Wobble free?

[Mochelem]

What does wobble free mean? I see it in ads for snakes on kingsnake...

[West Coast Jungle]

It is a spider that shows no signs of wobbling, a trait found in many spiders

[Brimstone111888]

Refering to spiders and spider combos mainly. The Spider has long been known to have a kinda of "disorder" so to speak, there is a long debate on whether it truly affects the well being of the snake, but no one has been keeping spiders long enough to tell yet.

I own a spider who only wobbles when she is feeding and she gets excited, but other than that she is normal as can be.

[Mochelem]

and what are the signs of wobbling? What exactly is wobble?

[jknudson]

They will 'wobble' back and forth, up and down, in circles...some will just sit there and have a slightly noticeable head shake. They'll hold their body in unusual postures that otherwise doesn't seem normal.

They will all differ in severity, some have it as hatchlings and grow out of it, while some don't show symptoms and could develop it. And some say that their spiders don't display any quirks...but they can and do throw "wobbly" offspring.

My spider only spins and wobbles when he gets startled or excited, like meal time, he tilts his head to the side and strikes the prey at odd angles.

[Mochelem]

I have normals that will "wobble" back and forth at mealtime... Whats the big deal?

[Brimstone111888]

I have normals that will "wobble" back and forth at mealtime... Whats the big deal?

Thats a question that has been asked many times. Some like you and I don't see the issue with it, because as of now it doesn't affect the snakes life.

Then there are some people who will never own a spider or a spidercombo because they view it as a genetic defect.

Also the original spider male, that started it all, had a wobble. So many people say that "wobble free" is impossible, just varying degrees of it.

[jknudson]

The real “spin” on spiders.
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
When I purchased my first spider many years ago, I had heard and was told about “spinning” in spider ball pythons. The way it was described, I understood “spinning” to be a condition where the animal continually loops their head and neck in a “corkscrew” motion and barely has the ability to sit still. I looked over my spider and there was no “cork screwing” so in my mind, he wasn’t a “spinner”.

Over the years that followed as I raised my spider, I heard a lot of big breeders making statements like “all spiders spin” or “all spiders are tweaked” and I really got pissed off. How could they be saying stuff like that? All they were doing was hurting any chance I ever had at selling spiders. Surely I would produce spiders that didn’t spin and if they were telling people that every single one was “tweaked”, I’d be cooked!

Then, I started producing my own spiders. Within my first couple of clutches I noticed a couple that “weren’t right”, but no big deal, I just wouldn’t sell those. Then I started looking harder. I noticed different degrees of odd behavior in all of the spiders that I produced. Some shook their head from side to side, some spun like tops, and others did the corkscrew thing as they were cruising their cage at night, still others were less noticeable but it was there. The less noticeable ones didn’t wobble or corkscrew, but they held their head at an angle when you looked at them. Kind of like the way a dog looks when it hears something it doesn’t understand. So then I started looking at spiders. Spiders in my friends collections, spiders at shows, spiders in pictures posted on the internet. All of them do it do some degree, all of them.

I’ve read the internet rumors that it has something to do with the amount of white, or the head pattern, or the connecting or non-connecting neck stripe on the animals neck … bologna! It doesn’t matter, they all do it. I’ve also heard that spider siblings do it. After producing tons of spider clutches, I don’t find that to be an accurate statement. I do believe that breeders have seen “spinning” in spider siblings, but I don’t think that it is any more common in the normal looking siblings of spiders than it is in any other normal looking ball python. Over the years (and before I ever heard of spinning in spiders) I have produced a heterozygous albino and a normal looking pastel sibling that spin the exact same way that spiders do. I feel that it is a condition that can effect all ball pythons but for whatever reason is common in spiders. I’ve also heard that the reason spiders spin is because they were so inbred early on in the project … ridiculous. The recessive mutations out there have been inbred/line bred by an order of magnitude more than spiders. The notion that a co-dominant/dominant mutation can be inbred more than a recessive is an ill informed one.

I finally understood what the big breeders were saying. It’s not always as in your face as people expect it to be, but it’s there in each and every spider. You just have to know what to look for. Now I know a lot of people are going to read this and say “no, not my spider”. I’m telling you, your spider does it too. You just have to know what to look for. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know one thing for sure … spin or not, I LOVE SPIDERS! I love their natural variation, I love the combos that they make, I love everything about them. I will always breed and produce spiders. I will do my best to keep my customers informed about them as much as I am and leave the decision to them. If I have to end up keeping every spider and spider I produce … well, that’s fine with me!

[jknudson]

One of the most severe spiders I've seen posted was given to Corey Woods on a breeding loan, here are some links to the picture of that animal.

http://www.coreywoods.com/Misc/Spide...eHead_3664.jpg

http://www.coreywoods.com/Misc/Spide...eHead_3666.jpg

http://www.coreywoods.com/Misc/Spider_3749.jpg

http://www.coreywoods.com/Misc/Spider_3773.jpg

http://www.coreywoods.com/Misc/Spider_3802.jpg

Would I breed THAT spider, heck no...

Hope that gives you a visual to what can be meant as to "spinning" and "wobbling"

[sho220]

I see alot of posts about the wobbling or spinning characteristics of spiders. I have a 2 year old male that I've never noticed wobbling or spinning. I hatched out 5 baby spiders this year and only 1 has shown any signs of wobbling. And that is only when I introduce food. He seems to get excited and shakes his head a little bit. The others I have not noticed anything going on with them.

There seems to be a couple other characteristics I've noticed about spiders, and they don't seem to get mentioned nearly as much as wobbling or spinning. Spiders (at least my male and the babies) seem to be more curious than my other balls. They also seem to be more outgoing and active. I often go into the snake room and start sliding out racks to see if anyone wants to come out and visit me, and without fail, my spider is always there ready to greet me. Spiders just rock...