can you cross breed

[enigma200316]

Now I have a question?
If you take the offspring and breed them, thats inbreeding and won't that cause problems or doesn't that rule apply to snakes??

[Serpentine99]

Sometimes but usually not. I think the whole unrelated bloodlines is an ethical thing rather then a way to avoid health issues though.

[Josh]

related bloodlines can cause "slugs" when breeding
reduce litters
and deformed baby risk get higher.ysical

so it also is an ethical and physical

[enigma200316]

I see, just thought I'd put that question out there.......

[ssssnakeluvr]

inbreeding isn't a big problem until you breed several generations in a row...you gotta do some inbreeding to get the different morphs, but usually once you get the albinos or whatever morph, then you cross them with another new gene line and expand the gene pool. On the down side, if there are any bad mutation genes, they will pop out also. a lot of people are against the hybrids....can produce some "cool" looking snakes, but not worth much...not a big fan of it myself.

[GarterGuy]

Actually a lot of "inbreeding" is done to create a lot of the "designer" morphs of garters. It creates a "pure" line of a certain trait. If you read Felzer's website, you'll hear him saying how he'll have something and then "back breed" it to get a desired morph. Back breeding is breeding offspring back to a parent. So it is done, but while trying to get "pure" genetics of a certain morph, you can also purify some sort of problem or disorder as well. As an example, back when albino burmese python's were first being produced, there were a lot of animals that also were born with out eyes. By purify the gene for albinism, they also brought out another recessive trait. It's since been "bred out" of them, but this is the risk when trying to do such a thing. Also if you do it too much you can also can create weaker, less viable offspring....such is the case that I've heard is happening to the SanFran garters(T.s.tertataenia) over seas. Alan Francis describes this problem on his website, how the population of SanFrans all came from a very small group and over time, inbreeding was almost impossible to avoid. This was creating less viable snakes over time and he has proposed(and I think done) crossing the CaliRedsides(T.s.infernalis) with the SanFrans to "inject" new blood into them. Since they're just a subspecies of each other and at one time would have naturally crossed, this isn't really a bad situation and would be very beneficial to keeping them genetically viable. Well, guess I've rambled on enough about this...LOL. Hope this helps.

Roy

[krystalirelan@southslope.]

I have 2 chequered garters. 1 albino and one regular. Is it wrong to breed them? I am not trying to breed them, I don't even know if I have a male/female pair, but that is how we ended up with corn snakes.

[Stefan-A]

Nothing wrong with it, if they're both checkered garters.

[GarterGuy]

Originally Posted by krystalirelan@southslope.

I have 2 chequered garters. 1 albino and one regular. Is it wrong to breed them? I am not trying to breed them, I don't even know if I have a male/female pair, but that is how we ended up with corn snakes.

Yeh, no worries here, like Stephan said, they're still T.marcianus, they're just different colour morphs.

Roy

[stonyloam]

I am really new at this, but my "big eastern" had 42 babies and it seems none of them are exactly alike in coloration. They very from light, with distinct stripes and markings to almost no stripes and dark unmarked coloration with tan to gray underbellies. I had expected them to look like their mother, but not so. This is a WC snake, so at least in my area there is a wild variation in color and pattern, and you may be able to pick and choose within a species to get what you like. I personally am starting to like the darker stripeless variation.