Breeding Project

Hi Everyone,
We were thinking of breeding Kings for the first time this year, we have bred Cornsnakes for awhile now, and were wondering if it would be ok to breed an Albino Cali to a Mexican Black? If it is ok what would the offspring be and look like? Any feedback on this topic will be greatly appreciated.
Jay & PJ

BUMP....can someone please give us some feedback on this topic. It would be our first non-corn breeding venture and we think it would be very exciting. We were just wondering if this is something that has been done in the past by anyone here so as we may see/find out what the potention hybrid offspring may be and look like.
Thanks,
Jay & PJ

Myself and a breeder friend of mine back in the nineties thought about doing this with a MBK and a lavendar cal king, but after further investigation into the genetics of it all ( with which I have forgotten..doh!! ) and speaking with many breeders, the idea is that we would get mutts that may be hard to sell or give away. In other words, combining the two wasn't going to produce something new or exciting but basically make some snakes that were hybrids with perhaps more black on them than what a normal cal king would look like and perhaps, not as attractive as normal cal kings or MBKs.
With that being said, and the details that are now forgotten from all those talks I had with other breeders, the question you ask, " is it ok? " to breed those or not, well, you will have people on either side of the issue: those that like hybrids and those that do not. I do not care for hybrids personally, but that is just me.

I think that albino cal king you have there is really pretty!! I would encourage you more to breed that albino cal king with either another cal king of some type of phase and breed the MBK to a MBK. Both specimens you have are very pretty and would maybe yield some awesome babies.

I did though breed an albino cal king much like yours one year with a black and white desert cal king, and I got some really nice looking and different babies that had some abberant patterns but with more of a cream-bright white mixed with black. Very cool looking and also 100 percent cal king, plus the babies were het albino. I honestly regret not keeping one of those babies.

Anyways...thought I would post some feedback. Take care!

There's really no way to accurately predict what the offspring would look like. Being hybrids, it would depend on how much influence from which parent a given hatchling had.

Everyone who knows me knows I am strongly against hybrids. That aside however, I can honestly say I see no real possibility that the offspring will be an improvement on the looks of either parent.
The good qualities of each parent species are opposites of each other and as a result when they are combined it will only degrade those qualities.

I'm betting the end goal is to produce the solid blak MBK as an albino, which would result in a solid yellow snake. In reality, due to teh presence of patterning from the cal king, it would take numerous generations of back breeding to other MBKs to eliminate that pattern but retain the albino gene.
In the interim, you are going to produce a load of hatchlings that, as stated earlier, will be difficult to sell at best.
The market for hybrids is fairly small to begin with, and it entirely based on the appearance of the animal. With this particular cross, I just can't see the babies looking like anything that would cause someone to say, wow I want one of those.

I agree with the above post, those are two nice examples of their species, the best move would be to aquire mates for them of equal quality and breed them to produce more of the same species.

Well myself am mainly a boa and ball python breeder but do breed a few different kings now. It could either make a cool look het albino hybrid like bateaters from burms and retics. Or you could breed them and genetics might now match up and you get all infertile eggs. I myself don't like hybrids so to speak of. I would say what ever sex the albino cal king is get another albino cal king of the opposite sex and breed them. But you could try this season and see what you get could always donate the baby's to a school with a reptile program or try to sell them and make a buck. Either way it is your choice you might get fertile eggs and you might not. So my advice is to pick either species and stick with breeding the same species instead of mixing them.

Thank you for the replies. I can see where everyone is coming from. I had thought that by crossing them that eventually with f2's and f3's that somewhere down the road I would get an all Yellow Albino. The thought of a very vibrant all yellow King seemed like it would be a very attractive venture. I figured the f1's would look more like a Cali but maybe with very black markings and also some abberent patterning caused by the mix of the banding from the Cali and solid color of the MBK. I think I will heed all of your advise and keep my breeding plans species specific. Cali x Cali and MBK x MBK. Again, thanks for the replies and also the compliments on "Ivy" (Cali) and "Ivan" (MBK). UUUUMMMMM.... anyone got a 1.0 Albino Striped Cali or a 0.1 MBK for sale?
Thanks,
Jay

If you want an all yellow albino you need to breed the albino banded Cal to the yellowest banded and striped Cals you can find. This has already been done and they call them Hi-Yellows or Bananas. The problem is that the yellowest Cals come from the coastal areas between San Diego and Newport and over the years desert phase black and whites and Hi-white Cals have been mixed with the Hi-Yellows and it has degraded the intensity of the yellow in many lines. These are not hybrids but rather a mix of diffent locality Cals; the Cals from coastal southern California tend to be brown and yellow while the Cals from the inland deserts tend to be black and white.
If you look hard you can still find really nice Hi-Yellows for sale but many of them carry desert influence so some of the babies can tend more towards white or cream markings intead of yellow. The alternative is to start the whole project over by breeding your albino to nice normal brown and yellow Cals. Every generation you should get some with a little more yellow pattern than the parents. By mixing the banded with the striped you will break up the pattern which will eventually lead to and 80-95% yellow snake.
If you breed your albino Cal to a MBK you will be working in the opposite direction because you will be reducing the yellow pattern with the influence of the all black MBK. As an albino this would eventually give you a colorless all white snake.
Very few people work with pure coastal brown and yellow Cals but I do know of one place, VIVID Reptiles that is working with a hypomelanistic version they call Blue-Eyed Blonds. They are rather expensive (around $150ea.) because they are hypos but they also happen to have originated in coastal San Diego county and have very strong yellow so they will give you that untainted yellow to start with that has not been mixed with desert phase. If you get a Blue Eyed Blond from Vivid be sure to get one that is already feeding on mice as that line is very close in generations to the wild and does have the tendency to want to eat lizards as hatchlings. This tendency should be reduced by breeding to your albino Cal because those have already been bred for many generations and have a stronger feeding response to rodents.

Thank you very much Aaron that was an excellent reply. But since you were so good with your explanation the idea of an all white non leucistic animal is quite the idea in itself. I completely understand what you mean by introducing the MBK. I guess I will have to think it through and decide if the possibilities are a worth wild goal. Again, thank you to all who replied.
Jay

You're welcome. Here's some more ifo you may be interested in. There are already solid white Cals made by breeding amel to hypermelanistic. They are called Blizzards. The hypermelanistic gene is a naturally occuring mutation that has shown up in the wild in various populations of Cals. It has a suffusion of dark pigment in the light bands results in a dirty looking Cal bewith an obscured pattern. Hyper means increased and melanin means dark pigment.
The populations this hypermelanisim is known to occur in are the San Jouquine Valley, CA, Los Angeles county, CA and in Baja(central Baja, I think).
The most extreme hypermelanistics have a pattern almost totally obscured by dark pigment. It is not actually know if those populations are all compatible but it was one or more of those combined with the albino Cals that was used to make Blizzards.
Making essentially the same thing with a Cal/MBK cross would not be the best use of hybridization. Hybrids that end up just looking like copies of pure snakes are not a good idea, just my personal opinion. Of course you are free to persue that but in my opinion a real nice bright yellow amel Cal would be much prettier and they are more rare, hence, again in my opinion only, of more value.