Juss eddicating you.
Some if they’re flat on the ground it’s impossible to tell but if you lift them up the first couple seconds as you lift them they may cock their head to the side a little as they reorientate themselves. That’s a spider wobble. I’m not going to type out the whole videos but if you want to learn more about spotting the wobble and what it means you can check their YT out.
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I breed mine, they eat well, they get around perfectly, and are lovely in personality and looks. I think people have an overreaction to spiders because of the intense negative light people with large platforms spread onto them (YouTube, for one). They see one severe example of a spider and go into animal activist mode. Spiders lie on a spectrum just like the rest of us- some never show a lick of it, some have mild expressions, and in the worst and rarer cases they can’t strike or move around much. And, of course, these are the only cases that get attention. People start throwing around accusations of animal abuse, and then it gets ugly from there on out. The reptile community can be helpful but a large portion is just utterly toxic in nature lol. But such is life.
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It’s those really bad animals that have a severe wobble and are still sold anyways (or worse maybe bred) that show the negative light. A slight wobble isn’t something that bad but when you get the ones corkscrewing, missing strikes on food items (god forbid someone feed them live), or can’t be trusted with an appropriate water bowl thats when the problems arise. People just need to know the difference
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I haven’t seen every spider in the world. But I’ve yet to see one being properly cared for that displays the “severe symptoms” you’re referring to. And I would guess none of you have either.
I’m of the opinion from what I see almost exclusively those are cases of rescue animals that have been abused in the past (In which case I have seen rescue normals or pastels etc in just as rough of shape) and are being documented, or worse yet (and these are the ones that piss me right off) people are purposely placing their spiders in a stressful environment to “bring out” the wobbling so they can film it.
That’s what is gross to me. Not breeding a healthy animal that is able to eat poop and thrive but wobbles.
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I agree it’s generally a lack of care or understanding that facilitates “severe” wobble. Either that, or an incubation/temperature malfunction. I think spiders and most young ball pythons are sensitive to high temperatures, even temps previously believed to be acceptable. “Wobble” itself is a huge catch all term that generalizes the behavior of a group of animals at varying points along a spectrum of quirkiness. Spiders sometimes curl their heads funny when they ball up, sometimes they’re a little extra shy and one needs to know how to not intimidate them, sometimes they shake a little when nervous, so do a lot of other completely normal ball pythons. They’re not all “normal” but hey is anyone?
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I do not breed ball pythons currently and did not have spiders when I did (although I did own and produce super sables). However, when I used to sell animals that I did not produce, in a retail setting, I had to opportunity to work with a large number of spiders over the years. While I did feel that a wobble was detectable in all of them if you know what to look for, I did not see a single one that had trouble with eating, moving around, or anything else that could cause poor quality of life. Since these animals were living in a bustling retail environment, they were subject to more stress than the average snake is, and still I did not see any of the severe issues people are so concerned about. My conclusion from this experience is that severe wobbling that affects quality of life is either very rare, or the result of poor care and/or extreme stress. For this reason, if I were to start breeding ball pythons again, I would consider adding spiders to my collection. Side note: I occasionally experience failure to thrive issues with super sables and I considered them to be generally weaker than other morphs, but I never had one actually die.
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I have an English Bulldog that has epilepsy and thyroid issues. He has been having seizures since he was about 3 and he is 10 now. We also have a mutt that’s the same age with zero heath issues. Personally, I would never own another bulldog. I have watched him suffer too many times over the years when his medicine suddenly stopped working. Not to mention the enormous vet bills we’ve accrued. You can easily see the pain in a dog. Spiders don’t seem like they’re in any kind of pain. Maybe that’s because dogs have the ability to give facial expressions and have somewhat of a voice to express pain. All that being said, I don’t have a problem with the spider gene. I’ve owned a bumblebee in the past and she acted fine. I think they’re beautiful.
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Why do people ask this but never say anything about the other genes with wobble?
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A lot of other genes that are said to have wobble don’t show it as often or at all. The champagne I have has no wobble and the breeder I got him from has champagnes that don’t wobble. All spiders on the other hand have some form of wobble. I have heard spotnose doesn’t always wobble either. There is also the fact that spider is way more popular and more heavily produced than any other morph known to possibly wobble.
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Not all spiders have wobble and as someone already sait it doesn’t affect their mating, eggs, or eating so there’s no reason to stop breeding them.
If some of yall dont like em cool dont breed em but the rest of us will enjoy our spiders and spider combos, some things just wont come to an agreeable conclusion such is life
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I have seen my completely non wobble gene snakes miss strikes more often than my spiders lol
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I have two champs and two hgw combos that wobble as bad as my spiders. I’ve seen other champs and hgw snakes wobble plenty too so I think your idea that the other genes don’t wobble as much isn’t really correct
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I have heard a lot of people say they don’t wobble as often, so it isn’t just me that thinks that. Where as every spider I have heard of has some form of wobble, even if it is hard to see.
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Here is the list I made (that’s been passed around in other threads) but this is just for wobbles:
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I was always concerned about Spiders when i first started to put together projects, so I just avoided them cuz I didnt know. As time has gone on, ive come to understand through the likes of all of you that the Spider wobble isnt typically an issue that inhibits the snake from being a snake.
I don’t get why you want to dig your feet in and get defensive, but I haven’t heard anyone say what you are saying. Wobble is connected to the genes, its in ALL of them. I have animals with all these genes from multiple multiple breeders and they all wobble. My info isn’t something I’ve just heard, I see it every day 
I am not getting defensive, I am just stating my experiences and those that I have heard from other breeders and owners.
Which one wobbles “more,” isn’t really the point that I would try and argue one way or another. The discussion is centered around does the wobble matter.
And no, it doesn’t. What matters is keeping your animals properly. I get why the first people that noticed it were alarmed, and I even get how if you’re new to the discussion and you happen to click on the “spider wobble” video showing some poor stressed usually overly skinny snake behaving that way…it just seems like there is such a mountain of evidence now from years of keeping experiences that breeders and hobbyists have amassed in the years since I’m not really sure why it’s still an issue…but I guess correcting misinformation on such a large scale takes time.
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An observation: we’ve been having this discussion for at least 10 years now. Kudos to anyone that can pin down the year that spider really popped off. 1999 marks the production of spider so we’ve got at least two decades of experience with spider. In all that time it’s been called spinning, corkscrewing, and finally settling on wobble.
Anyone out there have a 20 year old spider? Probably the oldest I’ve directly interacted with regularly was around 7 and was only spider with no other genes.
Has anyone held a woma side-by-side to a spider? A lot of conversations simply list “wobble” but the woma and spider behaviors aren’t the same at all. I wouldn’t say more or less severe but certainly different. Champagne doesn’t seem to express like either woma or spider. The awareness and descriptions on these are getting a little polluted, I think.
We seem to be hitting a point of the conversation being the proverbial dead horse. There are studies and comparisons of quantified well being, thousands of spider owners, and and aging population of original spiders. Why are new spider topics being started, at one point daily, at least weekly? Why is it still a toxic subject to the point of people labeling others “ProSpider” and browbeating ethics conversations?
At this point, with this much data, it should be pretty universally accepted as a personal ethical decision instead of rehashing decades of public discourse.
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I agree, but as long as the internet exists some people are going to use it to drag others through the dirt. The spider gene is a hot topic because someone decided it was wrong to breed spiders and they had a moral obligation to spread that opinion as far and wide as they could. The rumors kept flying because people like drama.
I wish there were studies on spiders and hard data we could look at about the wobble. I wish we had more information about what it is and how it originated. New people don’t seem to realize there isn’t much science behind it, which makes it incredibly easy for someone -literally anyone, actually- to go hog wild and making any claims they want because there’s no evidence to prove or disprove them.
Experience should trump superstition, but having scientifically gathered data would be even better.
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