Cutting eggs.. Why we do it.. Sad pics attached.

[MegF.]

And that is what you should do then. I do not selectively breed. When I breed, the animals are unrelated and in no way being inbred. I'd have to say in the wild though, many snakes most likely do inbreed as their territories are just not that big. Morphs..sure, we make them. I never have....I've bred locality animals for the most part although I've owned other morphs...again, breeding two unrelated animals to see if the morph is true.As far as morphs not making it to adulthood, yes, that also is true. However they do. There are many albinos out there that survived to be captured and bred. Amel corns are a prime example. I've also seen albino canebrakes that were wildcaught and adults as well as hypo cottonmouths and other such anomalies. If you think you are breeding weak animals and that cutting eggs weakens them further, then in my mind you are doing a worse diservice to the species....sort of like saying....the car has no engine but lets try to sell it anyway. I try to breed the best animals I can. I wait until females are well over 5 years old before breeding, my animals are not fed weekly and they are kept as naturally as possible. I never breed a female more than every 2 years and I would never breed a snake that is less than good. I also try to find out bloodlines on the snakes I purchase if possible (some are LTC's) and only get animals that have no inbred lines on either side. This can be difficult especially when getting into the high blue lines in chondros. I do my very best to provide the best possible situation for my animals in captivity. I will not compromise the babies by "helping". That's just how I feel. You do what you want, I will do what I want.....if you buy a baby from me, you can be assured that it was born on it's own, is strong and was never force fed......

 

[Kokopelli]

And that is what you should do then. I do not selectively breed. When I breed, the animals are unrelated and in no way being inbred. I'd have to say in the wild though, many snakes most likely do inbreed as their territories are just not that big. Morphs..sure, we make them. I never have....I've bred locality animals for the most part although I've owned other morphs...again, breeding two unrelated animals to see if the morph is true.As far as morphs not making it to adulthood, yes, that also is true. However they do. There are many albinos out there that survived to be captured and bred. Amel corns are a prime example. I've also seen albino canebrakes that were wildcaught and adults as well as hypo cottonmouths and other such anomalies. If you think you are breeding weak animals and that cutting eggs weakens them further, then in my mind you are doing a worse diservice to the species....sort of like saying....the car has no engine but lets try to sell it anyway. I try to breed the best animals I can. I wait until females are well over 5 years old before breeding, my animals are not fed weekly and they are kept as naturally as possible. I never breed a female more than every 2 years and I would never breed a snake that is less than good. I also try to find out bloodlines on the snakes I purchase if possible (some are LTC's) and only get animals that have no inbred lines on either side. This can be difficult especially when getting into the high blue lines in chondros. I do my very best to provide the best possible situation for my animals in captivity. I will not compromise the babies by "helping". That's just how I feel. You do what you want, I will do what I want.....if you buy a baby from me, you can be assured that it was born on it's own, is strong and was never force fed......

The moment you breed a couple of animals that are appealing to you visually, or that you simply have, you are foregoing natural selection- you also have limited ability to know how un-related are they. It's hard to back-track every animal over several generations.

In the wild, partners are chosen by parameters we do not understand. Captivity ensures that what we put in the viv is the copulation that will pen-out(unless something’s wrong).

Yes- you do more than most, but you’re definitely interfering. Also, some locality purists seek out wild-caught animals. This kind of perpetuates removing animals from the wild, which I generally oppose.

Morphs do exist in the wild- but they are a minority and are not the strongest specimen of the species.

As for the "live and let live" or "agree to disagree" approach you voiced out... in your first post you voiced some opinions in a very conclusive manner as if they were facts.

"helping a snake hatch when it shouldn't is going against nature. Just like forcefeeding a baby that won't eat, it's just not right." - that is not a tolerant way to express an opinion and then allow others to do the same, that's pretty much telling everyone who doesn't do things according to your rulebook that they are not moral because "it's against nature".

I respect all approaches. I am very much in favor of selective breeding- the more removed the snakes in captivity are, the better- less chance for them to contaminate the local wildlife if they are released, and since they are appealing to many, can deter people from picking up wild corns.

 

[ShenziSixaxis]

^ Excellent post.

They would choose to live there if the condidions were right and better than the surrounding temps etc.

All a snake wants to do is eat and survive. We give them both.

I disagree with that in some way. Why do snakes escape if we supply them with perfect habitats?

 

[Kokopelli]

^ Excellent post.



I disagree with that in some way. Why do snakes escape if we supply them with perfect habitats?

That's probably more because snakes as a general rule tend to not linger in the same place- there's a health measure to this: the further away they get from their feces, the less trace-able they are, and they do not come in contact with internal parasites that just left their bodies to begin their new life cycle.

Also, expanding the territory.

Snakes however do not reason or "understand" that they get all they need in their vivs. I -can- say that on many occasions I left a door open in a viv by accident and they either didn't u

 

[Iulia]

Never bred so don't know the rights and wrongs but poor little thing ...

 

[snakewispera snr]

I disagree with that in some way. Why do snakes escape if we supply them with perfect habitats?

You cannot stop them hunting... And as I already said... They are not the brightest stars in the sky... They don't know you will be there on the designated healthy day for them to eat....

 

[James673]

In my opinion, "Natural" is overrated.
Would you eat an Oleander and Foxglove salad with a Holly berry, smashed Castor bean garnish and Skutterudite vinegarette?
Its all natural and organic! No processed ingredients, chemicals or preservatives! Everything God intended, right from nature!

It is indeed a good question, generally- are we in fact weakening the animals we are producing by selective breeding? The answer, I imagine, is definitely. I think that cutting an egg is just throwing a match into an already existing inferno.
Morphs are not really a natural occurrence- they happen, but few make it to adulthood... let alone multiple morphs in one snake...
Beyond that, most snakes in captivity don't have to deal with quite as may parasites, they eat f/t, we decide on pairings based on personal preference and not natural selection...
In short, the animals are already not good representatives of their wild counterparts- they are hatched to be pets, and there’s nothing wrong with assisting another one into the world.

This expresses quite nicely my opinion. We have already interfered in "nature" quite a bit.
Keep in mind that parasites are natural. They serve an important ecological niche. Perhaps we are interfering and creating snakes with weakened immune systems by feeding F/T rodents?
I think the issue of a weakened domestic animal is well known with other species. We can learn a lot by looking at dogs, cats, cattle, chickens and other domestics.
As for inbreeding, you can calculate that and get a good idea of how inbred your animal is. I will go scour my books and see what I can come up with. I have seen a few suggestions here and there regarding this, but I know there are some nice complex equations that you can use.

 

[MegF.]

I can go back on most of my cbb chondros if they came from a breeder-to when the first ones were imported from Indonesia. If I can't go back, they are generally imports from sometime ago and as such, won't be related.....unless it's by luck. We interfere with everything we do, be it snakes, dogs, cats or just building our houses on someone's habitat. However, there are limits to how much I'll interfere. I'm sorry if you don't like the tenor of my answers. I'm answering the way I choose, and voicing my opinion. I do know a lot about the snakes, and have spent a lot of time doing research into eating habits, digestive systems and consulting with some very good reptile vets to get their opinions as well. My snakes are lean hunting machines. If you leave a cage door open, yes, they'll head out into the unknown to find out if there's something on the other end of the room. Even if you have them out and holding them, they like to stretch and investigate...they are curious. If we chose not to interfere, we'd not have them at all and HSUS and PETA will get their way. I chose to interfere but as little as possible. Yes, breeding is interfering...I still can't get two animals that plain don't like each other to breed. I had three females that I had to place different animals in their cages to even have them show interest. They don't just breed because a male and female were in together. If that were true, I'd be crawling in chondros!

 

[Tom Tuttle]

Some die that others may live. I don't cut. Lost my egg tooth a long time ago.

 

[SnakeAround]

The moment you breed a couple of animals that are appealing to you visually, or that you simply have, you are foregoing natural selection-

We are produced by nature, the snakes we like get to spread their genes. To me that is evolution too.

Morphs do exist in the wild- but they are a minority and are not the strongest specimen of the species.

Do you mean all morphs are weaker than their normal counterparts standard? Why would a corn be weaker in general just because it misses red pigment or has a different pattern?

---------------------------------------

 

[Carinata]

To play devils advocate. When we start stacking genes. 2,3,4,5,and 6 gene animals, we see them on the outside, but do we know what's going on inside the animal?

 

[James673]

Do you mean all morphs are weaker than their normal counterparts standard? Why would a corn be weaker in general just because it misses red pigment or has a different pattern?

In the wild it would be "weaker". Certain morphs and colorations would be less camouflaged and more susceptible to predation. Other than that, missing a pigment would probably have little impact.

To play devils advocate. When we start stacking genes. 2,3,4,5,and 6 gene animals, we see them on the outside, but do we know what's going on inside the animal?

Yes and No, kinda sorta. If you know enough lineage, you can calculate how inbred the snake is. Namely the probability that the snake will have two copies of the same gene resulting from a single parent. All the genes that we are not choosing should still sort randomly as long as they are on a separate chromosome. As a detrimental gene occurs physically closer on the chromosome to the gene we are selecting for, the better the probability it will carry through successive generations. So yes, we can know what's going on inside, kinda. Unfortunately, we don't know where every gene is, where its located and what we may be inadvertently selecting for.
However, I think this is where discerning breeders come in. By selecting a particular gene, if there is a detrimental gene nearby, we are selecting for it as well. The detrimental gene should become apparent and should be easily bred out while still selecting for a particular morph. I have heard that stargazer was originally occurring in one particular line. I wonder if this is what inadvertently happened?

 

[Kokopelli]

@SnakeAround- the answer is natural selection. The "classic" Cornsnake has evolved to fit in to its' surroundings. A change in pattern and pigment definitely makes for less than ideal existence and raises the chance for being hunted- hence why there are very few of them in the wild when compared to the “classic” corns.

Beyond that, for a morph to be visual, the animal has to be homozygous for the trait- that means it is probably the product of a relatively closely-related animals… this is less than ideal.
Albinism is a weakening morph- the eyes are sensitive and the snake severely stands out.

In the case of Anery… who’se to say? We do not know the full implications, if any, of any given defect… we encourage it because it has a pleasing visual affect… but aren’t there morphs that have been attributed certain behaviors? What about Stargazing that came along with Sunkissed?

Granted, I was referring to snakes with several mutated genes rather than just one… but still, had a morph been the strongest and most thriving- it would have been the “classic” looks thanks to natural selection. As it stands though, they are a minority.

 

[Kokopelli]

@SnakeAround-As for the evolution comment... I agree that is is a form of evolution, but it is not neccessarily in the best interest of the species if the intention is to return it to the wild. We are not as "cruel" as nature, we can end up breeding defected animals without knowing it because most of our snakes lead a very sheltered existence- they undergo no hardships, they are not tested, and are not rooted out due to weaknesses.

 

[Carinata]

We know certain morphs have issues. With Balls, the Spider wobbles but there's a ton of other muations and combos that are fatal or have defects like
* Champagne Spider
* Powerball (Super Spotnose)
* Pearl (Super Hidden Gene Woma)
* Certain Sable combos

Also in African Fat-Tails, so far the Amel muation when crossed with any other gene besides Caramel and White Socks has proven fatal. The Whiteout is a co-dominant and the super form is fatal.

The Jaguar Carpet's super form is a leucy, of which only one has survived (Henry Piourn has it).

 

[SnakeAround]

So, mutated animals themselves are not weak per se but the inbred specimens we breed from them have a higher probability of having defects. I agree that is not in the best interest of those animals. However, as long as they survive happily in our vivs I would not be too concerned about that. We all know that we are not breeding for release into the wild so protecting the wild population has nothing to do with it.

 

[Carinata]

The original Spider ball that was imported from Africa had a wobble.

 

[SnakeAround]

The original Spider ball that was imported from Africa had a wobble.

We don't know if the wobble was related to the animal being a spider, or a coincidence. Maybe wobbly normals exist but are not selected to be exported but since this one looked different the wobble was accepted as a defect.

 

[Kokopelli]

So, mutated animals themselves are not weak per se but the inbred specimens we breed from them have a higher probability of having defects. I agree that is not in the best interest of those animals. However, as long as they survive happily in our vivs I would not be too concerned about that. We all know that we are not breeding for release into the wild so protecting the wild population has nothing to do with it.

More or less. We need to draw the line at some point... for instance, scale-less cornsnakes... good/bad and so forth.
Look at dogs today... yeah, they survive, but they are also deformed and suffer from all sorts of defects... we need to be careful with what we do with snakes, and should avoid constant in-breeding.

As for Spiders... they are relatively well established in the field, and yet the phenomena was not rooted out entirely... allot of people believe that the gene for the wobbling exists on the same chromosome as the spider gene, and hence travels. Also, it is accepted that ALL spiders have some degree of wobble, it is simply a deal less noticeable... depends who you ask I guess?

As for defects, I am aware of quite a few...

Corns- stargazing,

Boas- infertility issues with Super Jungles- high death-rate prior to puberty in many cases. Super Motley Colombian Boas- fatal, die within 2 years. CA super motley have yet to reproduce, apparently fertile.

BP's- Caramel- common spinal kinks, issues with wobbling and the spider gene.

The Jag carpets were already mentioned...

 

[Carinata]

I have seen thousands of normal Ball Pythons through my job, and I’ve only seen 2 or 3 with an actual wobble and usually they are kinked or something like that. I’ve also seen a great deal (I wouldn’t say thousands, but close to it), of Spiders. Some have a very present wobble, some are less pronounced. I’ve seen Bumblebees that are whacked out of their mind, but eat fine. It’s not a coincidence, it’s that fact that the gene is faulty. The Super Cinnamon /Black Pastel Ball, occasionally will have a face deformity. Female Desert Balls, so far NO ONE has show pictures of them on eggs. When you start stacking mutations, you’re going to have more and more faulty genes. I know at work we hatched a 7 gene Ball, and so did Kevin at NERD. That’s awesome and both animals are really cool, but it will interesting to watch the, grow to see if we get any issues.