Inbreeding taking a toll on albinos?

As far as I understand albino boas (Kahl strain) started from one originally wild caught animal. It is reasonable to believe then that unless the breeders introduced new blood (with "normal" boas every now and then) there is probably quite a bit of inbreeding going on. From a strictly economical perspective, introducing new genes in the pool will set the breeder back 3-4 years before being able to produce albinos again from the hetero offspring. In my opinion though it is worth doing it in order to avoid inherent problems related to inbreeding. Below are three current ads selling albino boas either blind from one or from both eyes. One of the sellers states it was traumatic and not genetic ,and it might very well be. But these are not the first sight impaired albinos (there was also a snow) I have seen advertised this year, regrettably I did not save the rest in my computer. Most well known breeders keep good records of the "pedigree" of their animals, I only hope the rest start to do something similar before this turns into something worse.

http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=8&de=96130
http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=8&de=98442
http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=8&de=101154

Well, this is really odd. I came mack with the idea of copying and pasting the ads in case they were removed and oddly enough the first two ads had been already deleted. Anyways, one of them was offering a baby albino boa blind from one eye. The other one was offering 2.2 albino boas all of them blind. If I'm not mistaken they were asking $500 a piece OBO. The third ad reads as follows:

When she was a neonate, her mother "sat" on her and ruptured the eye, the vet has given her a clean bill of health and the eye is there, but doesn't work! It will NOT affect her breeding or eating in any way! She is about 24" long and very healthy! There's NOTHING to worry about!

According to the seller in this case it is not a inherited anomaly but rather a rather the result of a trauma.

Regards.

Alvaro,
The seller can delete their ad, so eventhough you copy and paste the link, link doesn't work if the ad is delete. Anyway, Rick Staub had post his opinion once on Kingsnake Boa Forum regarding blindness in Albino and Inbreeding. Here's the link

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=29386,30100

In my opinion, people just make excuse w/ blind Albino. While I still don't know what's the reason, I have seen a litter of 16 albino babies, 1 out of 16 was blind, and other were not... Just something that Albino breeder has to deal with... Nothing is perfect, you know...

Also, if you request the seller to send you a picture of the blind eye, you will realize that it's not because the mom "sat" on the baby... It just the eye didn't develop for some reason... It's like a tried eye...

I mean DRY EYE.....

I think the one thing people have to understand is that Albino anything is NOT what nature intended. Its a flaw. Nature did not intend that species to be yellow, white, orange with red eyes. Even the healthiest Albino's IMO will never be superior to normals as far as health goes. Too much inbreeding and you get genetic flawed animals.

Let me give you a example: I spoke to Mark Bell several years ago at the Ohio Reptile Show about some "imperfect" Albino Burmese. He flat out suggested they be not used for breeding and it was due to inbreeding. He decribed the whole Albino genetics to me and it made a world of sense.

IMO one eyed Albino Boas ARE a flaw and I agee with John that I highly doubt it was due to the mother.

Here's another example: I know a well known breeder who bred a one eyed Albino to a completely unrelated Het. Albino female. Know what the results were ?? 19 babies (I believe) 9 normal hets and 10 Albino's. Of the 10 Albino's 5 had one eye !! Tell me thats not genetic and CAN'T be passed on.

I also seen a few years ago where another respected breeder stated that Albino's are a flaw and one eyed Albino's can pass this flaw on. I agreed with him and his statements. But I lost ALL respect for this person about 6 months later. After awhile, I saw where he went back and the same forum and now stated it wasnt proven to carry on to the offspring. Now, why did he change his thoughts on the matter ?? It took me a whole 2 minutes to figure that out. He had a one eyed Albino for sale in the classifieds !!

Thats why with my Albino projects, Ive gotten unrelated hets, Albinos from the established lines and from WC NEW bloodlines AND out breed for some hets. I had a fellow breeder ask why I was wasting my normal females on Het. Albino's and not using them for some of my other higher end projects instead. Daniel's comment above answered that. I want to have a strong line and NO short cuts will be used. BTW, NO I will not name names of the breeders above. 1) I dont have permission from the breeder who told me his results and 2) I didnt state the other statement to start a flame war. Take it as you will. I mind my own business. But, I used that example as only to show that anyone selling flawed or imperfect Albinos as otherwise healthy and it not being a genetic flaw, to me either knows no better or is trying to make a sale to a unknowning customer (A rip off in my book). They fall back on the fact, no one has proved it to be a flaw, as a excuse. They know better, trust me.

So, here's the big question you have to ask yourself. Would you want to fork over alot of cash with that breeder ?? and lets say a breeder had 19 Albinos and one showed the flaw. How can you tell the other healthy appearing Albino's arent flawed as well ?? Just cause you cant see it doesnt mean its not there. Enlarged hearts, Livers, infertility. Thats just some of the things you could possibly have.

My advise is to be careful who you buy your Albino's from and do the work. Its a great gene (no matter the species) and hard work is the only way to insure a strong line. You get what you pay for. Well, thats my .02 for the week.

Guess what did I get in my mail box today?

>From: "Neil Gubitz" <ngubitz@webtv.net>
>To: boavoyage@hotmail.com
>Subject: albino
>Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 00:12:26 -0500
>
>This is a message from Neil Gubitz at FaunaClassifieds Forums ( http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/index.php ). The FaunaClassifieds Forums owners cannot accept any responsibility for the contents of the email.
>
>To email Neil Gubitz, you can use this online form:
>http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...orm&userid=840
>
>OR, by email:
>mailto:ngubitz@webtv.net
>
>This is the message:
>
>Sorry, John.... this particular animal underwent TWO surgeries to fix her "sat-on" eye!....
>It's nice to see, however, that you're willing to tell people EXACTLY what happened, when you don't even have a clue, huh??.... I guess some things never change....
>
>Neil Gubitz
>Tampa Snake Pit

I guess someone doesn't understand what does "IN MY OPINION" mean.
As per Rich Staub, blindness in Albino caused by absence of melanin in the eye. His opinion shed a light over me. One reason that albinism is sensitive to light because lack of melanin. Since they are not "prefer" to expose to light, they could produce offsprings that don't have eyes. Just like there is a type of fish I believe called "cave fish". They live in deep ocean where day light doesn't reach to. They are generally born blind.
While blindness in Albino may not caused by inbreeding, I still believe that blind Albino SHALL NOT be use in breeding. Albino is already a recessive gene, why should we make it worse...
Again, this is just my OPINION. I am not a scientist, or a doctor....

It wouldn't work like that... the baby's genes don't know whether or not the parent is using its eyes, so if they can, they're going to go ahead and make a perfectly normal eye. In an example used in a couple genetics books I have, just because hundreds of generations of Jewish boys have been circumcised doesn't mean that they'll eventually be born with reduced foreskins.
Inbreeding just has the tendancy to 'collect' any bad genes that happen to be in the founder animals. For every defect we can see, there are internal ones that probably never come to light. However, not all inbreeding produces defective animals, it's sort of a matter of chance. There are still plenty of albino strains of snakes without any known defects.
But it is responsible for breeders to outbreed to avoid defects, they should know that! Especially with so many new Boas coming in!

Erin Benner

As a note, the cave fish thing goes like this: in a large population of fish living in caves, a few are going to have freak mutations that reduce their eyes. Normally this would be a disadvantage, but since their eyes aren't being used, it's actually an advantavge because they aren't wasting energy making a normal eye. This tiny advantage manages to spread through the cave's tiny gene pool, and after thousands of years, all the fish have reduced eyes. Whew!

A breeder of leopard geckos (whom I respect and trust) told me that he produces all of his baby albino leopard geckos through Albino to unrelated het breedings. It was HIS belief that it produced stronger, healthier, babies than an albino to albino breeding. My limited recolection of college genetics told me that this made perfect sense and I admired that he was more concerned with producing quality over quantity. Note I said HIS belief. I am not trying to step on the toes of anyone who breeds albino to albino. It just makes sense to me. As others have said, albinism is a genetic mutation, or a flaw. The more flaws you ad to the mix the more flaws you risk turning out.

Steve Schindler

This post was meant to be a personal concern about hereditary defects that currently show-up in albino boas, particularly blindness. How many “normal” blind boas do we currently see up for sale? How many blind boas of any of the other morphs? As Joe clearly stated it, there is currently no doubt the problem is hereditary and should be taken seriously by current as well as future breeders. Again, introducing new blood will set a breeder a few years back in his goals of producing albinos. Although bad from an economical perspective, one should try to avoid inbreeding as much as possible by introducing new genes in the pool. As was also stated, inbreeding is not always bad, as long as the good traits are the ones expressed. The seller in this case clearly stated the problem was due to a trauma, information given to him by the original breeder of the boa in question. It was not the intention of this post to question that assertion. Again, this thread pretended to voice my concern towards the breeders, not the brokers (although they should have complete information of the animals that are up for sale). What was really disappointing was the fact that the two other ads were deleted a few hours after this thread was posted (maybe just coincidence), now I know that in the future I should copy and paste the ads. Again, this last ad was the only one that stayed. A few hours later another ad was posted, which shows some boa breeders are on top of the problem and are being conscientious on their breeding programs. That’s commendable.

[QUOTED]Posted by “X” on June 10, 2003 at 20:13:53
These are some extra nice baby albinos showing nice red and pink color. I have animals from two different and unrelated litters. Albinos $1200 ea. hets $500pr. Overnight door to door shipping available and all forms of payment are accepted. [/quote]