Head Wobble

[jtipton]

Does spider "head wobble" get worse with age? I have a female bumblebee that when she was a baby was perfectly fine. She showed no signs of wobble unless it was feeding time then she might show very slight signs and that was still rare. Now she is just over 2 years old and about 1100 grams and she has began showing some very obvious wobbling. Now when I open her tub her hear head begins to shake, not badly but it is definitely noticeable. It is worse at feeding time. She is missing more with her strikes (she eats live) and I have noticed that this is beginning to cause her to get a less than desirable grip on the rat, which lead to a bite yesterday (no harm done but might not be so lucky next time). When I handle her is when she really shows the most signs though. I was aware of head wobbling before I got a spider gene animal but was under the impression that if a baby didn't show signs that it would be good through out it's adult life. Was I wrong ?

[Cissin]

I have a bumblebee also and I do notice it slightly right now. Shes about 100 grams right now. However I am unsure if it gets worse with age. But I do feed F/T and sometimes it does take her 2-3 strikes to get her food. Lately I've been just putting the food right next to her face and she just kind of takes it from me and eats it inside her hide without strangling the food item. I don't think it gets worse with age but maybe just more noticeable because of their size and it's just easier to see as it's a bigger snake.

[jayn16]

My male bumblebee is around 700 grams with a consistent wobble, I have him on frozen thaw because of his striking on live. He misses several times and when he tags he looks to lazy to constrict making his meal take longer to die. I also open his tub to his head upside down pressed against the roof of the bin often. Hence his name Spaz.

[Gerardo]

From what Ive read the wobble is sort of random. It may or may not get worst. It also might start off bad and get better or it might stay the same. I havnt heard of anybody being able to accurately predict what will happen with any individual snake that wobbles. I only have 1 snake that wobbles and so far his wobble hasnt changed. He has a slight wobble when i handle him and a pretty noticeable wobble when he smells food. But it doesnt seem to affect him as he is one of my best eaters.

[jtipton]

It wouldn't bother me as much if she would eat F/t, but with her only taking live my biggest concern is with her taking some nasty bites. With her developing the wobble later in her life and not having it as a baby, has made me seriously reconsider breeding her or ever having any spider gene in my breeding projects. It is a shame because they produce some beautiful morphs.

[ChuckSM]

it varies. Depends on the snake. Age and weight wont matter , just their mood

[Mr Oni]

Don't hate on the wobble. You could have one that corkscrews like crazy and could have babies with minimal or almost non existent wobble. Depends on the animal.

[jtipton]

Don't hate on the wobble. You could have one that corkscrews like crazy and could have babies with minimal or almost non existent wobble. Depends on the animal.

That is good to know. I would really hate to remove her from future breeding plans. Can anyone tell me if breeding animals with more genes decreases the possibility of wobble being present (ex: 3 and 4 gene animals) or do all animals that carry the spider gene have the same possibility of having it?

[Inarikins]

Number of genes does not effect the wobble. If the animal has the spider gene at all, it will wobble.