Selective Breeding

[Jay_Bunny]

When you breed a two snakes together, what affects your choice? For example, I have 3 normal females I could breed my pastel to. I have chosen to breed him to Akina since she has the most blushing of the 3. I like pastels with a ton of blushing so I want to try and produce some high-blush pastels. Though there are some people that would want to breed pastels with reduced patterned snakes or busy patterned snakes. I know its all preference, but do you have any pairings going on this season that you would consider "selective breeding" and not just to produce a certain morph.

[bokuza]

Well for one, I agree with you decision to breed your pastel to the high blush female. I really like a Ball with high blushing and flames. I'd think that you'd also choose based on eating habits, sheds and weight. Spiders are clearly selective breeding in my opinion. Pastels too, though some don't agree with that I'm sure but a very dull pastel is a waste.

Cinnamon are my favorite, when they're black I'm not that found of them but when they are deep rich brown (not light) they are stunning.

[Delilah]

I am maybe a bit obsessive when it comes to selective breeding. I consider pattern complexity and depth of color, of course, but if we are to be responsible breeders of future generations of snakes, we MUST consider the whole snake. Is my choice a good selection for a breeding program? Is it the proper size and proportion? Does it eat well? Is this snake nervous and aggressive, or calm and comfortable with captive life? Are they related? This is my biggest concern for the snake breeding world. So many people seem to have no problem inbreeding snakes. With the exception of establishing a new line or genetic trait, inbreeding should be avoided at all costs because it causes SERIOUS problems! -Things like wobbles, kinks, duckbills, and sometimes stomach turning fatal birth defects.
I guess my point is, as long as you have two healthy unrelated snakes, breeding is just a matter of personal opinion. Take the clown morph for instance. Reduced pattern is quite popular right now. I, however, prefer crazy patterned clowns with brown backs. The more spots the better! But in spiders I like reduced pattern. Also in spiders, people seem to like high white sides. I don't. I like more gold. In pastels I look for -pastel- coloring, light browns and/or grays, and yellow. And I think pastels should not look like normals in pattern. I think pastels should have complex, wavy, crazy patterning and lots of flames.
Ok, shutting up now. (Told ya I was obsessive!)

[rabernet]

So many people seem to have no problem inbreeding snakes. With the exception of establishing a new line or genetic trait, inbreeding should be avoided at all costs because it causes SERIOUS problems! -Things like wobbles, kinks, duckbills, and sometimes stomach turning fatal birth defects.

Hi Delilah - first, welcome to the forum!

I'm personally not aware of the traits you listed above being related to line breeding. Wobbles are part of the genetic make-up of spiders, kinks are related to caramel albinos, duckbills in cinnies, black pastels and pinstripes that I'm aware of. So when I hear of each of those specific defects, I think of those particular mutations because I'm not aware of those defects occurring as a result of line breeding in other mutations.

Besides the caramel albinos, I'm not aware of any consistently displaying issues with the other recessive genes where many keepers would be line breeding (father back to daughter if they purchased a het male or a visual male and raised up his offspring).

In any case - back to the original question. I'm a huge believer in selective breeding. Not just with deciding the normal to go with the male, but also in having first selected the very best example of the mutation that you can find.

I'm breeding my mojave to my dark blushing black back, Pretzel this year. I am hoping for rich grays that will provide even more contrast to the yellows, with lots of blushing.

My lemon pastel is paired with three girls so far. I'm breeding him back to the same female that produced my Libra and Ed's Envy - as that pairing proved to produce babies even nicer and brighter than Winston. The other two females were selected for different reasons. One was selected for her blushing and reduced pattern. The other was selected for her light coloration. She's always been a stunning snake, is a pastel sibling, which for some reason, tend to be brighter animals.

My spider has been bred with a banded animal, hoping to see some of that banding passed onto the babies.

I strongly support selective breeding, in fact, I'd like to encourage it. I think selectively breeding is the future of ball pythons. When everyone has a XYZ morph, people are going to become more picky about the quality that they want. Those of us who selectively breed may hold onto our animals longer, because we don't price them at rock bottom prices, but they'll sell to buyers who appreciate and look for grade A animals.

[Jay_Bunny]

Exactly! Now my pastel, while I love him to death is not one of those crazy bright, high blushing, high yellow pastels.



But I hope to produce even nicer examples through breeding him with my normal female that has the most blushing.



She has started to glow in that picture but all that blushing is what she has normally.

As far as inbreeding, I'm fine with it and will do it to a point. Inbreeding does not really cause all those problems UNLESS you line breed, which is inbreeding over and over down the generations. Ralph Davis did this with some albinos he had, I think, and he hatched out some real train wrecks (missing eyes, deformed jaws, etc). But I have no problem breeding mother to son or father to daughter. If I get any really nice male high blush pastels from this breeding, I might hold one back to breed back to his mother. But we shall see.

I'm really a fan of deep rich brown cinnamons. The kind that almost have a red tint to them like real cinnamon does. Tim Bailey's female cinnies that he has on his site are by far my favorite examples of the morph and one day.....one day....I will have one.

[Delilah]

Thank you for the welcome!
I've been lurking about for a while now. Though I am relatively new to the snake breeding world, I am not new to breeding in general. I began with color breeding parakeets back when I was a teenager.....so that was a.. um... *blush* ...long time ago. *sheepish grin* I've been a bird breeder for years. Also dabbled in a few other things. Then I found ball pythons and WOW! I was hooked!
I have done quite a bit of reading about the various morphs of ball pythons and yes, the wobble in spiders, the kinks in caramels, etc ARE a result of inbreeding. In fact, based on what I have read, I could even point fingers to the breeders at fault. There are lines of spiders out there with no wobble. And with careful outcrossing, responsible breeders have bred cramels with no kinks. I suppose this should be a new topic. ... I'll do that.

[rabernet]

Thank you for the welcome!
I've been lurking about for a while now. Though I am relatively new to the snake breeding world, I am not new to breeding in general. I began with color breeding parakeets back when I was a teenager.....so that was a.. um... *blush* ...long time ago. *sheepish grin* I've been a bird breeder for years. Also dabbled in a few other things. Then I found ball pythons and WOW! I was hooked!
I have done quite a bit of reading about the various morphs of ball pythons and yes, the wobble in spiders, the kinks in caramels, etc ARE a result of inbreeding. In fact, based on what I have read, I could even point fingers to the breeders at fault. There are lines of spiders out there with no wobble. And with careful outcrossing, responsible breeders have bred cramels with no kinks. I suppose this should be a new topic. ... I'll do that.

Actually, there are ZERO lines of spider without the wobble. The very first spider was a wobbler, and because there is no known super, the spider is one of the most outcrossed non-line bred mutation. And yet, despite how diverse the bloodlines get - all spiders wobble - from as mild as a barely detectible "parkinson's" type tremor to full on corkscrewing.

There is only one line of spider - all spiders descend from the same original spider. No other spiders were ever imported from the wild.

[Jay_Bunny]

The wobble in spiders is thought to be related to the actual spider gene. If a snake has the spider gene it WILL have a wobble but it can vary on how bad it is. It has nothing to do with inbreeding. Inbreeding is not a problem. Line breeding is. I plan on inbreeding several of my snakes for desired traits but I will never line breed.

[Delilah]

I have a spider that I have never seen wobble. I got lucky with her as I bought her before I knew about the wobble problem. My bumblebees (not related to the spider) sadly both wobble. I have seen a number of ads on kingsnake stating "no wobble" in spider ads. I suppose they could be lying, but these are well known breeders in many cases- I don't think that would be wise for their reputation to say "no wobble" if they wobble! So apparently there are spiders out there that do not wobble!

[Wh00h0069]

I have a spider that I have never seen wobble. I got lucky with her as I bought her before I knew about the wobble problem. My bumblebees (not related to the spider) sadly both wobble. I have seen a number of ads on kingsnake stating "no wobble" in spider ads. I suppose they could be lying, but these are well known breeders in many cases- I don't think that would be wise for their reputation to say "no wobble" if they wobble! So apparently there are spiders out there that do not wobble!

They are not saying that it is not possible that the snake will never wobble. They are just stating that at that time the snake does not wobble. Spiders can start out with wobbles, or start wobbling later in life. The first spider was a wobbler, and he passed it down. There is nothing that anyone can do about it. It was not caused by inbreeding, and can not be bred out, as with most other defects.