Let's discuss the "Wobble Head" Neurological disorder ..

[John1982]

Thank you again to all that have participated so far. And now after some others have given their input, I will put a few more cents worth in on my "OPINION"

I'll start with "Inbreeding" as some prefer to call it .... I myself do not believe there is such a thing when it comes to Ball Pythons or even snakes in general for that matter. Line breeding YES .. Inbreeding NO and I'll explain why. .... Snakes are among one of the most simple animals there are, there just is not enough variable between any two or even two hundred ball pythons if you want to stretch it that far. Even compairing morph to morph, no matter which way you cut the cake they all end up the same average size, the same shape, same habitat, the same instincts. The only thing that really varies from one ball to the next is the paint job.

Try convincing Drymarchon enthusiasts that there's no such thing as inbreeding. Scale abnormalities start cropping up the first generation of pairing siblings or parent to young.

Let me ask this, can you inbreed grasshoppers? How about Alligators?? .... Fish??? ......

Yes, yes, yes. Hell, even roach colonies can only take so much inbreeding before production dwindles and you need to bring in new blood for a boost. The effects vary from species to species but everything I know of has a limit to the amount of inbreeding it can take before adversely affected. In some cases you can breed through it and get back to strong, healthy animals but don't expect a walk in the park, or even necessarily success, if going this route.

In the wild sons breed with mothers, aunts breed with nephews, brothers breed with sister and so on and so on. It happens in the wild more often than it does in captivity.

You forgot the most important part. Only animals strong enough to survive to adulthood even get a chance to pass on their genes. When weak young are produced in the wild they are naturally culled.

So say in captivity you have a 2012 clutch with one hatchling female (we'll use clown for example purposes) and she is brighter, prettier, and cleaner than any clown you've ever seen so you hold her back. The next year you have a clutch (same male and female as first clutch) and you get a 2013 hatchling male that turns out like the 2012 female so you hold him back as well, then in 2015 you breed those two together and every clown out of their clutch looks as stunning and awesome and different as the '12 and '13 did. So you hold them back because no one else has produced anything like them ... So you breed them out another two seasons or so and prove this new line out. So now you name it Clown (Snicker-Doodle Line), and it is the cleanest and best looking Clown "LINE" produced to date. But when trying to cross breed out one of your Clown (Snicker-Doodle Line) to a plain ol' clown ... They are non-compatible with any other clown other than their own awesome snicker-doodle self....... Now what?? Do you just give up on this wicked cool looking clown line that you discovered because it can only be bred to one of it's own to get the visual awesomeness?? HELL NO YOU DON'T ... You are going to breed all the siblings to each other and get as many of them as you can and you are going to sell them for $10,000 a piece for two or three years until enough of your new line is out that other ppl are selling them now and the price finally falls to average high end morph prices. .... Now keep in mind that there is no genetic defects in this snicker-doodle line of yours and it is fully proven out. Behold ... "Line Breeding"

Outcrossing is a beautiful thing and I think most responsible breeders put it into practice as early as possible in new projects.