed the wobble out of the line, but with so many potential breeders available to choose from, why wouldn't you at least try to use the one with the least problems?

I agree, although I'm not voting at all because the choice I really want isn't there. It depends on how bad the wobble is. I would not breed a badly wobbling spider; there are plenty of spiders out there, and they are pretty inexpensive at this point. Why breed a bad wobbler?

The original post does say "a bit of a wobble", so it doesn't sound too bad. Hard to say if I'd breed that specific spider, since the description of how much it wobbles is so vague.

[A.S_Reptillions]

All spiders have some what of a wobble. Although some are much slighter than others. Some spiders may just tilt there head and others may actually do somewhat of an intense dance/wobble. Like someone already said in this thread there is no real proof that the "wobble" can be bred out of that gene.
I say go right ahead and best of luck !!

[rabernet]

Ed's too modest to post these links himself - but all spiders wobble - including all four of mine. Three of mine are full siblings to the striped girl in the first video and my fourth is a 1/2 sib to them. The "trainwreck" that he describes in one of the videos is my Tonka. Tonka no longer spins - he has a very slight head wobble, similar to a Parkinson's shake.

All of my spider's wobble display as a very slight shake or "vibrating" of the head that Ed shows in his video.

YouTube - Understanding the Spider Wobble

YouTube - Spider Wobble part II

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Not every snake will get the wobble. Its more common but dont mean the babies will inherit it.

My male breeder spider has never shown any signs of wobbling. He's sired two clutches and had a few babies that showed a little wobbling when feeding, but other than that no real signs. I have a two year old female from him that has shown no signs of wobbling either.

If you have a spider that doesn't wobble you either:

1.) don't pay enough attention to your animal
2.) don't know what to look for.


100% of spiders wobble. Breed away. it doesn't have anything to do with their quality of life. In fact, 9 times out of 10 spiders are the best feeders.

[SlitherinSisters]

Yep. You could breed a perfect spider (well as close to perfect as the spider gene can get) and get the worst wobbled babies, or you could breed the worst wobbled spider and get perfect spider babies. It's all luck of the draw.

Now if my spider had a really bad wobble and all his babies were coming out with bad wobble, I would rethink my breeding plans.