Albino -- a defect?

[RedSidedSPR]

I get it now, thanks! That's what I meant by "prove me wrong". Thats what I needed from this thread...

I don't even know what F5 or F6 is, but that helps!

[ConcinusMan]

Two unrelated snakes are bred together. For example, wild type and an albino. The first generation is F1. Take one of the hets and breed it back to the albino or to each other (to produce albinos) and that's F2. Fine and dandy. No inbreeding problems so far. But if you continue the inbreeding past F5 or so, you're going going to start seeing problems. Problems directly caused by inbreeding.

Shannon has explained how this has happened to albino checkereds. it's because people buy siblings and breed them to each other. Then then next person comes along and does the same thing, and so on...

Every few generations of inbreeding they need to be outcrossed to totally unrelated snakes. Preferably a strong healthy line of wild snakes. This helps to prevent the inbreeding problems. Problem is, nobody wants to do that since they want albinos the first time they breed. They don't want to produce a litter of hets and wait until they're old enough to breed.

[RedSidedSPR]

OK, thanks! Makes sense now.

So I guess what I thought i knew about albinos was really inbred albinos. That's why I posted, great.

Yay, someone proved me wrong. (never though I'd say that)

[annulataarethebest]

personally I just think albinos are cool.... especially if they're more rare (not many people have them), for everything albino in my collection I also have a normal snake of the same species, guests always find albinos neat to look at if they're not involved in the hobby.

I know a lot of people who don't work with anything albino unless it was wild caught and truly unique. I have a albino california kingsnake that is going on 10 years old in a couple years, I don't think there's anything different about him if compared to a "normal" colored snake, except maybe that he has a never ending appetite.

[infernalis]

Shannon has explained how this has happened to albino checkereds. it's because people buy siblings and breed them to each other. Then then next person comes along and does the same thing, and so on....

Other morphs are heading the same direction...

[d_virginiana]

Other morphs are heading the same direction...

Which ones? I get the feeling flame lines could get that way pretty quickly, just based on how popular they are. It seems like it'd be pretty lucrative to just keep breeding the brightest flames in a group to each other if someone didn't care about keeping the genetics good..

[RedSidedSPR]

Flames are inbred... so yes I bet that one of them.

[infernalis]

Flames are inbred... so yes I bet that one of them.

Please substantiate this statement.


You seem so darn sure of this, I'd like nothing more than to hear your evidence.

[RedSidedSPR]

Oh... or not. I thought they were, I've heard a lot of stuff about it...

Sorry if I was wrong.

[infernalis]

This is why I have mentioned before, speaking in absolutes when you are not sure of yourself leads to embarrassing moments.

You can breed a flame to a normal and still get flames in the litter.