Subtle morphs and hets sold as normals?

[Swayback]

Of course no breeder wants to mix snakes up! Bad for your rep, and your pocket book.
Its bound to happen tho!
I feel like as a whole the industry is very professional, but its not hard to breed BPs, leave a pair in a tank and it's likely to happen... we've all seen hack breeders, I know I have! It's where I got my snake from...

I see it said a lot to "trust your breeder" that's certainly sound advice, I'm sure there plenty of unscrupulous people out there that are willing to do anything for a buck, including mislabel a normal as something more expensive, but I think a lot of well meaning, less organized individuals could easily mix up hets, or ever subtle morphs, especially if they are overwhelmed by larger numbers than they are used to. That leaves someone short changed ofcourse, but what about the other snake, if a normal is sold as a het or a fire/Spector/phantom, then there's going to be a "normal" that's actually a het or a subtle morph out there, maybe (probably)already sold! One person gets lucky(morph for normal price) the other get unlucky(ripped off)

Am I totally off base? Or do you agree that there's likely many not so normal normals out there?

The other scenario is related to the pet trade, I'm currently trying to rehab a bunch of dumped snakes, 2 of which are exceptional looking animals regardless of their genes!
Their current owner has very little info on them and all came from different homes, none were breeders, all pets, neglected ones at that!
I well know normals can be exceptional beautiful and are extremely varied!
People buy what they like, they don't always know much about it, or why it's special and at the point they are abandoning it, they don't care what it is!
Im not trying to prove anything about theses snakes, they just got me thinking about it...

Obviously a vivid morph isn't going to languish around some pet shop! Albinos and pied would fly out the door! But a mute colored genetic banded? I don't know...

Again, what do you folks think?
Am I just imagining this scenario, I dont think I am, but it might be far more unlikely than I think...

Id love to know what people with more experience think about this,like I say, I'm not trying to prove a thing about the snakes, I know that can only really be done by breeding them.

[dr del]

I think there are a lot of non-geneticially inheritable granites and banded snakes out there.

Some breeders sell hets ( or poss hets) as normals - but I think that is more likely to happen when selling to stores rather than individuals.

Can some people get lucky? Sure.

Is it worth chasing every possible through two or three generations? Probably not finiancially, but it can be a fun project.

[KING JAMES]

If its not 100% het I sell as a normal just to prevent the possibly of issues in the future. I would rather lose a dollar or two every now and again than get a bad rep. All it takes is one person mad that the het they got from you did not prove out to stir up a storm of negativity.

[albinos_rule]

The only way to know is to prove them out. I have a normal male I would like to do that with, and if he proves to be nothing but normal that is fine too

[alan12013]

I'm sure there have been some hets and some Gravel type animals sold as Normals before but time, effort and patience is the only way to find out. I believe there are still a lot of genes out there that will look normal but can have big effects on other morphs. As far as Normals go, before this explosion of morphs people did line breed some interesting Normals. I have some really old ball python books with pictures of "Gold Banded" ball pythons and darker colored ones with almost Black Pastel looking patterns but it was completely polygenic. Some morphs actually require a bit of polygenic breeding into a certain morph before mixing it with others and creating something else. A video I saw from NERD talks about a specific line bred animal as the one used to create a particular morph 2-4 genes later.

[Swayback]

If its not 100% het I sell as a normal just to prevent the possibly of issues in the future. I would rather lose a dollar or two every now and again than get a bad rep. All it takes is one person mad that the het they got from you did not prove out to stir up a storm of negativity.

Guess we all know who to buy normals from!
Honestly, I'd prefer to know what's possibly locked in their genes , even if only a 50%!

The only way to know is to prove them out. I have a normal male I would like to do that with, and if he proves to be nothing but normal that is fine too

It would to fun to prove a trait genetic! It's alota time work tho, and as dr del said, not likely to be a good financial choice, at this point it seems like most anything can proven genetic! But really, if you do create your own line, what would they be worth? Not much unless they catch on and get hot!

I'm sure there have been some hets and some Gravel type animals sold as Normals before but time, effort and patience is the only way to find out. I believe there are still a lot of genes out there that will look normal but can have big effects on other morphs. As far as Normals go, before this explosion of morphs people did line breed some interesting Normals. I have some really old ball python books with pictures of "Gold Banded" ball pythons and darker colored ones with almost Black Pastel looking patterns but it was completely polygenic. Some morphs actually require a bit of polygenic breeding into a certain morph before mixing it with others and creating something else. A video I saw from NERD talks about a specific line bred animal as the one used to create a particular morph 2-4 genes later.

Thats interesting about the old books! I'd love to check that out.
Could you name any if the books?

[alan12013]

I'd recommend something more recent as this is pretty basic and painful to read cover to cover if you already have a little knowledge on the species but it was interesting seeing some of the pictures of the old school polygenic animals. It actually shocked me at how much success they seemed to have selectively breeding for certain things. Try finding a snake nowadays with the dorsal strip that some of these ones had! LINK TO BOOK http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ball-Pythons...item3394506300

[bcr229]

If its not 100% het I sell as a normal just to prevent the possibly of issues in the future. I would rather lose a dollar or two every now and again than get a bad rep. All it takes is one person mad that the het they got from you did not prove out to stir up a storm of negativity.

I know you're not the only one. I was reading on FB about a guy who was delighted to find that the pastel female he paired with a male visual hypo + codom ended up throwing visual hypo babies. The dam was a pastel het hypo.

[Swayback]

I wonder if that could mess up someone breeding plans?

[Royal Hijinx]

Selling PH as Normals is fairly common practice, especially for lower end recessives like Hypo or Albino.