Second Breeding Attempt

I wasn't doubting that he knew his stuff. I thought that he and I were each failing to understand exactly what the other person meant. For that reason I continued to repeat myself in new and exciting ways. By exciting I mean mortifying... really I didn't mean to come off as offensive as I did. Again I apologize, soooo much. I would never have been that offensive intentionally. Really I didn't mean it to sound that way.

JCCS, this page has turned over. I want to make sure you get my full explanation and apology, which is on page 6 (post 60). This is just to make sure that you see post 60, because I really sounded completely offensive and I honestly did not mean to. I need to get better at speaking with actual people rather than other people in my field. I find myself sticking my foot in my mouth a lot. Really I'm sorry...

Tyrel, what I believe I am trying to get out here is that I know all your "jargon". It's not confusing, I can use it just as well as you can, but I don't use it because it is tedious and pretentious and honestly is mostly unnecessary with our practical applications. I have some biology under my belt, graduated cum laude in psych and am about half way through a master's. Good for you that you have some education, stop trying to prove it to everyone. Much like many people from the scientific community, you came in here sounding really arrogant but doing dumb stuff. You refer to yourself as a "boa researcher", yet you're running around with a boa on your neck handing out candy.

As much as this pains me to say it, I think Tommy had it pretty well figured out. Chill out, put some snakes together, get some babies, get wet behind the ears, and then come talking like you have been. There are some serious scientific minds in the boa community, Warren Booth for example, and they don't try to talk themselves up like this. I think that Albert Einstein once said that if a person cannot explain a concept in a simple manner, then they do not fully understand it.

Again, I'm not trying to break on you, but I think you're trying too hard for whatever reason. Sit back, enjoy life, have fun.


Chris

I would have apologized sooner, but I just got home from a meeting at work, which lasted 2 and a half hours.

Here is what I read about pastels that provided the basis of information for what I was saying:
1. http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/vi...p?f=78&t=24070
"As far as I know there's a difference between pastels and salmon boas which I think you are refering to here Tony. The pastel is supposed to be a line bred trait and the salmon, which is most commonly used to make sunglows, is a proven co dom trait as when a salmon is bred to a normal, only half the resulting offspring will display the salmon trait but when a super salmon is bred to a normal, all the resulting offspring will display the salmon trait and when 2 salmons are bred together you will get normals, salmon and super salmons in the clutch thus proving it a co dominant trait.

A pastel on the other hand is like the super hypo leopard geckos, it's a linebred (polygenetic) trait and you need to breed 2 together to get pretty babies. Breeding a pastel to a normal will reverse the effect and the normal gene will dominate it.

I heard a while back that Brian at BHB might have bred a super pinstripe ball python. Apparantly the animal looks exactly like a normal pinstripe but when bred to a normal it only produces pinstripe offspring and he has bred this snake a few times now and the results are the same everytime.

Also, an interesting thing that Jay Brewer said at the THA meeting was that his oppinion on most of the co dom ball python mutations (and he just used ball pythons as an example, this applies to most snake species with co dom morphs) is that a lot of them are actually just visual hets of recessive morphs like fire, cinnamon, mojave, yellow belly etc because when you look at their super forms it's just insanely different from the snake that it came from. Look at a yellow belly for example, would anyone ever have thought when you breed 2 together that you would hatch a white snake with a yellow line running down its back? True co dom morphs are ones like pastel, enchi, sunfire retics, etc. This was of course his oppinion on the subject and everyone will have a different oppinion. Makes sense to me though.

Genetics will always have us guessing. Maybe one day we'll figure it all out."

2. http://www.selectivebred.com/collectiondt.asp?ID=4
"Pastel Boas are a polygenetic morph that have been carefully developed using selective breeding techniques to produce Boas with reduced black pigment & a pink or orange pastel coloured wash. Pastel boas generally tend to show ‘washed out’ side markings due to the reduction in black pigment.

I have a few unrelated lines of pastel boas all of which exhibit soft colourful hues. Most of these lines have also been produced by adults of relatively small maximum adult size."

3. http://www.boasandballs.com/CollectionBoa.html
"Coral Albino Bci

Genetics: Color and pattern mutation - Simple recessive.
The coral albino boas originated from one of Pete Kahl's original hetero bloodlines. It was first produced in 1990 or 1991. When he bred hetero's from this bloodline I noticed several of the babies were much more colorful and had a lavender coral color to them. He kept them back, and as they grew there color intensified to almost a coral/lavender body color all over the animal."

4. http://www.kingsnake.com/boamorphs/pastel.htm
I won't post an excerpt from this one because of how long it is.

5. http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forum...astel-boa.html
There is more to this one in the post, but it also is rather long and I've only posted the first bit.

"Which is what you should say (IMO) when looking at a pastel and is what defines a good pastel. One mans pastel is another mans pretty common so in my mind you should leave no doubt. Pick pastels form good strong coloured very clean parents, this is one of those morphs that's quite simple. Bright parents = bright babies.

The people with reallly truly nice pastels will be laughing, with so many albino boas being produced he wioth the brightest pastel will (eventually) produce the brightest albinos and the cleanest/lightest ivorys (pastel anery). those with the crappy "are they aren't they" pastels won't find them quite so useful."

This is the information I read regarding inheritance of the pastel coloration. If the information I have is incorrect or misleading, I would be grateful for your input on the matter. Again, I apologize for sounding like a perfect I totally didn't mean to sound that way. My bad.

Originally Posted by JCCS

It's not confusing, I can use it just as well as you can, but I don't use it because it is tedious and pretentious and honestly is mostly unnecessary with our practical applications. There are some serious scientific minds in the boa community, Warren Booth for example, and they don't try to talk themselves up like this. I think that Albert Einstein once said that if a person cannot explain a concept in a simple manner, then they do not fully understand it.

I'm not trying to sound pretentious. These are the words we use in my laboratory on campus, and in my classes. It's simply how I speak. I use these words because I believe they most accurately portray my meaning. Again I apologize if it sounds that way, but this is simply how I speak. I speak this way to my wife, to my professors, to my colleagues, in my papers, and I even speak this way when typing up my plans. This is simply how I speak...

I really don't know what the first quote is getting at, other than the ramblings of a fairly confused individual. The second quote is directly from Jeff Ronne, as is the Kingsnake article, those are good resources. Coral is simple enough, honestly. And the guy in the last quote seems to have decent ideas.

Chris

I offered food to all my reptiles Saturday. Again everyone ate aside from Ambrosius, who refused for the second consecutive incident. As a result, I have begun lowering his temperature and photoperiod as described in my plan on page 1. I also contacted my friend (who owns the 2 females I will attempt to breed Ambrosius with this year) to inform him that Ambrosius has not eaten in a few weeks and has begun cycling. He has now begun cycling the females ahead of schedule. I should be introducing them in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I will be able to report observed courtship by the end of this month.

I also came to a few realizations and subsequent decisions unrelated to my breeding of boids, but unfortunately related to this thread thus far. I am, apparently, a somewhat abrasive individual. Perhaps, as I asserted before, immersing myself in an academic and/or laboratory environment has impacted my ability to communicate effectively. Perhaps, as others have insinuated, I'm simply a condescending or presumptuous . In any case, the result is the same and frankly I'm sick of discussing the matter. I am me, and you are you. C'est la vie.

The decisions I've made are as follows: I will stop posting lengthy stories and explanations of the proceedings. I'm sure most of you prefer short posts and longer posts just show how much of a wind-bag I can be. I'll still continue to post updates and I will use words I am most comfortable using, which will generate posts very similar to the first paragraph of this one. Just because I learned the term "cloaca" at 9 and didn't hear the term "vent" until I was 20 doesn't make me pompous. I will speak in a manner I am comfortable with. If you don't like it, don't read it.

My posts, following this one, will contain information regarding my boids that is specific to this breeding attempt. I don't need to tell past stories, and most of you don't want to read them anyway. I don't need to explain myself, and doing so mostly serves to present myself as whiny. I don't like doing it, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic intended for this particular section of Fauna. I'll stick to the boas, pythons and anacondas and ignore posts that discuss other things.

These changes will serve to reduce my stress, keep this thread more focused on the appropriate subject matter, and hopefully resolve some conflict. I shouldn't have allowed myself to focus on other issues anyhow. This is a boa forum, and on it I will discuss boas. This is my last long-winded, off-topic rambling post.

Ambrosius deposited urates today, though it appears to have been significantly more fluid than usual. He also seems to be spending more time on the cool side of his enclosure at present. Combined with his refusal to eat for the past few weeks, that may well be indication that he is preparing for breeding. I'll take this as an encouraging sign, since the females are now scheduled to be introduced on Wednesday the 14th of November (8 days from now). This date of introduction would correspond to them being separated on Friday, February 15th 2013.

According to reports from my friend who owns the females, they seem to have become slightly restless. They are spending more time exploring their enclosure, and have both begun to go into shed. He placed them in the same enclosure together in order for them to acclimate to each other. Hopefully this will result in less stress when both are placed with Ambrosius. We shall see if his endeavors are fruitful.

you're going to place the two females in with the male at the same time? interesting, never heard that before, I'll be interested to hear how it goes...

I'm a bit skeptical about the practice as a rule. It seems to me that it would cause more stress to all the animals involved. However, this particular breeding attempt is mostly to gain experience on my part. Ambrosius will be fasting for the same period of time regardless, though it will likely consume more of his energy reserves to have two females at once. That seems to be the greatest risk for me and Ambrosius.

The greater risk, at least to the best of my knowledge, is to the two females. With two females, Ambrosius' affections will need to be spread between them. This means possibly fewer ova fertilized and potentially more slugs. From what I have learned slugs tend to be more difficult to pass, increasing risk of the females becoming egg-bound.

I have discussed this with Skyler, the owner of the two females. He understands and accepts the risks involved. For my part, I will be observing the boas to see what happens. If I see courtship and copulation from Ambrosius, preferably lots of the latter, I will consider the breeding attempt a success and likely use the plans from this year as a basis for future breeding. Barring the multiple females of course, unless that yields unexpectedly great results. I expect better results from pairing single couples (1 male to 1 female).