Please watch this link...Then discuss if we are doing the right thing

I caught this program last week. It's an expose of pedigree dogs and what interbreeding and line breeding has done to them.... Careful it's quite upsetting.
After watching this I wondered if we are doing the same thing to the snakes we are all trying to morph....
Here's the link.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00d4ljk/

I watched it in horror, Mike. My dad bred German Shepherds that were big, straight backed beauties that would jump 6', they'd never pass the breed standard now.
The breeders and Kennel club people shown were beyond redemption, IMO

Got an error saying it was only available to UK residents.

But do you think that all the line breeding we do, may in some way cause the same thing to happen in snakes as it has in the dogs......

i was discussing this the other day, nothing to do with the program.

the difference is that corns are being bred to produce new combinations of genetic looks, the dogs are being bred with certain characteristics in mind and as far as they are concerned if that dog has a longer nose/flatter nose or whatever they are looking for then the health of the dog is of little relevance. however i know that many of you breeders euthinise kinked or non-feeders so that is not spread if any of it is genetic, also as the morphs are recessives or co-dom then as soon as someone buys a snake carrying that gene it gets bred to a snake which is often not related in anyway, the problem comes with line breeding and selective breeding with no outcrossing.

imo, feel free to disagree, i am sure i will learn something.

The program was an expose of genetic defects that are found in modern show-standard pedigree dogs.
The Shepherds that had the most exaggerated sloping backs were contrasted with working police dogs, the show dogs could hardly walk.
There was also a hideous neurological condition in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels called syringomyelia shown, the culling of ridgeless Rhodesian Ridgebacks, the prevalence of cancers in Boxers.
Most telling was the fact that known carriers of these defects are not disbarred from being registered or shown, or from breeding. Various studies by geneticists were rubbished by the KC and the breeders shown.

I believe on the other forum where this was discussed, the robust nature of reptiles in isolated populations was contrasted with mammals, Mike.

torsten said:

i was discussing this the other day, nothing to do with the program.

the difference is that corns are being bred to produce new combinations of genetic looks, the dogs are being bred with certain characteristics in mind and as far as they are concerned if that dog has a longer nose/flatter nose or whatever they are looking for then the health of the dog is of little relevance. however i know that many of you breeders euthinise kinked or non-feeders so that is not spread if any of it is genetic, also as the morphs are recessives or co-dom then as soon as someone buys a snake carrying that gene it gets bred to a snake which is often not related in anyway, the problem comes with line breeding and selective breeding with no outcrossing.

imo, feel free to disagree, i am sure i will learn something.

Click to expand...

No your opinion counts as much as anyones......I just wondered as you read about star gazing in Ball pythons and the sudden death of super jag carpets etc.

People have been selectively breeding dogs for a thousand years. With snakes it only be 30 or 40 years. Who knows what we will see in the future? When you breed a special color or pattern and then inbreed or line breed that animal, we don’t know what other genes we are collecting with the color. Star gazing and kinked spines are just the beginning.

People are weird. In years to come big money may go to the snake with the most extremely kinked spine. Snakes with ears get big dollars. Maybe we can regrow boa spurs into legs.

I was unable to see the link. But I know as far as German Shepherds it is TRULY sad to me to see what(for the most part americans) have done to this beautiful breed of dog. I had a Long haired shep who was bred from a German working line father with a Canadian working line mother and had NONE of the sloping that is found to be the "standard" of American "Show" dogs of today.

If the original breeder of Shepherds were alive today he'd be appalled by what we americans have done to his beautiful dogs.

Now, onto the line breeding of reptiles. I'm not sure how it affects them, but I can only assume line and inbreeding will only have a negative affect in the future as it does with mammals. In my opinion, from what I've gleaned from the posts I've read on this forum, the breeders that linebred are also always on the lookout for new blood to add to their lines and hopefully that will keep deformities and other genetic defects to a bare minimum.

i think that on the whole breeders who line breed for a certain look (such as the abbotts okeetee's, the Love okeetee's, the miami motleys, high contrast miamis, candycanes, ROs, sunglows, hurricanes, and i am sure there are others) are constantly on the such for 'new blood' (an unrelated snake to add its genes to the gene pool) to reduce the chances of the problems that can be the product of such inbreeding, however i also think that people are now much more aware of the problems inbreeding can and has caused. this i feel and hope will cause future generations of breeders to do as little inbreeding as possible, i myself plan to do as little inbreeding as possible and i hope this will become an increasing trend.

some problems today may be caused by inbreeding but hopefully with that knowledge we can outcross enough to negate this effects like the one that we started to see with the introduction of bloodreds which were selectively bred, now this bloodred problem has been almost completely negated by all the out crossing.