One Eyed Albino Boas

[Bill]

It seems that some albino boas are born with only one good eye or they loose site in an eye. Does anybody know if this is a genetic trait? If not what causes it?
Bill

[Sojourn]

Hey Bill,
Some of the breeders I have spoken with on this subject, more exactly about the "flaws" in general that seem to express themselves in some Kahl strain albino babies(one-eyed syndrome, or blind in one eye, and weak central nervous systems causing them to not have very good control of their movements, and more...), give a general concensus that these birth defects have a MUCH higher propensity to come from albino to albino sibling breeding. And that the other ways one could go about producing albino's(het x het, het x albino), related or not, are much less likely to produce babies with this (IMO) definately genetic defect. But it does NOT completely rule them out. :(

Personally I am making it a point to keep my future breeders as unrelated as possible!

And on the flip side of the depressing paragraph I started out with. I have also been told that in general, albino babies are very healthy and hearty, and the birth defects are exceptions, and NOT the norm. ;D

My two cents on what causes this goes all the way to the first few breedings that produced the original albinos which all have descended from since. There was some INTENSE inbreeding going on there! I think it started then, and has been passed down as sort of a shadow gene that seems to be triggered by inbreeding(most of the time).

I am no expert, but have interrogated several who are at length about this. I hope this helps you some! And if not, just drop Pete Kahl Reptiles an e-mail. I'm sure they would be happy to answer any question you might have...

Take care,
.....Jesse