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Second Breeding Attempt

It's a home air purification system. It's the IQAir Health Pro Plus, supposed to remove pet dander, pollen, all that good junk. Cost almost as much as my darn house payment, but it seems to be doing a good job. That was a few years ago, and I've had no issues with infection in any of the snakes in my keeping. Just the one that had an RI already when he brought her. It's probably an unnecessary step, but I'd rather play it safe, lol.

Everyone loved Ambrosius for Halloween, as always. The children who live nearby all know I keep boas and come every year with their friends to see. I dress up gothy, with black lipstick and nail polish, loads of fake piercings, black crazy hair, white face paint, all black clothes with saggy pants, eyeliner, and a big fat chain on my wallet. Then I put Ambrosius around my shoulders and the costume is complete!:D The children all want to pet him, which is ok as long as I hold his head and offer sanitizer afterwards.

The party was fun too. A few friends came over, and unfortunately one of them decided to break the smoked & beveled glass in my living room coffee table... But he also paid for damages so I can't hold it against him too much. All things considered, it was a great night.

Time to prepare snake food!
 
Lol wish I had more money to spend. You guys produce some gorgeous boas that are up for sale here. Some of the pastels... I can't believe how much pink and red in a "normal!" Snows are one of my favorites also. Lol, if I had $30,000 just lying around and nothing to do with it though, I'd buy a pair of motley het Princess Diamonds from Jeremy Stone. Easy to tell the het babies from the normals with all that pattern reduction and side striping. So many gorgeous boas out there that I would love to have and try to propagate. *Sigh* some day...

My wife said that I can buy a coral snow for our anniversary in February! If I can find one in February, lol. We'll have to see what happens. I also have hatchling racks to build and a couple cages to build before then. I've gotten plans from one of the forums here on Fauna but I want to make a few alterations to them. I want to create something more hardwood and less melamine, though that's just for appearance and display. I want to set Ambrosius up with a big 8' long, 7'tall, 2' wide hardwood enclosure in my Living Room. It takes him out of my snake room, but according to the plans I've drawn up he'll be retired from breeding in 2016. Of course, things rarely go precisely as planned... He may never breed with how darn finicky he is. We'll just have to see what he decides.

Just a random ramble. I was looking at the classifieds and started to covet. College kids certainly aren't known for having plenty of cash to throw around though, and at present I'm no exception. Paying my bills has bled me dry and I just had to get full-time employment for the first time in years, which conflicted with my classes. As a result I'm currently on a leave of absence from my university, though I will be returning in Summer. Kind of nice to have a break though. I haven't even taken a summer off in 3 years. Just all school all the time, with physics and calculus and statistics and chemistry... Not that those classes are terrible, but they do require lots and lots of homework and study to maintain any sort of decent GPA. With that much homework I haven't averaged more than 6 hours of sleep per night in about 2 and a half years (first semester or two weren't bad, so I got plenty of sleep back then).

And I've begun rambling again. How exciting :rolleyes:
 
When I first started getting into snakes I just got them as pets because I just liked the animals & thought they were all beautiful. I never had plans to breed but the last few years I been considering it, if even only once just for the experience. I always made sure that all my snakes were a little different from each other but started trying to make sure any new additions were compatible sex & morphs in case I decide to take up breeding in the future. If I bred my two older snakes soon I would hopefully get at least get 1 male sunglow that would fit in for other future plans. I'd need the hypo gene with the albino so the only other snake would be a male moonglow but they scare me because I like raising them from babies & I cant see much of a difference between a moonglow & snow baby besides a few hundred.
I say this but there are a few snakes that i couldn't help adding to my collection even though they would never used for breeding considering the snakes I have now. They would simple be there for me to stare & drool over. I like the odd balls, & extremely high dollar snakes as much as anyone but there's something or combination of things that a certain few particular snakes have that just steals my attention, a bright Sunburst Arabesque with out a lot of freckling or Anery Longicauda with strong contrast & markings for example.
 
Lol, yeah those are gorgeous. Snowglows/moonglows look a little more orange/yellow than snows. The color isn't quite the same. Best way to tell is to look at one next to a snow and then they're pretty easy to pick out. As long as you have a reputable breeder in mind who is willing to send picks like that to show contrast, you'll get a beautiful boa. They are, however, certainly not the cheapest things, lol. I saw a motley coral moonglow i absolutely drooled over but it was 1900 + shipping. There's no way I'd be able to afford that within about 5 months, lol.

I do the same thing with my boas. Right now I just have the type1 anery het kahl snow, Ambrosius the type2, and the hypo motley het type1 anery. With 2-3 more strategically planned boas I'd have a pretty amazing breeding program set up. I plan a coral snow, a motley snowglow, and an albino Aztec, preferably with coral parentage. The more I see them the more I love those pastels and corals with all the extra pinks. Gorgeous! :smokin:
 
Just out of curiosity, how do you tell if a snow or moonglow is a coral? That sounds like a marketing ploy where someone can attach another name to a snake. Corals are not a genetic mutation in which its replication adheres to Mendel's theory. They are a selectively bred trait where animals are bred for red coloration. If you cannot see this red coloration, you have no clue as to whether an animal is or is not a coral. Also, if you think moonglows are yellow, buy a snow and wait two years.

Chris
 
Oh no, I just mean a snow that has pastel in the albino lineage, which will likely produce coral albinos rather than albinos when bred to another boa with pastel in the albino lineage. The coral snow isn't a morph, it's a term I use to refer to snows produced with coral albino parentage in the genetic line. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has advertised a coral snow.
 
I'm just not a big fan of that practice in whatever form it takes. Pastels and corals are too variable to even think about in that manner. Average animals come out in even the best pastel litters. There is just no real way to determine an animal's ability to produce coral animals except for knowing the amount of color on that specific animal.

Chris
 
Scooter1685 said:
Snowglows/moonglows look a little more orange/yellow than snows.
Click to expand...

I assumed & seen the total opposite. All the moonglows I seen keep there "white" better then the snows as they age due to the hypo.

JCCS said:
If you cannot see this red coloration, you have no clue as to whether an animal is or is not a coral. Also, if you think moonglows are yellow, buy a snow and wait two years.
Click to expand...
That's what I was leaning towards when I was saying it was hard for me to tell the difference between a baby snow & moonglow, because it doesn't seem the snows have that tint until they mature. I'd hate to pay the difference to between the 2 only to find out after breeding the gene was missing.
 
Some snows dont go so yellow. Most seem too, but there are older animals out there that are still nice. I was just in Pa and seen a 10'+ snow that was a beauty for a snow. Only light yellow and still some nice contrast.Not like most snows. But going on the snow/moonglow colors when aging and the difference in prices,why get a snow when you can get a plain albino that will look like a snow in a few years. My 03 male was light yellow and no orange left on his tail. Looked like a snow.
 
Durante said:
I assumed & seen the total opposite. All the moonglows I seen keep there "white" better then the snows as they age due to the hypo.


That's what I was leaning towards when I was saying it was hard for me to tell the difference between a baby snow & moonglow, because it doesn't seem the snows have that tint until they mature. I'd hate to pay the difference to between the 2 only to find out after breeding the gene was missing.
Click to expand...

Moonglows do hold a better color then the snows. From what i have seen.
 
I could see disliking the use of titles like "coral snow" from someone who is actually breeding and selling the animals, but as a reference term for myself I reserve the right to call an animal what I wish, lol. I could call it the Fenkelstein Boa if I chose, as long as I know what I'm referring to.

However, polygenic traits that follow patterns of inheritance a bit more complicated than simple Mendelian genetics still have a somewhat predictable pattern of expression in that the f1 generation (when bred to another animal with similar qualities) is far more likely to produce animals with those coloration patterns than, say, a snow with pastel parentage bred to a simple anery with no pastel coloration in the parentage. Statistical probability is significantly higher given the pattern of gene interaction that, to an extent, has a heritable basis. That doesn't mean all the babies will be pastel, or that even half will, but it does mean they are far more likely to. Same premise behind gambling, but if you never risk you never win.
 
Thank you for explaining how selective breeding works, I've never made any selectively bred animals. Scooter, from reading your stuff here, it seems like you're really happy with yourself about knowing some terms. This is fine and good, but don't get ahead of yourself on this one. There are a lot of people around here with a lot of first-hand experience with these issues. I believe that this thought was also pondered on by Tommy a few pages ago.

Also, on a side note, is english your first language? This is just personal curiosity on my part.

Chris
 
Wha....? Oh no, I'm a biologist, lol. I'm not trying to throw out lots of terms to sound happy with myself... I suppose I don't always consider that jargon like that tends to be specific to the science rather than the hobby. I just happen to be part of both arenas... However, technically any breeding we perform is selective breeding, since we carefully select animals with specific traits to breed together. The process above is artificial selection, specifically directional selection in favor of the pastel coloration. I wasn't referring to experience in any arena, nor was I contradictory. What I did say is scientifically verifiable; breeding together animals that look pastel or have pastel colored individuals in their parentage is statistically more likely to produce pastel babies. This is how pastels were created in the first place. There's no presumption about it, all breeders do it.

Yes, English is my first language. As far as I am aware, I've been speaking in plain English. None of the words I've used are from any other language, though as I admitted earlier, some are jargon used in biological sciences rather than the herpetocultural hobby. I apologize for that, and will attempt to be more aware of my word usage in future posts.
 
With your response to my selective breeding comment, you're obviously not familiar with some of my animals. I'm about as aware of how pastel boas are produced as a person can be. I'm also fully aware that not all animals from pastel litters have the genetics to make more nice pastels.

As for the language question, the problem wasn't with what words you're using. There are some people down here in the south that know some fancy words as well. I just noticed that some of your usages/grammar were a bit awkward and that made me curious.

Chris
 
Grammatical rules are different between disciplines, and because of that scientific articles often use grammar that seems "awkward" to people more familiar with literary or media writing. That likely explains the awkward grammar.

Again, I was not attempting to use fancy words. This is how I speak. I apologize if some of the terms I use are a big heavy. I trust that none of the terms in my last couple of posts are too terribly difficult to understand.

If you do produce pastel boas, you will understand what I'm saying. I will state the information again, only this time I will try to be as clear as possible. Breeding together boas with pastel coloration, or pastel coloration in their parentage is MORE LIKELY to yield babies with pastel coloration. Never did I say "breeding pastels to pastels yields all pastel babies." I said boas with pastel coloration, when bred together, are MORE LIKELY to yield pastel colored babies. You take the pretty pink ones and breed them to other pretty pink ones and their babies are MORE LIKELY to have pretty pink colors. That's what I've said the whole time.
 
Scooter1685 said:
I could see disliking the use of titles like "coral snow" from someone who is actually breeding and selling the animals, but as a reference term for myself I reserve the right to call an animal what I wish, lol. I could call it the Fenkelstein Boa if I chose, as long as I know what I'm referring to.
Click to expand...

Yea but why would you really label it genetically if you didn't plan on breeding or selling it. I guess it okay if it's for your own reference but anything else I think would be unfair to the other party. To me my wife resemble the singer pink but I know better then to get her a gig singing & dancing.


Scooter1685 said:
However, polygenic traits that follow patterns of inheritance a bit more complicated than simple Mendelian genetics still have a somewhat predictable pattern of expression in that the f1 generation (when bred to another animal with similar qualities) is far more likely to produce animals with those coloration patterns than, say, a snow with pastel parentage bred to a simple anery with no pastel coloration in the parentage. Statistical probability is significantly higher given the pattern of gene interaction that, to an extent, has a heritable basis. That doesn't mean all the babies will be pastel, or that even half will, but it does mean they are far more likely to. Same premise behind gambling, but if you never risk you never win.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm not understanding fully but I dont know if I can agree with that, at least not enough to pay for it when buying a snake.
 
Ferrari Thread Bomb:
Ferrari1-2.jpg


Sorry, couldn't resist.

Chris AKA JCCS, is very well aware of how "pastel" boas work, sir.
 
Oh... My... Goodness... I am so sorry, I just re-read my previous post and it sounds totally offensive! I didn't mean it to be offensive, I meant it to be clear. Based on our conversations it seemed to me that a miscommunication had occurred. Please allow me to explain and hopefully salvage the situation a bit.

I have read about the pastels being bred from the same animals that originally produced the kahl albino strain. Through selective breeding, more colorful specimens were bred together over generations until boas looking similar to our current pastels were produced. This process is called artificial directional selection by biologists. That is the information I was going on, and if you like I will look through my recently viewed pages tab to come up with the site I found that information on.

In my previous post, I was under the impression that a misunderstanding had occurred and I was attempting to be clear. In that attempt I underlined and bolded the words "more likely" 3 times. I intended to do that once. I also repeated myself, and it really does sound patronizing. That was not my intention. I do apologize. Even I recognize that it sounds that way, though I certainly didn't intend it that way.

I respect your experience and your input. In the field I work in, individuals who speak plainly are rarely taken seriously. Scientific jargon is viewed as the clearest and most concise way to refer to many objects and processes, and many terms may refer to slight variations on the same thing. I have become far more accustomed to writing scientific jargon and dealing with other biologists than with other people who are not biologists.

That is not to say that breeders are inferior to biologists. Quite the contrary; I find that the biological approach without the herpetoculturist experience lacks a great deal of information that can only be gained through hands-on application of the theories and ideas presented and created by biologists. Basically, we need keepers and breeders to help us understand the reality of our theories.

I was trying to clear up what I thought was a misunderstanding, and intended no disrespect. I do apologize again, because even to me it looks patronizing and offensive. I am sorry. I didn't mean it that way. Totally my fault.
 
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