Eyeless Piebald Clutch

[SlitherinSisters]

That really sucks

I had an eyeless clutch but I had incubation/humidity issues and the snakes were very kinked and deformed as well. It seems like eyeless babies are related to incubation issues, temps/humidity.

[WarriorPrincess90]

I would gladly welcome a one-eyed snake or an eyeless snake into my collection. Especially a pied! That is my favorite morph eyeless or not. I have always had a soft spot for imperfections.

I'd be curious as to the exact cause...and if temps one way or the other is the supposed culprit, I'd be interested to know at exactly what point during incubation it would have to occur and at what temperatures.

[All Balled Up]

We definitely aren't going to cull these animals as long as missing one or both eyes is their only deformity. Since they aren't even out of the egg yet we don't know the full story. I'm truly hoping they do well regardless of their imperfection and I'm sure they'll be beautiful animals. I already have plans to build a display cage for the one that we know is completely eyeless. I think it will make a great pet. We will likely find homes for the others, as long as they are healthy and good feeders. We'll have to wait and see what happens. We are disappointed that these aren't "perfect" but we've had perfect pieds from this pairing before, so I'm sure we will again.

While I had thought that our incubator was stable, I am starting to believe that there were some problems this year, perhaps due to the temperature of the room the incubator was in, which may have made the incubator warmer than it should have been. Though this was never indicated on the probes we had in the incubator nor on the helix. This is something we'll be looking into on the off-season to make sure that there aren't any incubation issues in the future. We also had a clown clutch in the incubator at the exact same time and on the same level of the incubator, so we're waiting to see if there are any problems with those guys. The one that's out looks perfectly fine, but there are 5 or 6 others that we're waiting to pip. We will post pics of all of the pieds once they're out.

[don15681]

We definitely aren't going to cull these animals as long as missing one or both eyes is their only deformity. Since they aren't even out of the egg yet we don't know the full story. I'm truly hoping they do well regardless of their imperfection and I'm sure they'll be beautiful animals. I already have plans to build a display cage for the one that we know is completely eyeless. I think it will make a great pet. We will likely find homes for the others, as long as they are healthy and good feeders. We'll have to wait and see what happens. We are disappointed that these aren't "perfect" but we've had perfect pieds from this pairing before, so I'm sure we will again.

While I had thought that our incubator was stable, I am starting to believe that there were some problems this year, perhaps due to the temperature of the room the incubator was in, which may have made the incubator warmer than it should have been. Though this was never indicated on the probes we had in the incubator nor on the helix. This is something we'll be looking into on the off-season to make sure that there aren't any incubation issues in the future. We also had a clown clutch in the incubator at the exact same time and on the same level of the incubator, so we're waiting to see if there are any problems with those guys. The one that's out looks perfectly fine, but there are 5 or 6 others that we're waiting to pip. We will post pics of all of the pieds once they're out.

I had my incubator full when incubating the weak clutch with the eye problems. all the others were perfectly fine. I do use the herpstat nd thermostat which has high and low level alarms. which is one of the reasons I went with the nd. knowing I would never use the night drop feature on it which is what the nd stands for. but it has so many other features that I was looking for. using this thermostat for a few years and no regrets on buying it. good luck with the clown clutch, don

[mechnut450]

man that a shame I have ball python ( pastel ) I got that is blind( eyes are deformed ( but you can see movement in the eyse ) but he doing great. I would sasy if they eat and are visible morphs then keep as pets only ( or I bet like anyone else will say ) let em know and i take the pied that eyeless. I have no problem with that for a pet only snakes. ( these would make a great pet for my mother and myself lin the long run as we both have way too much time on our hands being disable. ) I love to see more pics as they come out.

as for the one I got his eye issue was related to inubatior temp issues ( the guy had some kind of temp issues and the one pastel was the only one that survived ( or had issues) I was given him due to the fact the person qas getting out of snakes and knew I be willnig ot care for it in the long run. the snake was already like 2 years old then.

[hondo1967]

I hatched one years ago and she is a great breeder, they will do ok, i would feed them frozen as to be on the cautious side not to get injured

[jsmorphs2]

Sorry to see that . We just hatched a eyeless baby (pied x spider) but she's doing great so don't get too down. It might be genetics at play that caused this too. We had 11 perfect clutches hatch and a few around the same time her clutch hatched so we ruled out an incubator issue.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...highlight=side

[Serpent_Nirvana]

While some low-lifes will always cull an imperfect animal no matter how minor the flaw, if the snake can feed and shed and defecate and grow normally, I see no good reason to end it's life. Heaven knows I adore my adult female eyeless, and she makes a great ambassador for people who are uncomfortable with snakes.

While I do not agree that it would be "irresponsible" to allow these animals to live in this instance, I also have to take exception to your use of the word "low-life" to describe someone who would cull (HUMANELY -- not by sticking it in a freezer) a baby snake with a deformity.

We don't know what it's like for a snake to grow up without one of its major sense organs. We also don't know for sure whether a given deformity is genetic or not, and as much as anyone may try to find a good, permanent home for their animals, we all know how many times these guys can change hands in their lifetimes. I don't think it is at all unreasonable or unethical to humanely cull deformed offspring rather than risk their dissemination into the gene pool.

IMO, this is a very personal decision for the breeder and I don't believe they should ostracized or called names for EITHER choice. I'm sure it isn't easy to decide to euthanize a newborn clutch.

All that having been said -- in this instance, I would suspect (though can't say for sure) that it is likely due to an incubation fault rather than genetics. The reason for this is that you say that the parents are unrelated, have all bred for you before without producing deformities, and that both (unrelated) clutches are affected.

Since they're the same morph (Piebald), I think it is possible that they are actually all distantly related and all carry the gene for eyelessness. I think if this were my clutch, I would plan on repeating this pairing next year to see what happens. This may sound counter-intuitive, but if you don't do this you will never know for sure and you risk either A. retiring valuable breeders needlessly or B. disseminating a defect gene into the gene pool. If, out of several eggs, you get any eyeless babies a second time around, I would retire all three parents from breeding. If not, I would suspect this to be an incubation fluke.

Best of luck with your baby snakes.

[MrLang]

We can't prove whether this is genetic failure, incubation related deformity, or anything else. It would be ridiculous to think that every time an eyeless snake is born it is from the exact same variable. What if it's genetic weakness being encouraged by unstable incubation temps? Maybe this poor gene rides silently in snakes that don't experience incubation spikes. The point is, we have no idea how this comes to be.

I'm firmly of the opinion that no eyeless snake should be bred unless the eye was removed by a bad feeding incident or something AFTER its birth. There is simply no way to justify this in my mind except ignorance to genetics (in which case you shouldn't be breeding animals) or sheer greed (in which case you shouldn't be breeding animals).

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Since they're the same morph (Piebald), I think it is possible that they are actually all distantly related and all carry the gene for eyelessness. I think if this were my clutch, I would plan on repeating this pairing next year to see what happens. This may sound counter-intuitive, but if you don't do this you will never know for sure and you risk either A. retiring valuable breeders needlessly or B. disseminating a defect gene into the gene pool. If, out of several eggs, you get any eyeless babies a second time around, I would retire all three parents from breeding. If not, I would suspect this to be an incubation fluke.

Science.

[cecilbturtle]

has anyone ever tried to spay or neuter a snake? If that is feasible then these snake could be sterilized and kept or sold as pets.