Should we breed albinos? V1.0

[morti]

Originally Posted by BWSmith

But shouldn't we all strive to produce the healthiest animals possible? This would include not producing animals that have known and recurring issues.

I think we should go one step further and that would be improving the lines that we have in captivity. Thus an effort breed the eye problems out of albinos would be commendable rather than reprehensible, would it not?

[Conners]

That is a wealth of useful info and very much the sort of thing I was after - thanks v much, boaterr.

It is a bit of a mixed bag, however, and some of the evidence seems to go against your point of view rather than for it.

I'm not sure that what you say about Leopard boas is relevant to a debate about morphs, let alone albinos specifically. You acknowledge that the problems encountered with Leopards are due to "improper raising". If a captive population of locality boas are difficult to get feeding and reproducing, that's obviously got nothing to do with the question of whether it's wrong to breed albinos.

If you were to argue that the problems you believe are encountered when breeding albinos are because of inbreeding, then I am bound to say that you're far more likely to encounter inbreeding depression trying to keep a rare locality strain pure, when perhaps all you have to work with are filial generations descended from just a handful of wild-caught individuals, than if you're breeding albino BCIs, whereupon you can regularly cross genetically normal animals into the lineage to create hets.

But I'm very interested in what you say about Albino Surninams. I wonder what the background is there. I know that breeders have crossed both albino BCI types into normal BCCs with as view to creating "albino BCCs" by back crossing the subsequent generations with the normal parent (obviously they would not get actual BCCs, just crosses that looked like BCCs). I didn't know that anyone was working with wild-caught albino BCCs, or even that any had been found to be honest.

[Conners]

Originally Posted by BWSmith

This is not new information at all and it does not take much to verify the existence of the issues. Now I don't mind going back and reading this entire thread again, but if I find the information you keep saying noone gave you, I will be upset

Haha - well, if it's already in the thread then my bad. But rest assured I did read the thread before posting! The way Torlax wrote his post, it seemed as if he was introducing something afresh.

[morti]

Originally Posted by Conners

But I'm very interested in what you say about Albino Surninams. I wonder what the background is there. I know that breeders have crossed both albino BCI types into normal BCCs with as view to creating "albino BCCs" by back crossing the subsequent generations with the normal parent (obviously they would not get actual BCCs, just crosses that looked like BCCs). I didn't know that anyone was working with wild-caught albino BCCs, or even that any had been found to be honest.

There are (possibly were?) a very few (possibly only one) imported a few years back. It sold with an ridiculously high price-tag and then simply disappeared off the normal radar. I personally have no inside knowledge of whatever became of it... only that yes, at least one has been imported.

[Conners]

Originally Posted by BWSmith

As i stated, I THINK that evidence has been presented in this thread already. Asking to restate information is not all that reasonable. But the data has been presented over an over again in countless threads.

Hi BW,

Further to my previous reply, I've just reread the thread. There's some very detailed info about some of the reported deleterious effects of albinism in animals at large, but nothing specific to snakes.

I'm by no means discounting the evidence, but at the same time I wouldn't assume that, for example, a health problem that shortens the average lifespan of a person with albinism will have the same effect on an albino boa. We all know how different the biology of reptiles and mammals is.

[BWSmith]

More information may be mixed in with some of the other thousand albino and morph threads. Can't keep it all straight in my old age.

[Conners]

Originally Posted by boaterr

O ok. I was talking about when i asked "Did you have any evidence" and you replied
I just wanted to hear what your experiences with albinos where. I forgot to add that the I have only experienced problems with albino boids not colubrids.

Hi boaterr,

Well, until this year, all of my albino breeding experience going back 19 years was with colubrids (I now have a trio of 2007 het albino boas).

I never bred on anything remotely like the scale of some of the guys on here, but I can say that I never encountered any problems that I could pin to albinism. Albino corns producing clutches of 20 that all hatched successfully, the babies themselves growing normally and breeding with other corns with equally pain-free results.

One guy I sold a 4-year-old snow corn to still had him, in good shape, 11 years later (I lost touch with the chap years back, but it will have passed on now unless it's broken the longevity record!).

So although that is by no means enough of a sample from which to draw firm conclusions, you will understand that it inclines me to the belief that albinos can generally live healthy and normal lives.

I don't know of an obvious reason why albino colubrids would avoid the problems you report with boids.

[BWSmith]

Aside from the inherent problems with albinism that one can infer translates to reptiles as in their mammalian counterparts, I honestly can't recall any outwardly visible defects from albino colubrids.

Colubrid DNA deems "tougher" in general. The fact that there is not more issues with inbreeding depression in Corn Snakes is counterintuitive. It seems that we see a great deal more faulty genes and lethal genes in boid morphs than colubrid morphs.

[morti]

So this year I Finally had my first litter that included albino (and sunglow) boas. 20 live, healthy neonates, 5 slugs. No premies. No Runts. No deformities.

In fact, now that they are starting to have their first sheds, the albinos shed before the rest of them.

To you, the interested reader of this thread, it may sound like all albinos have problems, and every litter that includes an albino will have some failing. I submit to you that this is not the case.

I will be recording more future offspring as they arrive.

[Conners]

Originally Posted by morti

So this year I Finally had my first litter that included albino (and sunglow) boas. 20 live, healthy neonates, 5 slugs. No premies. No Runts. No deformities.

In fact, now that they are starting to have their first sheds, the albinos shed before the rest of them.

To you, the interested reader of this thread, it may sound like all albinos have problems, and every litter that includes an albino will have some failing. I submit to you that this is not the case.

I will be recording more future offspring as they arrive.

Congrats, morti, must be so exciting going through an albino litter and spotting the sunglows.