A little more indepth--defects?

[Serpent_Nirvana]

I will preface this by saying that I haven't personally produced any of the aforementioned animals; this is all going on research.

I recently bought a caramel male and before I did, I did quite a bit of research into the kinking issue. As Randy has stated, it does seem that certain lines or breeders have more of an issue with kinking than others. Though I agree that it could be an environmental factor, I am somewhat inclined to think that it may be due to genetic factors (independent of the caramel gene itself) in the various bloodlines. I say this only because it seems that certain bloodlines (ie, Malsin/Upscale line) are always mentioned as being very "strong" and not kinking, while other lines are mentioned as being more consistent with their kinking.

I am not 100% sure what is going on with their physiology to cause the kinking. It's a spinal deformity, for sure, but it isn't evident WHAT is causing them to be deformed -- ie, if the vertebrae are malformed, or underformed, or fused, or what. I haven't even so much as been able to find an X-ray of a kinked caramel (or any congenitally kinked snake, for that matter), which is really too bad ...

Another issue I encountered when researching caramels, and which doesn't seem to be as "well known" as the issues you mention in your first post, is that it appears (TO ME, based on my research), that the females are sub-fertile. I have read numerous accounts and seen numerous photos of caramel girls on slugs. At best, I have seen pics of caramel females on clutches with only 1-2 eggs and 3-4 slugs, and that is absolute BEST. I have yet to see or hear of a caramel female laying a good, solid 4-6 egg clutch with no slugs. This isn't just from reading threads on that topic specifically, either. I have searched a few different blogs on the web to see if maybe folks had had caramel females on good clutches, and just didn't bother posting the good ones to forums ... ALL of the blog posts I've seen with an adult female caramel, she's sitting on a clutch of slugs.

I have hope, based on reports of "low-kink" lines, that the kinking issue can be selected away from. Maybe not bred out entirely, but maybe close. The fertility issue I am less hopeful for.

As far as the super lesser/butter bug-eyes, this was the buggiest one I could find on Google image search:

http://www.worldofballpythons.com/mo...-super-butter/

The 2nd picture of him shows his pop-eyes.

A few others also have eyes that look a bit big for their heads, though I reckon that guy's the worst I've seen.

AFAIK, though, it is purely cosmetic; I haven't heard any reports of it affecting the animal. Although, that having been said, it's enough to make me want to avoid breeding those particular morphs together as a way of making a white snake. You can still make a very white snake breeding mojave x lesser, and I don't THINK those have the same bug-eye issues ... If anyone has experienced otherwise, however, please do let us know!