Genetic Diversity in a Collection

[PhoenixGate]

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.

I'm not sure outbreeding depression would apply to snakes that were line bred unless they were line bred for an excessive length of time, say 50 generations, during which they may accumulate enough genetic mutations to make them significantly different from the rest of the population. It helps that we're still getting snakes imported from the wild. I would be very interested to see a genetic study of captive snake populations.

[PhoenixGate]

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.

Right now, from what I have seen, many breeders generally don't even bother to keep track of their animals. Considering this, we really have NO idea how much inbreeding and linebreeding is actually occurring. Also from what I've seen, very little attention is even paid toward health. As long as the animal is the desired morph, and the breeder can get it to eat a few meals, it is considered "healthy" and encouraged to be entered into the breeding population. I could be wrong, but thus far I have not seen any long-term health records for any animals. We can't really say that our animals really are healthy, unless we keep long-term, life long health records over several generations.

As for what is occurring in dogs - One major problem with dogs: Many breeders are NOT actually selecting for healthy, they are selecting for a number of other traits, and maybe half-heartedly selecting health. If a breeder is truly selecting for health, they would not be breeding any animals with a significant health problem. In dogs this would mean not breeding any dogs with hip, knee, elbow, or other joint issues, not breeding any dogs with eye defects, not breeding any dogs with breathing problems or who can't birth normally, not breeding any dogs with skin issues, not breeding any dogs who can't run and play normally, etc. This simply isn't being done. Show breeders are, in general, selecting for those dogs that win in the shows. They are then breeding together those show winners to get more show winners. Over the generations inbreeding occurs, but with so much emphasis on a particular show conformation (which is often actually detrimental to the dog), those dogs are suffering. IF instead of selecting for a show conformation, these breeders were selecting for health, we would start seeing healthier animals who were not plagued with these kinds of health issues. This isn't a problem with inbreeding, this is a problem with the selections that are occurring. It wouldn't matter if those breeders were inbreeding or outcrossing their animals, the only difference is these problems come out faster with inbreeding. They are still going to occur with outcrossing, which is why we now have so many horribly unhealthy mutts, because the breeds they came from were unhealthy to begin with, even though these dogs are now outcrossed. I personally have yet to meet one single mutt who is healthy. Every mutt I have every known, including those belonging to friends and family members, have been unhealthy in one way or another, ranging from skin issues, allergies, temperamental issues, cancers, hip displaysia, knee and elbow issues, eye issues, to generally poor health. It isn't just an inbreeding problem, it really just comes down to POOR SELECTION from the beginning. If you breed unhealthy animals together, you are going to get unhealthy animals, no matter whether or not those animals are related.

This is EXACTLY why I started this thread. There is a lot of emphasis on breeding snakes for a particular paintjob (to borrow Brian at BHB's term) and not a lot of emphasis on breeding for anything else, including health and longevity. I know there was some effort to breed out kinking in caramels, and then ultramels came on the seen and showed no trend to produce kinked animals, which lead ultramels to replace caramels in popularity (correct me if I'm wrong on the details here since it's been some time since I researched this, and I don't have time to do it now). I fully intend to keep records on all the ball pythons I breed in the future, and handing copies of those records to anyone that buys a snake from me.

[Brandon Osborne]

I have to laugh at this topic. It really doesn't matter in my opinion. People are going to agree to disagree on this topic from now until we are all gone. I personally don't see a problem with it until you see a problem with it......and I also believe it's highly unlikely.

Reptiles are a non-migratory group of animals. I can't really speak for lizards but snakes den and lay eggs in the exact same locations every year if available. I have caught the same red milksnake within a 20' radius four season in a row and twice in the same rock cut. In less than 50' from that milksnake I caught the same copperhead two seasons in a row within a 20-30' radius. Snakes are ambush feeders in general and stay put where there is ample food and shelter.

Inbreeding is responsible for all of the genetic mutations we see in the hobby today. It is how we recognize locale populations such as the various phenotypes of California kings.....Yuma, Coastal, Desert, Long Beach, etc.

If you are still against inbreeding, just talk to some of the guys that keep Graybanded kings for a lesson on locality breeding.....they will teach you all you need to know.lol.

[Pythonfriend]

.......

Inbreeding is responsible for all of the genetic mutations we see in the hobby today. It is how we recognize locale populations such as the various phenotypes of California kings.....Yuma, Coastal, Desert, Long Beach, etc.

If you are still against inbreeding, just talk to some of the guys that keep Graybanded kings for a lesson on locality breeding.....they will teach you all you need to know.lol.

thats not true, inbreeding only causes recessives to surface. even in the case of recessives, inbreeding is not what causes the mutation, it merely causes it to surface. in the case of incomplete dominants and dominants, which make up the majority of BP morphs, your statement is clearly and completely wrong. it may be different for corn snakes or king snakes where the majority of morphs are recessives or polygenetic line-bred traits.

i agree that this will always be controversial. so i guess there is only one way to stay away from inbred BPs: you need detailed information about the ancestry, basically a pedigree, so that you can determine how inbred a BP you are considering to buy really is.

[MrLang]

thats not true, inbreeding only causes recessives to surface. even in the case of recessives, inbreeding is not what causes the mutation, it merely causes it to surface. in the case of incomplete dominants and dominants, which make up the majority of BP morphs, your statement is clearly and completely wrong. it may be different for corn snakes or king snakes where the majority of morphs are recessives or polygenetic line-bred traits.

i agree that this will always be controversial. so i guess there is only one way to stay away from inbred BPs: you need detailed information about the ancestry, basically a pedigree, so that you can determine how inbred a BP you are considering to buy really is.

Step 1: find a funky looking animal
Step 2: breed it to reveal a heritable quality
Step 3: breed the parent and babies together dozens of times


So how is this not a product of inbreeding? There are only a handful of morphs that actually have different 'lines' and even those are not guaranteed to be unrelated.

[OctagonGecko729]

I'm not quite understanding how morphs are being attributed to inbreeding? The animals are inbred for the first 2-3 generations and then are wildly outcrossed to other mutations. I think youd have a very hard case to make to prove that combos which contain spiders or hypos are inbred now.

[Pythonfriend]

Step 1: find a funky looking animal
Step 2: breed it to reveal a heritable quality
Step 3: breed the parent and babies together dozens of times


So how is this not a product of inbreeding? There are only a handful of morphs that actually have different 'lines' and even those are not guaranteed to be unrelated.

step 1: find a funky looking animal
step 2: figure out its genetics
step 3: profit

you only need to breed back to prove it out, you only need to hit the 25% chance to get a second visual recessive, or the super form. inbreeding is not what brings a new morph into existence, its just a tool to figure out what you are dealing with, and that needs to be done only once. and when i look at how Brian Barczyk works projects like the scaleless or the sunglow, i see he is doing the exact opposite of your step 3. its about excessive outbreeding to start the new morph with a high level of genetic variety.

[T&C Exotics]

I'm not quite understanding how morphs are being attributed to inbreeding? The animals are inbred for the first 2-3 generations and then are wildly outcrossed to other mutations. I think youd have a very hard case to make to prove that combos which contain spiders or hypos are inbred now.

Well let us look at a honeybee... hypo x spider take offspring spider and breed that back to the hypo or take spider het to a het sibling. There is your inbreeding. Then take that honeybee and breed it to a pastel sell offspring. One guy buys a trio to raise and breed. Constant inbreeding no matter what. Inbreeding is a fact of breeding snakes.

Sent from my SGH-T599N using Tapatalk

[MrLang]

The animals are inbred for the first 2-3 generations and then are wildly outcrossed to other mutations.

The animals are inbred for the first 2-3 generations

The animals are inbred

inbred

Just sayin'

[Pythonfriend]

Well let us look at a honeybee... hypo x spider take offspring spider and breed that back to the hypo or take spider het to a het sibling. There is your inbreeding. Then take that honeybee and breed it to a pastel sell offspring. One guy buys a trio to raise and breed. Constant inbreeding no matter what. Inbreeding is a fact of breeding snakes.

i would buy a butterscotch hypo from one breeder, and an orange ghost from a different breeder, and then i buy a spider het hypo and a pewter het hypo from a third breeder.

no inbreeding at all. maybe they were related at one point a few generations ago. but then, with butterscotch x orange ghost, maybe their ancestry is seperate going back all the way to africa. it happens all the time that people make their "extra gene 100% het albino" using an albino they got from one breeder, and their "visual albino with extra gene" using an albino they got from a different breeder.

and none of this applies to dominant and incomplete dominant morphs, which make up the majority of BP breeding projects. where is the inbreeding when i buy a black pastel here, a pinstripe there, and a bamboo from Noah from Ghana, and a calico from someone on craigslist?