• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

I want your opinion

Your really hit it there Cheryl. If you have pics of a clutch hatching and it is 5 normals and 1 pied, you will have no trouble selling those pos het siblings regardless of if people know you or not.

I think you guys all have very valid points. I was in this business for many years and nobody outside of the pet trade knew who I was because I only did wholesale to pet shops. I think that the only reason that people know who I am at all now is just because I have traveled and done so many shows and sold so many animals and now those people are online. That is kind of the poor mans way to do it.

If you want quick recognition and a fast legitimacy, I think you can get it with big shiny color adds in reptiles magazine, appearances at a couple big herp shows a year or a very well advertised web site and web presence. It is a different era and it is much easier to establish yourself. When I first started buying snakes from Brian at BHB and Mark & Kim Bell, they were very well known here in Michigan but because there was no internet and fewer shows and not very many high end animals, none of todays criteria really applied. Now you can really get yourself out there very quickly. I also think Cheryl has a good point on how far a few good posts contributed to a board like this go.

I am really glad I started this thread. This is some really good thoughtful conversation on a topic that I really spend time thinking about. Evan
 
>Your really hit it there Cheryl. If you have pics of a clutch hatching and it is 5 normals and 1 pied, you will have no trouble selling those pos het siblings regardless of if people know you or not.

I don't think producing homo animals will help. My last clutch was all 100%. I have pics of mom, dad and the clutch. Dad is a friggin albino! I have some offers on the females but none on the males.

Cheryl, you make a valid point about time. But it can be misleading. For example, if you look at my user name, it says I'm a junior member. But if you look for posts from me, you will see I have posted here for at least two years. I lost my password and had to get a new login and password so it looks like I'm brand new even though I'm not. :(
 
Buying Hets

My "Rule of Thumb" on Hets is this: If I cannot afford a pair of definate hets, I cannot afford that particular morph. That is just my opinion. However, rules are meant to be broken, or at least bent. I recently purchased a Bell line male hypo and 0.3 Possible hets. The purchase was made from someone I had never heard of, but, got pics of the male, he was worth the asking price for all 4 animals, so I got them all, male hypo and 3 poss het females.

I have breedable het pairs of Carmel albinos, green ghosts, and axanthics that I intend to let breed this coming year. I will take a pic of the clutch in the incubator, hatching, and hope I get at least one homozygous animal in each clutch. Selling 66% possible hets with pics of the homozygous clutchmates should be easier than selling 50% possible hets, because there is no homozygous animal to photograph.

With my albino project, it should be easier, the male is an albino, with two adult het females. I will sell the 100% hets with pics of the albino siblings and the father.

One thing I do agree about is I would be very hesitant to buy 2nd hand possible hets.
 
poss hets

Evan,
I've known you for a long time as I do other BIG names in the hobby. I got my recognition just like you said. I went to a few Orlando & Daytona Expos, a California show, the Las Vegas show Tim Rainwater put on and numerous small shows. I put together a webpage showing my collection and herp room. I spent lots of money and lots of time getting my face and name known. I bought my hets from some of the better names and still can't sell poss het males. I think the key to selling is trust , honesty, communication, and how you handle any problems that may occur. When I sell a het or poss het I print a pic and sign it as part of the receipt to the buyer. This way they have some evidence should they try to resell. I know this isn't fool proof but its something. As long as there is money involved someone will try to beat the system and thats to bad. As much as I love this hobby my name is still the most important thing to me. A herp is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but your name is PRICELESS!!! Excellent thread, now the little guys will have a better understanding as to why their poss hets don't sell well. See you at one of the shows. Ron Radloff d.b.a. "The Crawl Space"
 
IMHO, although possible het females may certainly have some value, POSSIBLE het males are only worth what a normal would cost. If someone is going to get into the possible het game, at the very least they should spring for a DEFINITE het male to go with them. Homozygous would be even better. That's why homozygous males for a new morph command so much money. They will be the real bread winners.

Years ago I was in the market for Amelanistic Nelson's Milk Snakes. Gary Sipperly had only females at the Mid Atlantic Show and I was interested in buying some. But he stipulated that I must buy a het male to go along with the homozygous female. I told him flat out that the het male was completely useless to me as I fully intended to get a homozygous male from someone to breed to the homozygous female. He said he would make me a real good deal on the het male, but I said even if he GAVE it to me I still would not want it because I have no need for it. Breeding a het male to my homozygous female would give me much less of a return than using a fully homozygous male. I was planning on buying another pair from Steve Osborne, so I would have a male I wanted to use for breeding. So I had to walk away from the deal. He wouldn't budge and neither would I. Not blaming him, but it wasn't what I wanted.

A possible het male yet? And breeding one to either a definite het or possible het female? Why make the odds any longer than they already are?
 
poss hets

Rich,
I couldn't agree with you more..HOWEVER a corn, king, or milk is much, much cheaper than some of these ball morphs. I have walked from deals when my bank account allowed me to. Unfortunately some hobbyist can only afford poss hets and take the long road. For the price of poss hets even if you produce all normals you'll make your invesment back in time. Even the small guys have to start somewhere. Ron Radloff
 
I count 63 proven genetic mutations at this time that I know of personaly.
Click to expand...

Reading back over this thread, this statement puzzles me.

How were they proven? Each new genetic line basically needs to be bred with all of the other known genetic lines (at least the ones that are non-amelanistic, etc.) in order to prove that they are not just a slight variation of one that already exists. This will be a daunting task, to say the least! When that 63rd "proven" genetic line came about, was it bred to the other 62 existing genetic lines? I seriously doubt that. Even half of them? Again, I doubt it. We are talking about a project that would take DECADES.

Are they TRULY genetic? Breeding a pair of together may full well produce offspring like the parents, but what happens when you breed a "Clown" to a "Mojave" (just pulling names from a ball python website)? Do you get normal double heterozygous animals that when grown up and bred together will produce some Clowns, some Mojaves, and MAYBE a Clown Mojave along with some normals? Or do you just get a mixture in that first generation?

I have what may be a new line of Anerythrism in the corn snakes. But before I can claim that, I need to breed it against 'A' Anerythrism, 'B' Anerythrism (Charcoal), Caramel, and probably Lavender (for good measure) and analyze the resulting offspring.

I have several lines of Hypomelanism that are so similar looking to each other, yet genetically incompatible (meaning: breeding a Hypo to a Hypo produces normals) that they have completely floored me. I may have to drop "Hypomelanism" completely from my terminology, because it now apparently covers a wide range of truly genetic traits that are NOT isolated and identifiable.

And this is with a species that produces fairly large clutches of eggs, giving me a larger sample to analyze the results. Smaller samples (as in clutch sizes) would make this sort of determination MUCH harder to do.

Quite frankly, when I release a new gene in the corn snakes, I suppose it would be reasonable for me to try to get $20K for it. Based on the math, the return on the investment would be MUCH greater with a corn snake even in just the first clutch for the initial purchasers than it ever would be for a ball python. 16 to 20 babies in the first clutch as opposed to 4 to 6? Duh! :D

To be perfectly honest, at the last reptile show I attended, I walked by another vendor's table stocked with a lot of ball pythons all sporting new names and high price tags. I have seen just as much variation in normal corns, yet wouldn't even think of assigning new names to such minor differences in them.

And I thought we were getting carried away with corn snake names..... But hey, if people can get that kind of money for that sort of thing, then go for it.

But it sounds to me like there is a bubble going to be popped sometime in the future.

IMHO, of course.
 
Co-dominant proven genetic mutations: pastel/super pastel, platinum/lesser platinum, black black/red axanthic

proven dominant, possibly co dom: spider, mojave, phantom, pinstripe, cinnamon pastel,

proven recessive: albino, stripe, clown, pied, ghost, axanthic, carmel albino, lavender albino, patternless, pearl, leucistic,

combo gene animals produced: pastel ghost, albino spider, ghost spider, bumble bee spider, coral glow, carmel glow, killer bee, lesser platinum pastel, ghost pinstripe, spider pinstripe, leucistic? (Ralph Davis), "mystery balls" (Ralph Davis), pewter pastel, hypo mojave, pastel pinstripes

this is just a sampling off the top of my head Rich. There are many many more. Next year we will have albino stripes, pied spiders, albino pinstripes, albino pastels, super pastel ghosts, super pastel pinstripes, albino clown, carmel spiders and many many more. Evan
 
"Greater" Platinum...

Evan,

Good list... except for the Platinum/Lesser Platinum stuff being Co-Dominant. A Platinum or "Greater (AKA "Daddy")" is a Lesser Platinum that is also Homozygous for a recessive gene that the line has yet to produce by itself. In other words we haven't seen the homozygous form of this recessive gene by itself without the Lesser Platinum gene making into a "Greater." The "Greater" Platinums produced this year were from Lessers bred to Normal Siblings that were all 100% Het. for the Hypo-like "Daddy" condition...

Not to create an argument but perhaps the Co-Dominant "Super" form of the Lesser Plattinum line and/or Phantom line is the Leucisitic project.

The Dom/Co-Dom situation of the Platinum project is still unproven.

Just a thought...
 
Okay I am not a breeder by any streach of the imagine. I am a collector. Breeding in a few cases pays for the keeping of the collection. I also have never bought a possible het. I would if a breeder was willing to make this deal. I will pay you normal price now and if the het proves out I will pay the difference. I know of no breeders willing to do so and therefore will most likely never by a pos. het. Now if the situation were reversed I think I would consider doing this with a written contract and a chipped snake if I felt the buyer appeared trust worthy and had at very least a few good references. Like someone else said a Pos. het is nothing more than a normal and a lottery ticket. The odds are not much better. (by the way I finally won my first $7 on a lottery ticket after 10 years of playing)
 
Now granted I am no expert in genetics nor am I in ball pythons, by any stretch of the imagination, Evan, but when someone is talking about a "gene" what exactly does that mean to you?

In your list, what happens when you breed an albino with a carmel albino or a lavender albino. What do you get? If you get anything BUT normals, then you are talking about the carmal albino and lavender albino being just variations of the albino (amelanistic) gene and not separate genes themselves. Or is it possible in ball pythons to breed an albino to a lavender albino and get a double homozygous albino lavender albino in an F2 generation?

In the corn snake world there are animals sporting names such as Amelanistics, Fluorescent Oranges, Candy Canes, Amelanistic Okeetees, and Sunglows. More depending on which day of the week it is. But they are not all separate genes. They are all variations of the Amelanistic gene. I prefer to refer to the as "cultivars" which is shorthand for "cultivated variety". In other words fully recessive genetic types that are selectively bred within that genetic line for a certain appearance. Still a single gene, but with designer names applied to those variations.

When I talk about a "gene" I mean exactly that. In corn snakes, as far as I know, no co-dominant (with one exception, mentioned below) nor dominant gene has ever turned up. Maybe Blood Red could be considered partially co-dominant, but that could be strongly debated, I am sure.

I guess I would be curious to know what happens when you breed TWO dominants together. Does one win out, or do they then switch to being co-dominant? This has been done, hasn't it to determine whether spider and pinstripe are just a variation on the same theme?

With corn snakes all of the genes I am aware of are:

Amelanism
'A' Anerythrism
'B' Anerythrism (Charcoal)
'A' Hypomelanism (joker in the deck)
'B' Hypomelanism (Sunkissed)
Motley
Stripe (and this may just be a variant of Motley)
Caramel
Lavender
Blood Red (quasi genetic)
*Aztec (zippers & zigzags - problematical genetics)

Included just for completeness, however this pattern variant is an anomaly, and I am REAL hesitant to call it genetic. But I don't know what else to label it as. It is VERY unpredictable, which argues against it being genetic. If there is such a thing as a codominant pattern gene in the corns, this would likely pass for that.

Unless I missed a couple, that is it. There are new things out there, of course (heck, I have several myself), but until they are bred against the known genetic types, then, in my opinion, they are not known nor proven genes. Everything else out there is either a gene combo, variation on appearance due to selective breeding, or appearance based on locality.

And to be sure, take any one of those genetic types and I could fill a table at any show with variations of them that are distinctly different looking. But they have not been applied any sort of distinctive name to identify the. That is likely coming, I suppose, so maybe the ball pythons are just ahead of the corn snakes in this arena.

Not saying you are right or wrong, just that I think our terminology is not the same when you say "gene" and I say "gene".

I've got absolutely no problem with people coming up with catchy names for some variation they have. Been there, done that myself. But to claim that something is a new unique gene carries a burden of proof with it to determine that it is NOT the same, but merely a variation, of an already know genetic type. My question is "has that been done with the ball pythons?"

Not that I have any real interest in the ball pythons or ever intend to get any. Just curious about the terms being thrown about that I hear.
 
Rich, it depends on the mutation. When BHB bred a proven dominant pinstripe to a proven dominant spider he produced a clutch that had both variants in it and one animal that is pretty much a perfect merger of both traits. When you breed codominant pastel jungles together you will get pastel jungles and some super pastels. In a way the pastels are the visual het form of the incomplete dominance, the fully dominant form being exhibited in the super pastel. When bred to a normal, a super will produce all pastel jungle offspring. The carmel albino and albino genes are different recessive genes that are not compatible. The lavender albino will not be proven to be incompatible or compatible with the albino gene until the next one or two seasons but from all of the thousands of albinos produced from all the different bloodlines imported over the past decade, there has never been a lavender albino produced from them. That gives me strong reason to believe that it is another incompatible gene. Like in corns, there are different lines of anerythristic that are also not compatible recessives.

Your example of the clown x mojave breeding from earlier, would produce mojaves het for clown, and het clowns. If you bred a mojave het clown to clown or het clown, because you have a dominant gene combined with a recesssive trait on one side and you have the recessive trait on the other, you would potentialy produce clowns due to both animals being het for the recessive trait, mojaves due to their dominance and a new combined mutation that would be a clown-mojave thing as well as some normals that would be possibly het for clown. I hope that I am understandable. I am really tired. Evan
 
Hey Sean, I went back to Ralphies site and read the text on his clutches of platinum offspring because I could not remember it all. For those who don't know, this is genetically speaking, one of the most insane things we have seen as far as it's complexity.

What Ralph seems to say at this point anyways is that in the platinum gene (platty daddy) as he calls it, is both dominant and recessive genes existing simultaneously in a double homo or homo-dominant animal that he origionated his project with. The "lesser" platinums that the platinum founding animal origionaly produced are a dominant trait but different from dad. When bred back to normal siblings they can produce animals like dad. It just gets stranger from here. When the platinum mutation was bred to another dominant/co dom gene "phantom" they produced babies resembling the different genes represented and they also produced leucistics. Why? Who knows. The leucistics may be the combo of the two dominant forms or the combo of the two dominants+something else??? Then you have Pete Kahl and another breeder that have leucistic balls that appear to just be simple recessives.

Rich, I know you are not interested in balls but they are really interesting to look at as models. Evan
 
Back
Top