Wobble Gene

[Stewart_Reptiles]

All spiders and combos wobble to a degree, it's not something that can be bred out and now a days (vs 10 years ago) it's no longer a secret.

Most combos you will see out there halve a very mild wobble so much so people that are untrained do not see it, very rarely have I seen real train wrecks.

I can understand not wanting to work with spiders I feel the same way toward caramels as well as Super Cinny and Super Black Pastel (I do however work with Black Pastel combos just not the supers)

If it really troubles you, maybe you need to consider trading the animal or selling it, this time make sure do some research because Spiders are not the only one with the issue.

[PitOnTheProwl]

Its is also stress induced.
I know a couple people that swear their spider never has and will never show signs of a wobble....... LoL
A little stress and guess what? One shows it when feeding, while getting ready to strike there is a minor visible wobble but not what the owner noticed.
Most people think of a wobble as the wild corckscrewing you see on all the you tube videos. It can be as slight as an improper head tilt.

[Gerardo]

I had a spider that showed very little wobble when handled and a noticeable wobble whenever he smelled food. But he was a very good eater. Like people have already said if he otherwise acts like a normal BP then he is fine. Personal preference I guess.

[Paul's Pieds]

i had always believed that spider wobble lessened when combined with other genes - somehow watered it down

but

i had 2 spiders in the past where i did not observe wobble

i now have a mojave bee which exhibits a rather odd feeding behaviour.

When she smells rat she will strike out - but not necessarily at the rat. It is like she cannot combine the senses of heat detection and smell detection into a single target. I learned this the hard way when she smells rat but strikes at me. So i have to make sure the rat is hair dryed until it is hotter than i am. She never strikes without a food stimulation smell but when she smells food she will just go for the hottest target.

What I do now to feed her is heat the rat to well above natural temperature and put it in her tub. She will circle it for a while, then when it has cooled to a natural heat level for a food item she will have it. Much safer that way...lol I have no idea if this is some type of head wobble associated behaviour because i have never observed head wobble in her but I have never had any other snake striking in the wrong direction either ?

Opinions ?

[JMBall's]

It's worth it to note that the very first snake retrieved from the wild as an adult had a wobble, but that didn't meaningfully impact his ability to hunt and feed for himself or otherwise function as a normal snake until humans intervened. When I first heard about the wobble and found some videos on line, I thought I would be turned off by it, but turns out I just love the morph and its combos way too much.

That said, when I get into breeding, I am going to be VERY selective about which snakes I purchase, hold back, and pair up. To my knowledge everyone has just accepted it as 'a thing' and no one has attemted to see if careful line breeding could reduce or eliminate the effect. I want f it's possible to produce snakes with little to no wobble. Who knows, maybe I'll be the first to produce a low to wobbless line

Breeders have been trying to do this for many, many years. The general consensus is thats it's random and there's no way to eliminate it through selective breeding. The wobble is here to stay unfortunately.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

i had always believed that spider wobble lessened when combined with other genes - somehow watered it down

but

i had 2 spiders in the past where i did not observe wobble

i now have a mojave bee which exhibits a rather odd feeding behaviour.

When she smells rat she will strike out - but not necessarily at the rat. It is like she cannot combine the senses of heat detection and smell detection into a single target. I learned this the hard way when she smells rat but strikes at me. So i have to make sure the rat is hair dryed until it is hotter than i am. She never strikes without a food stimulation smell but when she smells food she will just go for the hottest target.

What I do now to feed her is heat the rat to well above natural temperature and put it in her tub. She will circle it for a while, then when it has cooled to a natural heat level for a food item she will have it. Much safer that way...lol I have no idea if this is some type of head wobble associated behaviour because i have never observed head wobble in her but I have never had any other snake striking in the wrong direction either ?

Opinions ?

Far from being unusual when feeding F/T to a spider or spider combo, this is also part of the wobble.

Not much you can do about it.

One thing I forgot earlier temperatures also affect the wobble, based on what I have seen Spider tend to do better at lower temperatures (88 max)

And of course as far as selective breeding sadly animal that show very little wobble can produce train wrecks and vice versa just like a young animal can go from severe to mild wobble and vice versa.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lizardlicks]

Breeders have been trying to do this for many, many years. The general consensus is thats it's random and there's no way to eliminate it through selective breeding. The wobble is here to stay unfortunately.

Interesting! My searches were unable to turn up any specific breeders or projects. Do you have any links I can review? I'd love to see what they did/how they did it.

[JMBall's]

Interesting! My searches were unable to turn up any specific breeders or projects. Do you have any links I can review? I'd love to see what they did/how they did it.

I'd have to get on my computer to do a better search but on worldofballpythons.com Mike wilbanks talks about how people thought the wobble might have come from too much inbreeding but he believes it's the most out crossed morph or one of them out there. He basically says it can't be bred out and anything with spider has it. some might be very, very subtle and only when feeding. All the way up to the really bad ones that seem to have constant vertigo and need to be assist fed. It's a crapshoot basically is what I came away with. He definitely seems to know what he's doing and knows his stuff. I decided not to work with the gene just in case I do get a bad one that needs to be assist fed it's whole life. Cause I wouldn't sell it and I'd feel bad about its loss of a realish life.

[Lizardlicks]

I'd have to get on my computer to do a better search but on worldofballpythons.com Mike wilbanks talks about how people thought the wobble might have come from too much inbreeding but he believes it's the most out crossed morph or one of them out there. He basically says it can't be bred out and anything with spider has it. some might be very, very subtle and only when feeding. All the way up to the really bad ones that seem to have constant vertigo and need to be assist fed. It's a crapshoot basically is what I came away with. He definitely seems to know what he's doing and knows his stuff. I decided not to work with the gene just in case I do get a bad one that needs to be assist fed it's whole life. Cause I wouldn't sell it and I'd feel bad about its loss of a realish life.

Oh yeah, I know it's part of the gene and def not due to inbreeding. If inbreeding were the case it would disappear in the three or four generations removed from the base morph easily, but even those GHI-pastave-spider-what-have-yous can display it when not having been crossed back to a spider since the first one at all. I was thinking something closer to a polygenic project- breeding individuals for each consecutive generation that have the least amount of visible wobble both as adults and hatchlings. To my knowledge that hasn't been attempted yet, but if I'm wrong I'd sure like to hear about it before starting in on my own haha.

[BrianDallek]

This is why you will never see a spider gene in my collection. I can't see wanting to produce something knowing I'm rolling the dice on neurological issues. I'm not a big fan of the spider combos either. The only ones I like are the Pastel Sugar Spiders with the high white pixelated sides.