Pics - What Color Should I Pair These Cresties Up With?

Hi!

I'm going to a reptile show up here on the weekend, and I am going to be looking for some new additions to my crestie collection. In particular I will be looking for future mates of my current cresties. I'm hoping to buy cresties that will give me some nice patterns and colors, so I am looking for your opinions on what to look for to breed mine with!

Here is my male, Trogdor, the first shot is of him partially fired up (he wasn't co-operating when I wanted to take the pics), the second pic is of him fired up one day in the tank, it's his back leg, and shows off the neat white line that he has on his back legs!:


Pic 1:



Pic 2:



Here is my female, Tango. She is a fairly plain buckskin dalmation. She has a really sweet temperment, and seems perfectly satisfied to just sleep on my shoulder when I'm at home!

Tango:





What I'm hoping you guys can help me with is suggestions of what morphs would the colors of these two be useful in. I was guessing a dark red harly, or fire for my red male, and a lighter morph for the female? I can try to assume what I'll get by mixing these guys with morphs, but I haven't been able to find out much about how the genetics goes with these guys. Some people tell me that there is no relation, but then I see all these people with such vibrant morphs, that I cannot believe they just happened out of the blue!

I really like the redness of my male, and don't want to loose it, as many people that I've shown him to want cresties his color...

Sorry if I'm being a pain in the behind here, just looking for some advice from the more experienced people out there, so that I can start producing some beautiful cresties like you do next year!



Thanks for the time and advice!!!
Amanda

Nice geckos!

Some of the best advice I ever got was this -put your best looking ones together and they will produce good stuff.

If I were you - I would go bright and harley - you can't go wrong with that. Maybe get a killer harley female and have a 1.2 trio. You might be surprised what that little female of yours would produce.

Thanks for the comments Monte!

I love my male to death (err, well, not literally of course!).

I was thinking of trying to find one awesome harly female to buy, and then maybe getting a couple juvies (unsexed) that are also nice, and just take my chances as to what sex they are.

Also, does anybody have any advice for what to look for at a show, as far as good, responsible breeders and healthy animals? Are there any tell-tale signs that should send off red flags in my head about buying from somebody, apart from the obvious things such as they don't know a thing about the species, or their animals look unhealthy?

Thanks for any advice, I'd love to learn more from you guys!!!
Amanda

Amanda, that flash of red from his leg is brilliant. I think that if you add a harley that would be cool. You could also go with a nice patternless yellow, that would also be sweet. Good luck with the search and let us know what you find.

I agree, I would definately get a nice Dark Harlequin to go with him. As for what to look for when at a show, I have no idea. It is very hard to pick out a Crested at a show because you won't know what they are going to actually look like.

Good Luck at the show and definately post pics of what you get!

I am going to a show this weekend as well, and hope to find something nice! Not sure if it will be a Leopard,. crested, Fat Tail, or even a Chameleon

Thanks for the comments, I was thinking about trying to find a really nice yellow patternless, but from just looking around the internet, it seems that they are far and few between! I won't give up yet, I'm sure I'll find one eventually!

Thanks again,
Amanda

Not sure how much you want to spend, but Anthony Caponetto (acreptiles.com) has some gorgeous Dark Harlequins. That is where I got mine:

I agree, Anthony Caponetto does have awesome coloration in his cresties, maybe one day I will splurge and go for one of those, right now, I think I will try to find something in Canada, as it is normally a royal pain in the behind (and wallet) to ship from the states up to here.

Thanks,
Amanda

sorry for a long post but I thought seeing might help judge
I would suggest a dark harly and a fire...
I'll put up pics of my first colony and some of the babies from them that are juvies/subs/adults...dad of all is the red dalmation male
my yellow brindle/tiger female has hatched out red (dalmation, patternless, and slight bicolor) and tan/yellow/orange (some ppl might say orange pastel, but I say what I see) that have some pattern
my fire female had 6 out of 8 that are fire/har with him (some have dalmation) and the other 2 were red dal and red patternless
the pink female's babies are still young but in the red/pink category

some of fire mom's kids







some of yellow brindle mom's kids


the red one in the above