Genetics of Poor Temperaments

Pete was good with this stuff. His iguana, a 6+ footer, was a housepet.
It had free roam of the animal facility and his basement. It climbed over
everything, and refused to go on anything but newspaper. He paper
trained his iguana (I'm still not sure how). If he forgot to put paper out
for it, it would find it.

One day, he forgot to put paper out. And the iguana, having to go,
looked for some newspaper - and found it. It had been used to cover
the table. Well, the iguana jumped/climbed onto the table, and cleared
it off, and went to the bathroom on the newspaper. Unfortunatly for
Pete, the newspaper was right under his cricket bins. Thousands of
crickets were loose all over. He had to release some big tokays to
clear them out.

We had a couple big tokays that were fairly nasty. You couldn't really
touch them. We sold them to a petstore. He sold them to a guy that
was insisting on training them...we laughed. Well, a few months later,
the guy sells them back to the store, cause he could't feed them
enough. They were hand tame. No grabbing them - they would kill
you if you grabbed them! But you could gently pick them up and hold
them. Very calm and gentle - but I was enrvous, as it was like holding
an unexploded bomb. You just can't help but think that at any moment,
something could set them off.

"I always assumed that among animals that rely more on instinct than reason, their temperment would be more a product of their environment than a genetic thing. My thinking was that wild snakes were "nasty" cause they had to be to survive and pet snakes were generally docile cause of handling and a lack of stress. Probably an over simplified view on my part."
I agree mosty with Dan here. Yeah genes are pretty dang important, and even in humans, you sometimes get those one or two sociopaths who can kill and rape and do horrible things to animal and fellow humans. However, in my experiences with both animals and as a psycholgy student, I have noticed a trend between young socialization and "tameness," or sociability. It is obvious that snakes are not meant to be as socail as humans or other animals, but I often notice that animals who are "wild caught" at the zoo i work at (sanctuary for injured or former pet animals) are generally pretty nasty. We have a three legged bobcat female Aiko who is a spitfire, and growls at you whenever you go in to feed the three cats. She was a young wild bobcat that was brought into a vet after she got hit by a car or something and they had to take off her front leg. She also gets her food stolen by the two other males, mostly by a younger spry male named BJ, who was raised by humans as a pet (stupid! grrr...) who realized after he started spraying and calwing and biting when he felt like it that he was NOT a Good Family Pet (grrr...) so he will walk right up to me and purr and swat at the cleaning bucket and I can trust him within reason not to chomp me. he loves jumping on your back if you bend over, but otherwise I wouldn't feel threated if i was stuck in the cage with him. My theory is that the female has obviously suffered a lot in her youth and had no chance to get to trust people and be "tamed" the way BJ was. The other bobcat is an older male who was also a pet but is much more reserved than BJ, which seems to be a personality thing but also an age-related factor. I know from my edealings with Balls, Corns and Humans, that these personality types seem to show up commonly in all of them. The angry sociopathic kind tend to be a little less prevelant (thankfully) and it seems to me that when an animals has had a harsh and painful life, their personality can still be sweet and loving, or it can be mean and nasty. I think there are at least two factors involving the genes and the environment shaping the animal's development. From what i read about most serial killers is that they tend to have a hard knocks life from day one. Not that this should justify what they do, but when all you are taught is abuse and pain, it is hard to see how an individual may interpret that as acceptable behavior. Pelnty of formerly abused people trun out just fine, but for a small percentage it seems that a bad socialization can reinforce something genetic that will effect their furture development.
I've aslo found that the nastier an animls is, the less people want to socialize it. we have a rainbow boa named Cleo and a ball python named Lucy at the zoo, and while Lucy is the sweetest snake you've met, Cleo is grumpy and hisses when she is touched. I try to handle her as long as she hasn't eaten, but many people will only handle Lucy, who is already calm and tame. So it seems to be a self-fulfilling propecy if you label an animal hopeless and stop trying to work with it. there are certyain circumstances where is it completely rational to stop trying to "fix" the animal if it is stubborn, but i have aslo seen some miraculous turnabouts by so called "nasties."
However, I would rather breed a nice snake with a nice snake than two nasties, because you have a greater chance of nice of easily tamed offspring, and it is better to try and start with a promising genetic selection than try to attune the environment to make up for what may be just plain nasty default genes.

didn't realize that was such a long post. just my forty-two cents... heh

I think it's certainly possible. I don't have any snakes right now, but I've got several (20) leos. Most of them I got while they were young...some only a few weeks old. While working with them and "training" them can improve (or worsen...if you do it wrong) their attitude, they are still the same geckos now as they were when I first got them.

Babies and young juvies are known for being flighty and jumpy. Most of my geckos fell into the middle range of tolerance for handling....and they are all still there as adults. A few of my geckos were very (and I mean VERY) calm and sweet as babies...and they are becoming the best adults you could ask for with no more effort on my part. And then, there's the opposite side, I have some that were FREAKS as babies, and they aren't much better today....the run, roll like a croc when you pick them up, and are generally a pain in the butt to handle. They all get treated the same by me...some just hatched out better than others. I've been kicking around the thought of striving for that perfect, sweet personality...no idea if it'll work, but it will be worth it if it does. Given a choice between a sweet leo and a freak...almost everyone will go with the sweet (given they look similar).

What I find interesting is that I have the same number of super sweet leos as I do freak. 3 sweet, 14 normal, and 3 freaks. There's gotta be something going on to cause the extreams.


Fox fur breeders (in Russia, I think) started breeding foxes for temperament. They were quite surprised by what happened when they did. Not only were they succeeding in breeding foxes that were more tame, but the look of the foxes changed as well. The ears became enlarged and droopy, the tails curled up, and the coats started to become spotted. The breeders considered it a bust, as spotted fur is no good for them, but it's very interesting to see the results of breeding for temperament.

wow! interesting about the fox breeders. a spotted fox seems like a nifty pet rather than a coat!
yeah, i think applying human psychology to other animals only works to a certain extent. It does seem that certain animals have their own personalities, it may be that some animals are more prone to keeping habits that nature gave them.
I've noticed that in statistics, there are generally a certain percentage of extermes, so i guess the freaky and sweet leos are just part of those normal distributions.
good luck breeding some sweeties, it's always nice to havea sweet tempered lizard. best of luck in your taming of the geckos

Originally Posted by A_Kendergirl

Fox fur breeders (in Russia, I think) started breeding foxes for temperament. They were quite surprised by what happened when they did. Not only were they succeeding in breeding foxes that were more tame, but the look of the foxes changed as well. The ears became enlarged and droopy, the tails curled up, and the coats started to become spotted. The breeders considered it a bust, as spotted fur is no good for them, but it's very interesting to see the results of breeding for temperament.

There are domesticated foxes in the US! apparently, it doesn't take long for them to become like dogs, some got curly wire hair, floppy ears, and they are much better than plain fur foxes at reading humans for signals. They can follow your gaze to find a hidden treat, and are much more responsive to human behavior than their wild counterparts. I guess some of the ones in Russia were part of an experiment this researcher was doing on domestication. He did the same with rats, only he bred evil man hating rats too! It sounds like it only takes a few generations to get the behaviors you want as long as you are only breeding for temperment and health, not appearance. a link to some pet fox pics, they are just cute!

http://www.sybilsden.com/fox/foxmain.htm

they are SO cute! i love them, wish California weren't so lame about pets... can't own many fun things... at least my ball python babies are legal!

I know this is an old thread, but since no one brought this up I thought I might throw it out there for those of you who might see it. A great example of this is the whole Green Anaconda project that Jud Mcclanahan and Kelly Haller did(sorry about name spellings in case they happen across this). They spent a lot of time hand picking their breeders for the best temperments that they could find to see if it would effect the nature of the babies. They now have a line of completely tame Greens, and the babies dont even bite. They had proved that with the right adults you could definately effect the outcome of the babies temperments. There was a great article on this in reptiles magazines years back that is certainly worth checking out, or talk to them yourselves and they can explain it to you. Take care, Dan M.

I will see if i can look that up. it is certainly a neat topic. I recently read a similar article on the russian domesticated foxes. Apparently, a lot of them retain wild instincts are not not perfectly domestic, but they are much less afraid of people and are definately not the same as wild foxes.

In a New York Times article, they referred to an experiment where two strains of rats were selectively bred for temperment extremes. In about three generations, they had two groups of rats, one group would do anything it could to slam themselves against the cage and try and bite humans walking by, the other group would cuddle with you all day.

anyways, a very interesting idea, wish more breeders would breed for temperment in at least the normal strains of a reptile. i can see why it would be hard to do, though!

Just my 2 cents, but at my horse barn I ride at, there is 2 horses, ones the mother of the other, and they both share the same tendency to only defecate in one corner of the stall. If that is inheritable, then temperament should also be, as they are both relating to behavior.

i have never tried to breed for temperment in any of my snakes. but have had many many evil snakes. it is my opinion that while genetics plays a part in the picture so does the husbandry and type of individual doing the handling. ever watch the dog whisperer and listen to him talk about the energy you have to use to get what you want out of your dog.

i think the same applies to snakes. i think if your an excitable individual and high strung your collection will reflect that to a degree. i will give you 3 examples, one is in my collection currently. she is a baby aru scrub evil and will bite at anything that moves. but if it is just me and her i can generally handle her with little to no biting. get my 4 yr old in the picture who is not the most snake savvy person(though he tries and is on his way to being a very snake savvy person) and its a different ball game, not sure if it is his energy the fact that he can;t sit still to save his life or a combination but the snake is a very different animal when he is around.

the second was black neck spitting cobra *nag* when i got him he was a wc sub adult at something like 4 ft. this was the first yr or so of our lives. walk past cage he spits wont stop spitting till i leave. when i handle him he is wild goes every where but i persisted and did not let him push me around. during the second yr of my keeping him something happened i don't know if it was the fact that i just would not put up with his crap, so he stopped trying or the fact that he put on over 2 ft of length and just got more confident but he became my most docile cobra. i could have free handled him like a kingsnake(now mind i never did by choice and always had eye protection on just incase) never did fully trust that snake and for good reason. about that time i met my now ex wife and started teaching her how to handle venomous. and nag would treat her like he did me when i first got him. trying out stuff to see if she would put up with it. the only thing that i can attribute to that is that she did not have the self confidence needed for him to behave. and he felt that through her. that same snake also did not like my friend artie he is the only person i have seen that snake try to bite. the only that i can attribute to that is the energy he gave the snake did not like. artie never handled any of my snakes so nag would have had no contact with him except through the cage.

i am interested to see if you can breed good temperment into reptiles or if it is more a product of their upbringing. my money is on its more of a nuture thing.

sorry for the long post but thought i would share my experiences. also i appologise if i sound hippyish in my philosophy of dealing with animals and snakes in general. but it is just my experiances and what i have seen with these animals just says that there is something more to them.