Alexandria, the mad escapist

[Tanith]

Hubby was at the computer yesterday evening, looked over and there she was! Our 4 year old Albino Burmese rescue. She got out of her latched and weighted-down tank, crawled out of the snake room and came to the slider. Hard to believe just a few months ago she was almost dead.

A little background on Alexandria;
She was brought to us by a family that couldn't get her to eat regularly and she was constantly sick. We had warned and practically begged this family two years previously not to buy a snake from a specific local breeder as he has horrible husbandry practices and we knew the clutch Alexandria came from. 75% of her clutchmates were born with no eyes. She is somewhere between 6-8th generation linebred. She was in such bad shape when we got her, at three years old, she was 7 feet long and 6 pounds. She had an enlarged heart, a chronic respiritory infection and her liver was failing. Up until a few months ago, she wasn't able to eat on her own. For an entire year she was tube fed and force fed low sodium chicken hot dogs. She finally started taking rats again and while she'll never be back to what a "normal" burmese should be, shes going to pull through. She has now hit the eight foot mark and weighs in at just over 11 pounds!

Its frustrating when she gets hell-bent on getting out, but its good to see her getting some strength back.

Anyways. thanks for checking out my little escape artist.

 

[jasontini]

Glad to hear shes all good now... shes beautiful...!

 

[tomcat88]

hmmm a lot of ppl over here seem to think linebreeding (inbreeding) doesnt have any adverse problems on their snakes although many might not be producing 8th generation snakes. i would call snakes being born with no eyes (if inbreeding could be determined the cause not anything else i.e chemicals in water/food of parents) as an adverse problem!!

btw good job on saving the snake and giving it a new lease on life.

 

[Renagade]

interesting that you threw in '6th to 8th generation line bred' right next to '75% of her cluth mates having no eyes' do you think that this is a trait bred in due to line breeding? what is your opinion on line breeding and what do you think are it's limits in regards to breeding reptiles. good work with Alexandria and good luck.
ren

 

[Tanith]

I think definitely, in this instance, line breeding was the catalyst to her health issues as well as her siblings birth defects. The breeder she came from had a "Birth defects for fun and profit" approach when it came to his animals. He was trying to create an albino burmese with a solid stripe and when this clutch was born, he marketed the babies as "Albino Eyeless" without batting an eye or disclosing how these babies came about.
At one point, we had 8 burmese pythons from his stock that came in as rescues. All of them with RIs, weakened immune systems, etc. Needless to say, it became my mission to run him out of town, which finally happened earlier this year.
I don't personally practice any type of line breeding, mostly because I don't have a good knowledge of genetics, so I don't want to unneccessarily screw something up, you know? I do understand, though, that if properly used, thats how new morphs are created and is completely safe. I believe its common practice here to line breed for 3 generations, then new blood needs to be introduced to prevent birth defects.

 

[Tanith]

I'm really sorry for double posting, but I forgot to add something.
This breeder was also holding back a male and a female from the clutch with no eyes to raise up and breed AGAIN!:x

 

[tomcat88]

sounds like a ****er. if somebody tried to sell me eye-less pythons or anything for that matter i would laugh in their face. i think this guy might happen to be line-bred himself if you catch my drift

 

[jessb]

OMG Tanith, that is so disturbing! I think knowledge of problems associated with "line breeding' is pretty hit and miss and it's not until problems occur that people start taking notice. I agree that line breeding can't be isolated as the single cause for the lack of eyes, but surely the cluster of conditions does not indicate a healthy animal that has resulted from these pairings!

We had a problem with our Labrador who has megaoesophagus (a neurological regurgitation thing). Three of the other pups in the litter were euthanased because they were so sick with the condition. Specialist vets told us that although the condition was hereditary in some breeds of dog, it was not recognised to be hereditary in Labs so we had no recourse against the breeder. However the vets also highly recommended that we not breed from her. Not sure how she could pass on a non-hereditary condition by breeding, but it just sums up the general lack of certainty on the topic. (NB she didn't result from line breeding, but I am just demonstrating the inconsistent information about hereditary issues)

Well done bringing Alexandria to such a great state and best of luck with her in the future!

 

[Lewy]

At least shes in good hands now

Anymore pics???

Lewy

 

[Tanith]

I found this one. This was taken while she was still pretty sick. I need to get some updated pictures of her.

 

[tomcat88]

such a pity we cant get exotics in australia legally. if the government was worried about introduced species surely if it was spayed/neutered (whatever the term is in relation to reptiles) so it couldnt breed so that it could be purely a display animal? where is the harm in that? sorry for getting O/T lol jeez she looked good in that pic even when she was sick.

 

[Tanith]

Thanks. She is such a sweet natured girl, too. Very social and "talkative."

And I didn't realize, until after I came here and started reading through posts, that exotics were illegal there. They're on their way to being, well, maybe not made illegal, but strictly regulated here. Thanks to a few giant pythons being found in the wild, now, to own a Burmese, I have to register them yearly ($100 per snake, per year) and have them microchipped. Its amazing how just a couple bad apples can truly spoil the batch.

 

[notechistiger]

Not sure how she could pass on a non-hereditary condition by breeding

Perhaps they were more worried about how becoming pregnant and giving birth would affect her?


Good on you for working so hard on the snake! I notice that most people tend to euthanise snakes if they have serious problems, that COULD be fixed with lots of time, effort and money (like a horse with a broken leg).

Do you know how she could have gotten out?

 

[Tanith]

The lid on her tank has 6 clip locks. Well, she managed to pop 3 of them by pushing (Burms are normally very strong, but I didn't think she had it in her). I still can't figure out how she managed to get past the additional 10 pounds of weight, though.
Needless to say, shes been upgraded to a tank with a sliding locked lid.

 

[the.badger]

sounds like a ****er. if somebody tried to sell me eye-less pythons or anything for that matter i would laugh in their face. i think this guy might happen to be line-bred himself if you catch my drift

Hahaha nicely put.

 

[pythons73]

What a great story,im glad she is healthy now,im even happier that you drove that .....hole out of town,i bet you he will probably be doing the same elsewhere,great job.../

 

[cement]

She's a very nice looking snake.Good job. Its good to hear the authorities are cracking down on the exotics there, its not the snakes fault, its uneducated people.
She's definatly getting her strentgh back!

Eyeless....He must have been breeding that line for how long ?? over 15 yrs?
Thats a lifetime mission

 

[Ramsayi]

To claim the problem with the line is due to linebreeding is a bit of a misnomer.The fact of the matter is it could be down to that particular line of burmese carrying a defect,it could be down to something else happening with the genes that cause albanism etc etc.

 

[LullabyLizard]

She's beautiful! Lucky she made it