albino turtle collection

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Ironically enough I am picking a het albino boa up tomorrow, and breeding her this season (05 baby). Here's hoping I don't get any mutants, that would kill me. I know for sure that these snakes are unrelated for at least a few generations which is good though.
 
Ive been holding back from jumping on this, but what the hell; Im in a good mood and feel like giving my .02 cents. First off we have to remember that Albinism is a recessive trait. We have to remember that these animals wont survive in the wild due to two main reasons, over exposure to natural sun rays, which will hurt their skin and predation. Snakes can and will get away with being able to survive longer periods of time because most snake species are arboreal and nocturnal or they will be fossorial and nocturnal. Most snakes only come out to bask before feeding and after feeding, ie to generate enough energy to tackle prey and to digest prey. Lizards and turtles spend much longer periods of time basking in the sun as they have longer periods of activity throughout the day due to their much more rapid metabolism. This is only speaking about naturalistic predicatabiity, in terms an albino reptile will not breed/mate with another albino in the wild because they wont make it long enough to do so.

How does this play out in the captive sector? There were very few albinos in the 80's which is when the craze started. And when these people who got their hands on these albino$$$$$$$ then saw the huge income potential. They got greedy and I mean really greddy and decided to mess with genetics and such and started breeding albinos to albinos only, then bred offspring to mother /father and offspring f1 to f2 to f3 etc.... They held back a couple of generations to cut costs so they didnt have to buy another albino. Insted they in bred the crap out of them, which is why we have the one eyed albinos etc etc etc.... People started noticing this and decided to start breeding back to normals getting the hets and breeding them back to the albinos and then breeding 50% hets back to albinos again to get a new bloodline. Has the damage been done? Some people say so. So now alot of breeders are having to wait around for a new w/c albino to come in to re diversify the gene pool. This is like winning the lottery. I ve never been a big fan of over propagizing albinos for this being the main reason.
 
The problem with waiting for another albino is that there are so many different kind of albinism, and they not necessarily compatible with each others. At least that is true of genetics from a human biological point of view, and I don't see why it can't be applied to reptiles. We already got two strains of albinism in boas, and several in Corn Snakes and they are not compatible with each others at all.

I really hate it when breeders are oversimplifying genetics... defects, which include morphs, are a lot more complex than they look. For instance, one guy I know got two true dwarf Colombian, and he think if he breed them, he will get dwarf babies. Alright... how many different kind of dwarfism are there in humans? Think about that... there are literally hundreds, and not all of them are related to genes. Now what the chance he will have if he breed them? Even daughter-father, sibling breeding or mother-son breeding won't be enough to isolate the dwarf gene he is looking for if I understand dwarf genetics enough, and that is without invoking the thought of non-genetic glandular defects. I need to stop before I make this whole passage irrelevant to the discussion.

However apart from that rant... albinism should be fairly easy to isolate, but there are going to be many different strains and they may not always prove out within the first few generations initially.
 
A lot of the time the "true" dwarf boas from tiny islands start getting bigger in captivity because they are properly fed. In their natural homes there just isn't enough food for them to get large, same as an underfed snake in captivity will be stunted. I'd feel confident saying any small BCI bred to any small BCI would make small babies, "dwarfism" as far as I know isn't simple recessive :P
 
monsternoob;1433838; said:
A lot of the time the "true" dwarf boas from tiny islands start getting bigger in captivity because they are properly fed. In their natural homes there just isn't enough food for them to get large, same as an underfed snake in captivity will be stunted. I'd feel confident saying any small BCI bred to any small BCI would make small babies, "dwarfism" as far as I know isn't simple recessive :P

They are not insular or Central American "dwarfs"... I hate that term applied to them since every BCI, which happen to be all of the locales, that is smaller than a Colombian is apparently a "dwarf." All it is is size variation within a species in a given population... So does that means every BCC that doesn't get to be the same size as a Surinam a "dwarf"? Think about it this way... a 2' full-grown Lace Monitor is a true dwarf monitor, nor does it have any existing wild population that regularly stay this size, while an Ackie is not a dwarf monitor since it is a species that happen to be small.

Anyway, the female Colombian is 4' and was fed weekly with the right size diet for the last 4 years. So that why I bolded true because Colombian boas at that size are rare, nor was it stunted. He produced the female from his own boas. I am not sure where he got the male from. But yes, it is not just simple recessive at all, and it is probably a lot more complicated.

Albinism is just as complicated as far possibilities go, however it is easy to prove out the strain if you do inbreeding.
 
Nah Im not saying his boas aren't "dwarfs", like I said though, small boas are small boas, just that, labelling them as dwarfs is like calling an anerythristic amelanistic corn a snow, it's just a label IMO. I do know the difference between a BCI and a BCC, I was just using BCI's as an example.

Just to note, small boas aren't only caused by underfeeding, if they are too cold their growth can also be stunted. Although in most parts of the US that wouldn't be a problem.
 
WE NEED AN UPDATE!!!!!
 
MonsterFishKeepers.com