Quote Originally Posted by sorraia View Post
That's how it works. Whether or not it is being done is irrelevant, that's how it CAN be done and with good purpose.
It is not irrelevant. Perhaps you missed the topic of discussion, but we are specifically talking about genetic diversity in a collection of snakes.

Now just because there are exceptions to the idea that inbreeding TYPICALLY causes problems in animal populations (in captivity and in the wild), does not mean we should ignore the entire concept of inbreeding depression. We are talking about ball python breeding, and sorraia i'm sure you would at least agree with me that the literature on inbreeding does NOT tell us that reptiles and amphibians can inbreed more then mammals can. Most wild and captive animals suffer a loss of fecundity when they are highly inbred.

The lack of selection in the ball python industry seems to be a problem in itself, but I think that could be an independent thread on its own.

I dont think there is a lot of line breeding in ball pythons, but due to the nature of the market I think it would be terrible if it did happen. Most breeders sell their pythons to other breeders, or hobbiests that plan on breeding. If there were line bred animals, their progeny would quickly suffer from outbreeding depression as soon as someone bred them to another line.