Inbreeding taking a toll on albinos?

Well, melanistic norther adders and black rat snakes were originally freaks of nature, but since they happened to be living in a spot where melanism worked out for them, it turned out to be a good thing. Albinism by its nature is a lot less likely to be advantageous than melanism, but there's no real difference, just some pigment going one way or the other. If you took away the predators, albino snakes would probably spread through the wild population, because they'd be just as able to survive as 'normal' snakes. Well, if they were burrowers. A snake that gets sunburned wouldn't be too happy.
So I guess I'm saying there's nothing inherently wrong with being albino, it's just us humans and our inbreeding that messes it up.

Erin 'what is normal anyway' Benner

So I guess I'm saying there's nothing inherently wrong with being albino, it's just us humans and our inbreeding that messes it up.

Erin,

You are right. Again the problem is that we start with a small gene pool to begin with, and the fact that breeders want the return on investment fast. If we did the breeding just for the fun of it and not for the money chances of this happening would be minimized. What I would encourage breeders as well as dealers to think that there is a problem and that trying to make a quick $ in the short term will backfire on them in the long run.

Regards.

Posted by "x" (Contact Me!) on July 26, 2003 at 14:04:54
Registered PetHobbyist User since 2003-03-31

Ok, Here's the deal. I have 1 Male that is Anery 100% Het. Albino. I also have 2 Females that are Albino 100% Het. Anery. They were all born early 2002. The 2 females lost an eye each shortly after birth. They were all produced from "X" and they come with the original receipt from him. They also come with detailed records and graphs. They all eat F/T Large rats each and everytime I offer them one. The male is roughly 41 inches and 900 grams. One of the females is roughly 46 inches and 1100 grams. The last female is roughly 43 inches and 1000 grams. This is the best way to produce Snow Boas. If you breed the male to the females 25% of the litter should be Snow, 25% should be Albino 100% het. Snow, 25% should be Anery het. Snow, and 25% Should be Double het. If each female las a litter of 16, that would mean 8 Snows, 8 Albinos 100% Het. Snow, 8 anery 100% het. Snow, and 8 Double hets. I am offering this group for $10,000 plus shipping. please call or email me soon. First person to contact with interest gets the first shot at this amazing offering.

This ad appeared this week. One person is offering not one but two one-eyed albino boas. How can someone tell him to euthanize both females when he is pretending $10,000 for the group.

Regards.

Just got around to reading this thread, and it has been very informative; thanks to all who added their 2 cents...and of course puts me in a slight quandary, in regards to one of Alvaro's posts:

"What's even more frightening though is the scenario Joe was describing. Breeder "A" has one anomaly in the clutch. Was just that snake or are several other sibblings carriers of that genetic deffect? Even if he culled that animal he can never be 100% sure he got rid of the flaw and you as a buyer will never be assured you are safe. But of course, you might never know..."

I bred my amel het anery corns this year and had an "anomoly" pop up that didn't survive...Now these aren't $1000+ critters but I still feel a responsibility to inform those interested, especially being how corns are a great "introductory animal" fpr young herpers looking for their first snakes...Have a young person in Lancaster PA buying a trio in 2 weeks; gotta IM him now to this link and explain to him about what I think this anomaly is, altho I have told him about the clear snow and shown him a pic or 2...Sigh...Thanks Daniel, making me get all "responsible" and what not lol...Really great info on Albinism and the effects of inbreeding/outcrossing...Keep up the good work, folks, and peace

And yet another one!

Albino Female ONLY $775 SHIPPED*
Miami, FL
Posted by XXX (Contact Me!) on September 15, 2003 at 11:02:04
Registered PetHobbyist User since 2002-10-10

Click on thumbnails to view fullsize in a new window

MONEY NEVER SHOWED! BACK UP FOR SALE ONE MORE TIME!

I have this female albino boa for probably the cheapest price on the net ($775 shipped, WOW!). She has enlarged eyes, but they are no big deal. She is in perfect health, feeds like crazy, is extremely active, and is growing like a weed! She will make a great breeder as an adult,and at her growth rate that shouldn't be long! If you want to add an albino to your collection, this is your chance for cheap! I've gotten alot of responses, but no takers. Please serious inquiries only. No trades and price is firm. I accept paypal and overnight money orders. Thanks.

So, albinos can have sight problems.
And it seems some breeders continue their inbreeding practices and continue to produce one eyed animals.
and then try to cover it up by saying it is an injury.
Some of them even go through and say the animal had 2 surgeries.
I do not know about anyone else. but I will not have two EXPENSIVE surgeries performed on an animal that I am only gonna sell cheaply. I will not have over a thousand dollars of surgeries performed on an animal that I sell for only $750. that is me. Some of you might be different..but oh well

okay albinos can be genetically bad if not careful.

What other "morphs" out there show weeknesses?


all you gotta do is look around and notice....
Gee i do not see too many of this morphs as OLD adults.
I see lots of young adults but NEVER old adults.
Those morphs you will NEVER see at my place until someone can make one that will last long.

I wonder: Has anyone tried to isolate or eliminate the gentic defects in their albino breeding programs? I don't think so, but perhaps one of the larger breeders has. The reason I ask is that a lot of people think that the problems are inbreeding depression, so outcross.

While fertility and vigor problems are seen as signs of inbreeding depression, there are many genetic defects that operate as simple recessives. There are traits that are genetically linked: the two traits exist near each other, so if you have one trait, you have a good chance of at least having a het for the other trait. Even without linking, you still have a situation of having a genetic defect in the gene pool. All original strain albinos come from a single snake -- if anyone knows whether the siblings of that snake that were imported with it were bred, I haven't heard of it. That means that ALL breeders of this strain of albino are working from the same genetic stock.

So, if that snake passed along the trait for deformed eyes (no eyes, one eyed, etc.), that gene is in the gene pool for albinos. The only way to check whether that original snake was the carrier for the trait is to breed it back to its own daughters repeatedly. A book I recently read stated a number of 11 back breedings to reach a 99% certainty that a given animal was free of a defective gene. (Because each resultant offspring has a greater percentage of the genetic material of the father -- or mother if you're testing a female.) Of course, you'd want to do this with more than one female. I doubt this has been done.

Outcrossing is really not going to get rid of a defective gene in a closed population, because all it will do is mask the gene. The effects of hybrid vigor are good, though, but limited to the first couple of generations unless ongoing outcrossing is done. (Ongoing outcrossing inhibits you from fiixing genetic traits, though. If you're breeding for polygenetic traits like adding color to a project, or size, or what have you, then you need to do controlled line breeding...from stock that's free of genetic defects.)

While we don't know what the mechanism of the defects are (inbreeding depression, simple recessive, polygenetic traits that inhabit an area near the albino gene, etc.), we do know that a) the original strain is effectively a closed population, with only one male and b) the defects showed up early on after initial inbreeding to fix/prove the trait Outcrossing has reduced the occurances of some of the problems, but it has only done so by masking the problems.

The big question is: Who's doing the work to actually clean out the albino gene pool? Who's test breeding males for successive generations to prove them free of defects? In boa constrictors, we're talking about YEARS of test breeding to prove out some clean animals. Make that years of inbreeding, which is frowned upon because of the mistaken belief that outbreeding is fixing the problem.

Just a few thoughts I figured I'd add since the thread is still active.

I have to agree with almost everything that has been said here. The defective gene that Brian mentioned does not actually have to be close to the albino gene, or even linked to it. Most genetic flaws are recessive traits. Traits that might never pop up unless that one in a million chance brings two snakes together that carry the trait. Inbreeding increases the chances that more recessive traits will surface. They don't necessarily have to sit close to the albino gene, they just have to be in the DNA of the snakes.

As for the outbreeding, and back breeding for 11 generations, yeh that COULD prove that the gene was not present. Then again..what if the odds were running against you and it never showed itself...until the 12th breeding. Then what? Albino boas are running at what about a grand each (make it an easy number, it's early) Ok so a female has a clutch of 10. All are perfect. So can we sell them? or do we hold on to them until the end of the experiment? Not many people are willing to sit on a possible 10 grand for a long period of time but since this is an experiment we keep them. The next year, ten more healthy babies. Hmmmm now it's up to 20 grand, even more tempting....This keeps happening, every year ten more healhty babies that we are sitting on. Now what happens when the 11th litter is born and oh crap, there is that darn trait? We have ten perfectly healthy litters, worth what maybe a million bucks (assuming the value of morphs stays the same)? What breeder would really put down ALL these snakes? And who's to say that since the origional clutch is now ten years old, he hasn't bred those too.

Unfortunatly, most people won't have the time, money or be able to resist temptation for your experiement to work. The morph market in many cases is unstable. Every year with more being produced the price can drop a little. So our ten healthy litters that at one point might have been worth a million bucks, might only be worth a few hundred (worst case scenario).

Yep, the economics are definately the problem with isolating a bad gene. (Of course, you don't have to hold back all of a litter to do the experiment, since you're only backbreeding to the first sire or dam in the line. Even if you hold back a single animal, if you keep backbreeding, after 11 generations -- less, really, b/c we're talking thousandths of a percent difference at a certain point -- the offspring will practically be genetic clones of dad. It'd be expensive, but not a million dollars' worth of expensive.)

Then again, if you know that you have a snake throwing babies with defects, why sell them? All of these ads with people selling albinos for a high price that have defects are a problem. The prices aren't generally low enough for people to buy the animal as a pet, but they're low enough for a person to buy as a cheap breeder. If you suspect a genetic flaw, you shouldn't be selling the animal. You also shouldn't breed the parents that produced the flaw to each other again. (If it's genetic. Nobody's done any real work to prove that one way or the other, though the odds seem very, very much in favor.)

Boas Albino Boas 11/05/2003 $1,700.00 pr. you pay 4 months 17 in. — Details
1.1 albino boas born 6-7-03 the female is healthy and eating nonstop the male has an eye impairment but other than that he is eating nonstop also