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Yes, I'm going there: any updates on the scaleless gene yet?

snowgyre

snowgyre

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Last year I saw TONS of scaleless head "hets" for sale at Daytona, but only one scaleless ball python, which drew a lot of controversy for a variety of reasons. Does anyone here work with scaleless ball pythons, and if so, have you produced any viable homozygous scaleless animals yet? This is a gene I've been interested in for years, but with the community being so secretive with the production of homozygous animals, I'm beginning to worry that there are issues with it, similar to the PE desert gene. Ball python people don't tend to be so secretive showing off new morphs unless there are problems...

Thanks for your input.
 
Dead project? There are 19 hets for sale on MorphMarket. I'm pretty sure it's not dead; it's just far out of the price range of 99% of the market.

EDIT: Not to hijack a thread, but speaking of projects the Pixel Pied project just hit the Reptile Report which is awesome. I forget who it was that started it, but that thread and the name began here on these forums a couple months ago! Pretty cool.
 
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The main concern is that no one has come forward showing off the homozygous snakes. There's been a nasty rumor circulating that the full-blown scaleless animals (which, presumably, is what everyone's goal is to produce) have organ problems and die before they reach maturity. The silence from breeders who are working with this gene is not heartening... one would think that plenty of scaleless animals have been produced if the quantity of hets available is any indication. So... where are they? Why aren't people bragging about a scaleless mojave, pinstripe, pastel, etc.? These are not morphs that are difficult to get, considering the plethora of het combos I saw at Daytona.

The last time the community was this silent on a morph was with the PE dominant deserts, in which females were infertile. A whole bunch of people spent big money to invest in that project, only to have their investment flop when the truth came out. So far the scaleless project seems to be going that route. Ball python people are not introverted... so where are all the scaleless snakes that had to be produced by now?
 
snowgyre said:
so where are all the scaleless snakes that had to be produced by now?
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That's what I have been wondering for awhile now. It's one of the reasons I haven't even considered getting into the project yet. Also I have heard that the scaleless balls have more than just internal organ issues. As in complete physiological changes like the absence of heat pits among some other changes.
 
Honestly I've never been interested in owning one (even if the price was a "normal morph" price). I just don't see why; I like scales. But then again, I'm also really opinionated on that kind of thing. I won't touch anything spider, etc. just because I don't think it's ethical to. But I don't go badmouthing those that do either.
 
Deuce said:
Dead project? There are 19 hets for sale on MorphMarket. I'm pretty sure it's not dead; it's just far out of the price range of 99% of the market.
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They are being sold to recoup money before the news about the organ failure issue with the fully scaleless becomes public.
Mr. Smooth.......sold (pawned off after the show last year)......died of organ failure. Even something as simple as eating causes issues with the organs swelling. Give it time. There is a lot of money involved in this project and a lot of hatred and silencing going on behind the scenes. It will eventually not be able to be kept under wraps much longer.
Desert project deja vu all over again.
 
I'm not a fan of the scaleless, beyond the ethics I don't find them that appealing to look at.


And not to further hijack the post...but I'm the one with the pixel pied project going on. And if my calculations are correct I should have eggs on the 24th. I didn't know my boy made it to the reptile report again!
 
I understand that, but I wasn't seeking opinions about how people felt about scalelessness in snakes. I was asking about the progress of the project in ball pythons, given the silence on the issue.
 
I'm not sure that everything here is completely accurate. There are a lot of rumors going around that I haven't seen substantiated.

Steve, just curious, where did you hear that they have organ failure?

BHB are the ones who originated the SH project. They also originated the clown project, sunset project, etc...where are all of the sunset combos and why weren't they the ones coming out with all of the cool clown stuff? If they were the first to have it and it was a number of years ago, shouldn't they have a huge stock by now?

The thing is, a lot of large breeders in the know stated that BHB is having issues with snakes dying. This would explain why they haven't done anything with the sunsets or clowns. It would also explain why there haven't been any more scaleless.

You have to keep in mind, this is a recessive gene, you can't just pump it into a bunch of females and get combos out. There are a number of people with females this year that have just now reached sexual maturity. We will know in the next few months (hopefully) as a few people have finally done het to het pairings.

I don't see one point (BHB) as a correlation. Until we see more people hatch them out we don't really know. I've talked to multiple people who personally held the scaleless snake BHB produced and said that it was perfectly healthy, no issues at all. I've watched videos of the snake and do not see any issues with it. All of the negativity is based on rumors, I have seen zero factual basis for any of it.
 
This is from Winston at WHS. He was sued by Brian for something ridiculous and won the case. He was one of the first to be looking into the SH project and was originally offered the microscale snake that ended up with NERD.
 

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Just to reiterate, this is recessive and no one has had females that were ready to breed until now. That's why you see a bunch of het combos for sale (males can breed at a year old) but no visual scaleless. Give it time.
 
But scaleless isn't just owned by BHB anymore. I saw multiple breeders in Daytona with het scaleless animals. Even if Brian may be having issues at his facility, I find it hard to believe that other breeders have not yet produced homozygous scaleless, given the preponderance of hets out there. Aren't there also two independent lines of scalelessness too? Brian had one, the other is the microscale, and I forget who originated that one?

My goal here is not to incite drama. I am simply wondering if this project is viable, and have seen a lot of defensiveness and angry emotions from those working with the gene, which is alarming. Generally where there is smoke there's a fire.
 
SPJ said:
The person who bought the snake from BHB.
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I still don't see one point as a correlation.

I think that people are generally angry at Brian because he hasn't promoted the project at all. He sold the hets to people and then kept quiet about everything. For over a year no one heard or saw anything about the scaleless snake Mr. Smooth, and so of course everyone started assuming (reasonably so) that it had died or had problems. Then all of a sudden it shows up at Daytona and is perfectly fine.

Everyone is mad at Brian because he made it seem like there were issues by not saying anything. Again, as a recessive, no one has had females ready to go until now. Either this year or next we will see more visuals, Brian should have had more by now but as Winston's post suggests, there may be something more going on.
 
snowgyre said:
But scaleless isn't just owned by BHB anymore. I saw multiple breeders in Daytona with het scaleless animals.
.
Click to expand...

People bought the scaleless head males for 50k, and then held back females to group up. You're talking a minimum 4 year investment to go from a hatchling male to breeding him and growing up one of his daughters to breed back. Like I said, no one has had females that were ready to go until now.
 
I find it hard to consider one person buying a snake and having it die a sure sign that all related snakes will have the same problem. That's a pretty ridiculous leap to make. Just my opinion.

Maybe there are issues, I don't think anyone knows for sure at this point. If a bunch of people hatch out scaleless this year and we still don't hear anything, THEN I'll start to worry.

Also, there is the BHB line of SH, WHS line, and the microscale (completely separate). Winston was taken to court by Brian for saying that his line was the same, but it turns out that it is (some kid bought a "normal" from Brian at a show that turned out to be an extremely low expression SH). Winston purchased the group from him and that's where the "WHS line" came from.
 
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