Should I breed her

[T&C Exotics]

Well I want to thank everyone for their advice.

I know all about the genetics part of it and I know it will be there no matter what with spiders. I was/am going to breed her to a pastel to try for killer bees and more bumbles. Future plans are going to be putting a killer bee with a red axanthic and going from there as well as putting the bee into my pieds.

[Russ Lawson]

Sorry, double post.

[Russ Lawson]

Well I want to thank everyone for their advice.

I know all about the genetics part of it and I know it will be there no matter what with spiders. I was/am going to breed her to a pastel to try for killer bees and more bumbles. Future plans are going to be putting a killer bee with a red axanthic and going from there as well as putting the bee into my pieds.

I wasn't doubting you knew the wobble was a part of the spider mutation. The misconception a lot of people have is that they think they can reduce (or increase) the wobble in the spider offspring they produce by out-breeding (or inbreeding).

[TessadasExotics]

No one knows whether or not the spider wobble is a genetic defect caused by the spider gene mutation or if its a genetic defect caused by the breeding and inbreeding of a defective gene snake.

If the spiders we have now all came from one founding spider, and if that founding spider had a defective gene, then all we are doing by breeding spiders is perpetuating this bad defect. Supposedly normals have been seen to have the wobble too. So no one can say its caused by the "spider mutation".

It doesn't even have to have been from one founding spider. Even if there were 3 or 4 spiders imported. The fact is one or more had this bad gene in it. This spider was bred numerous times and crossed numerous times. Its offspring were bred and crossed numerous times.

The fact is that inbreeding IS NOT a good thing to do. It is even worse when its done sibling to sibling. The reason is that a bad single recessive gene can then be passed on. There are bad dominant genes as well as bad recessive ones. If line breeding is to be done, then it should really only be done with animals that are removed at least 4 or 5 times from each other.

For any one, and I mean any one, to say that the spider wobble is nothing is BS. Here are two links about inbreeding. It does not matter if its people, dogs, or snakes. Genes work the exact same way for every living thing.

http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/genetics/inbreeding.html

http://www.reptilechannel.com/lizard...-reptiles.aspx


We are having the same problems with Bengal cats, Maine Coon cats and a few others. The only thing you can do is try to correct it with careful and selective breeding.
We also breed Bengal cats so we have plenty of knowledge on this type of action. Its sad too because these things can be corrected. But every one has to help in order to do it. There are Bengal breeders that refuse to even accept the fact because they are scared of loosing the money they make selling there cats. If you want more info on this subject you can search Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM).

Any who I am not going to go on and on. Its up to every one to make the decision of what to do. If my spiders show the wobble, I will not breed it. I am going to do my part in trying to correct this. Money isn't an issue to us.

This is our hobby, not our sole income.

[Russ Lawson]

No one knows whether or not the spider wobble is a genetic defect caused by the spider gene mutation or if its a genetic defect caused by the breeding and inbreeding of a defective gene snake.

I disagree, there is sufficient data from years of breeding spiders that suggests the mutant allele that causes the spider phenotype is the direct cause of the wobble. If this were not true, the non-spider offspring from any spider breeding would have an equal chance of being wobblers, which is clearly not the case.

If the spiders we have now all came from one founding spider, and if that founding spider had a defective gene, then all we are doing by breeding spiders is perpetuating this bad defect. Supposedly normals have been seen to have the wobble too. So no one can say its caused by the "spider mutation".

To my knowledge, all spider ball pythons in captivity directly descend from one wild-caught spider owned by NERD. Even so, I would put money on the idea that if another wild-caught spider was found in Ghana, it would have a wobble, and would make more wobbling spiders. You say there are "supposedly" normal ball pythons with a wobble. Where is the documentation of this? How can you be certain this is a direct result of the spider mutation? Why isn't this the case for every spider breeding? An honest answer for all of these questions would seem to disagree with your theory of a separate mutation causing the wobble.

It doesn't even have to have been from one founding spider. Even if there were 3 or 4 spiders imported. The fact is one or more had this bad gene in it. This spider was bred numerous times and crossed numerous times. Its offspring were bred and crossed numerous times.

I'm not saying the spider mutation wasn't initially inbred. I know it was for a fact, but if I recall correctly, they stopped at the F2 generation because no visual super spiders were produced. There may have been a couple F3 breedings, but the majority of spider mutations are likely to have descended from F1 animals. From there, most of these have been bred out into different mutations by the people who bought them because they knew they wouldn't be making any "super spiders." This is how it went from what I've gathered since the spider mutation made its debut. How are you so certain that NERD so severely inbred an animal as to amplify the wobble of the initial spider? Do you have records of each pairing they did, or are you just speculating? Additionally, with your model, how can you explain spiders with a bad wobble producing offspring with little wobble and vice versa? Your model suggests that the only way to reduce the wobble is out-breeding, when it has clearly been shown through generations of breeding to be a random occurence.

The fact is that inbreeding IS NOT a good thing to do. It is even worse when its done sibling to sibling. The reason is that a bad single recessive gene can then be passed on. There are bad dominant genes as well as bad recessive ones. If line breeding is to be done, then it should really only be done with animals that are removed at least 4 or 5 times from each other.

I agree with you on this. Inbreeding is a double-edged blade. It great for reproducing desirable traits, but also has the potential to also reproduce undesirable ones, which is why I believe inbreeding for more than a couple generations should be avoided.

For any one, and I mean any one, to say that the spider wobble is nothing is BS. Here are two links about inbreeding. It does not matter if its people, dogs, or snakes. Genes work the exact same way for every living thing.

http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/genetics/inbreeding.html

http://www.reptilechannel.com/lizard...-reptiles.aspx


We are having the same problems with Bengal cats, Maine Coon cats and a few others. The only thing you can do is try to correct it with careful and selective breeding.

We also breed Bengal cats so we have plenty of knowledge on this type of action. Its sad too because these things can be corrected. But every one has to help in order to do it. There are Bengal breeders that refuse to even accept the fact because they are scared of loosing the money they make selling there cats. If you want more info on this subject you can search Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM).

Here is where I again will disagree with you. I will never say the spider wobble is nothing. It is clearly an undesirable trait that is passed along with a desirable one. I will disagree with you, however, on the comparison of domestic dog and cat mutations to ball python mutations. While the mutations are inherited in the same way, the fact is that dogs have been inbred for thousands of years to amplify certain traits people found desirable for whatever reason. (I don't have enough knowledge of cats to know how long they have been inbred in captivity, but I am comfortable saying it is on a much, much larger scale than ball pythons as well). This is why in dogs you often get mutations that can be reversed by out-breeding. The degree to which ball pythons have been inbred is negligible in comparison, which is why the undesirable traits that pop up occasionally tend to be the direct result of another mutation (or temperature/humidity problems during incubation).

Don't get me wrong, I am a big proponent of out-breeding whenever possible because I know consistent inbreeding will eventually lead to problems. I would avoid inbreeding if I saw it to be a cause of undesirable traits in one of the mutations I was working with. It is true I will probably never pair spider to spider. (unless in attempt to truly understand whether the mutation is dominant or incompletely dominant but fatal homozygous if data does not exist on the subject by the time I have enough resources to engage in such projects). Until evidence arises that disproves my current theory about the spider mutation though, I will be unable to accept the wobble as anything but a direct result of the mutant spider allele. I know the bias resultant of your understanding of genetic disorders in domesticated animals will likely prevent you from agreeing with me on the subject. However, I do hope you at least consider my side of this debate. I am not saying my explanation is perfect by any means, but with my current understanding of genetics it is the only logical explanation I can come to. I am sure I may find a better explanation as I continue to expand on my knowledge of genetics in the future.

[TessadasExotics]

My Opinions and my understanding of how het/dom genes and the potential results from inbreeding are, I assure you, not biased. I am open to debate, and your thoughts are yours as mine are mine. There is nothing wrong with debate, but to truly debate one must have an open mind. To debate with a closed mind is not a debate and isn’t worth the time.

With that being said. To say "The degree to which ball pythons have been inbred is negligible in comparison, which is why the undesirable traits that pop up occasionally tend to be the direct result of another mutation (or temperature/humidity problems during incubation)." is almost entering the debate with a closed mind. If you understand how genes can combine to make a desired morph than you should also understand that it only takes one gene from one snake to cause problems. It doesn't take years or to a "degree" of inbreeding to cause bad mutations. Also the degree to which inbreeding is being done or has been done to ball pythons isn’t readily available and never will be available to anyone. I can probably say with a pretty good idea that when certain morphs were first introduced and they were selling for 50-100k and up for one baby, especially for the recessive gene morphs, a tremendous amount of inbreeding was going on. (I know that some people paid over 100k just to obtain the founding snake from import.) I am also pretty sure that being born with one eye or no eyes, duck billed, kinking or any other birth defects cannot be pawned off on temps or humidity. Most breeders have fairly accurate systems that leave very little room for changes and they take painstaking steps to maintain those levels. They still will have defects with some of the hatchlings they are trying to produce. Some lose half of a clutch at times. Some lose the whole clutch!

I don't know the whole dynamics of the wobble gene nor does anyone else. Maybe it is caused by the gene that makes the spider a spider. I am sure that there are breeders that know more than others. I also know that they probably wouldn’t say either way.

I will not rule out that its caused by the spider gene. I also will not rule it out from being a genetically passed on trait that could be passed on to other morphs. I will act as if it is passable and will try to safe guard from passing it on. I will never breed a spider that has a wobble.

As long as we all take steps to outbreed is a good thing. Maybe with luck the wobble will go away. Maybe it wont.

[Russ Lawson]

I never said that inbreeding was the sole source of genetic defects. I was merely making the comparison because the chance of genetic defects springing up as homozygosity increases over many generations of inbreeding is much higher than the chance of a genetic defect springing up as a random mutation. I agree with most of the rest of what you said. I will never deny that inbreeding can result in genetic defects, just in some cases, it seems premature to assume that is the cause. People have essentially labeled inbreeding the scapegoat as a source for genetic defects, when there are potentially other causes.

[TessadasExotics]

True, but the reason is that not every thing is known about genetics. Alot is know but there is still alot to learn.