spider wobble?

[MoshBalls]

I know that line breeding does not seem to be a big deal when it comes to Ball pythons. I would assume it is because until recently (last 15-20 years) there has been no reason to line breed therefore they can afford a few generation in order to get the desired "morph genes".

I am not stating an opinion here just raising the question/thought. Do you think that this is the beginning effects of line breeding? The same as German Shepherd dogs and Labs have "bad hips" and Boxers have "blood disease". Cocker Spaniels "cocker Rage" showing extreme aggression http://bsl.bsl-sbt.com/breeds/ragesy...iels.php?s=&l=. My food for thought is do you think if line breeding continues we will see more morph based deformities?

Personally we have a female spider and she definitely has the wobble, head tilt, and when she tries to climb straight up she reaches a certain point then shakes and falls slowly. It reminds me of Parkinson disease in humans. I am concerned because we bought her with the intention of breeding her and currently she is our only female. However the information available on whether the "woble" is connect to the spider gene is so con-traversal that I am not sure if breeding her is responsible. I am glad she is just a baby and we have 3 more years to research before making a decision. Regardless we are quiet fond of her and she will be a beloved pet regardless.

Again. I have no opinion currently and would love to hear more peoples view on the matter before I form my own.

[Serpent_Nirvana]

Could you define severe? Just curious.

REALLY severe. If I recall correctly, it was ~100F for days at a time and spiked to >110F at some points. Most of the eggs died and I'm honestly shocked that anything made it at all. (Helpful hint from Dr. Del: fans can create heat through friction!!) This year I'm gonna get this incubation thing right, I SWEAR ...


In response to Moshballs' post (sorry I'm not sure how to easily quote multiple people), this has been discussed before, but basically, line breeding has not one single thing to do with the spider "wobble." The "wobble" is directly connected to the single spider gene, whether it's a part of the gene itself, or on another gene that is VERY tightly linked (so tightly that you almost NEVER get one without the other).

Because all we're (typically) breeding for, with ball pythons, is one single gene, or a handful of discrete single genes, and you can get those genes by breeding your gene carrier (spider, banana, what have you) with ANY other ball python, our animals are typically very outcrossed. Spiders are no exception, given that they are a dominant /incomplete dominant morph and can be reproduced by breeding to literally any other ball python. They may have been inbred a few times in the very beginnings of the morph, when people were still looking for a super form, but since then they have been highly HIGHLY outcrossed to create combo morphs.

In addition, even the most tightly inbred ball pythons are more outcrossed than nearly any dog breed ... If you go back in the pedigrees of many champion dogs and count the ancestors, even if the animal wasn't "inbred" for a few generations back, the "background inbreeding" is often exceptionally high. You'll see the same ancestors over and over and over. (Ditto with performance horses.) Even if you had a BP project where you bred offspring back to parents, I still don't think your inbreeding coefficient would be as high.

Line breeding does one thing: it fixes traits in a bloodline. These traits could be good ("These dogs excel at search and rescue;" "These pastels are bright gold") or bad ("These dogs have awful hips;" "These pieds are terrible feeders.") The thing of it is, though, we haven't even really done all that much line breeding in BPs yet. That's why those few who have line bred for quality ask higher prices for their animals: line breeding takes many generations to fix those good traits, and it's a lot more work and effort than just pairing a few nice critters.

[rabernet]

Do you think that this is the beginning effects of line breeding?

No.

The original spider, the founding animal that ALL spiders are decended from had a wobble. Ask anyone in the industry for a long time and they'll tell you ALL spiders wobble. I personally believe that as well.

Many people believe that theirs don't, but put them in some sort of stressful situation, or watch them with the lights out at night, and they just don't move the same as other ball pythons.

You can even tell from many pictures, even pictures of animals that the owners swear don't wobble - the head is just held at a slight angle that non-spiders don't.

My belief is that the spider and the wobble are linked, as evidenced by all spider combo's also having the wobble.

It's one of the most out bred morph, simply because there is no evidence that there is a super form, and yet all spiders wobble - from so barely noticeable that the owner will swear it's a non-wobbler, to the other side of being a train wreck.