Double Het For What?

[Slowcountry Balls]

The lack of blushing is thowing me.
have they shed out yet?

Yes. Except for the picture of them in the eggs, all the pictures I've posted are after their first shed. When I first realized that they weren't normals, I thought Caramel Albino or Ultramel, but quickly moved on from that guess because they weren't bright enough and didn't show enough orange for those two morphs. I then thought about Hypo, but had a clutch from a Pastel Hypo possible het Pied x Butter possible het Hypo hatch 1 day later to compare to (the Butter possible het Hypo proved out to be het Hypo by producing two Hypos and one Pastel Hypo). The blacks are quite different between the Hypos and this unknown recessive mutation. So, I don't think it is a line of Hypo, but I also don't know what it might be.

[dr del]

Well, this was supposed to be a simple pairing, het Albino het Pied x het Albino het Pied. Nothing to crazy. Was a little disappointed when I got Albinos, but no Pieds. But when I looked more closely, I saw 2 that were not normal either. Since they do not look like their normal looking parents, I am assuming that this is another recessive gene. I have contacted a very well known and respected breeder, and he agrees, that while these 2 share some characteristics with Caramel Albino and Hypo, neither gene is what they are. Both he and I are not sure what this unknown recessive gene may be. So, I am posting this, hoping that someone else might have some insight. Thanks.

Clutch in Eggs (Unknown Recessive Animals Next to Albinos):



The Albinos:




Partial Group Shot (2 Albinos, 2 Normal Looking, and 1 Unknown Recessive, Smaller Normal Looking Had Not Shed at Time of Picture):



One of Each (Unknown Recessive is Bottom Right):



Unknown Recessive (left) and Normal Looking Sibling (right):

Possibly silly question;

Was the mother bred to a mojave last season?

[Slowcountry Balls]

Possibly silly question;

Was the mother bred to a mojave last season?

No. This was her first season breeding. Both she and the sire were virgins, and they were only bred to each other.

[Slowcountry Balls]

As promised, some comparison pictures

Hypo (from a Pastel Hypo possible het Pied to a Butter possible Hypo) on the left and the unknown recessive on the right:


As you can see, the blacks are different, along with base colors.


For these two, I have the Hypo on top and the Pastel Hypo on the right (both from the Pastel Hypo possible het Pied to a Butter possible Hypo) and the unknown recessive on the left and a normal looking sibling to the unknown recessive on the bottom:

[OhhWatALoser]

I have seen snakes labeled hypos, sold at shows, that I looked like that.

[Brandon Osborne]

The Hypo gene is a gray area between normal and amelanistic. They can be variable between different clutches due to color differences of the adults. There is also another line of Hypo that is incompatible with the typical Hypo line most people have. A good friend of mine found this out the hard way. To me they look like hypos. Even the Albinos look washed out and pale.....could be Hybinos. Interesting to say the least.

[Slowcountry Balls]

I have seen snakes labeled hypos, sold at shows, that I looked like that.

The Hypo gene is a gray area between normal and amelanistic. They can be variable between different clutches due to color differences of the adults. There is also another line of Hypo that is incompatible with the typical Hypo line most people have. A good friend of mine found this out the hard way. To me they look like hypos. Even the Albinos look washed out and pale.....could be Hybinos. Interesting to say the least.

Thanks guys for the input. I know that there are a couple of lines of Hypo out there, and that there is some variability between them. I am still trying to learn as much as I can about the different lines of Hypo. This may very well be a different line of Hypo than any I have seen in person. I believe that all my other Hypos are from the Orange Ghost line of Hypo, and those are the only ones that I had available for a side by side comparison. Also, this is the only Albino clutch I have ever worked with, so I don't have any other Albinos to compare to for checking the Hybino possibility. The reasons that I didn't think it was a line of Hypo was that the black seemed too bold for Hypo and that the base color was more orange like than the Hypos that I believe are Orange Ghosts. While I have seen other lines of Hypo in person (Green Ghost, Butterscotch Ghost, and Tim Lane's $7 Ghost to name a few), all of the lines of Hypos that I have seen have that reduced/washed out black. Both of the snakes that look like this are female, so it will take some time before I can test compatibility with my other Hypo animals, which I will do. I'll also work some of the Blue Eyed Leucistic complex into it (Mojave and Mystic) to see if it produces any combinations that are similar to existing Hypo combinations. I am not jumping to any conclusions, and am obviously going to repeat this pairing in the fall. I appreciate all the suggestions, and would love for anyone to post pictures of Hypos that they think these animals are similar to.

[RandyRemington]

What do desert ghosts look like at that age?

I'm pretty uneducated on that morph but do seem to remember they start out subtle and really start looking nice later.

[Slowcountry Balls]

What do desert ghosts look like at that age?

I'm pretty uneducated on that morph but do seem to remember they start out subtle and really start looking nice later.

Today, I sent an email to a breeder that works a lot with Desert Ghost, so I may have another experienced opinion on that soon. The original, well respected breeder that I contacted has experience working with Caramel Albino, Ultramel, Hypo, and Desert Ghost, and he didn't think this was any of those genes. He said that it had similarities to Caramel Albino and Hypo, but had some differences. That's why I posted here, to get more eyes to look at them, and to see if others had already seen this or not.

[Slowcountry Balls]

I heard back from the breeder with lots of Desert Ghost experience, and she does not think that these are Desert Ghosts. I will be paying attention to the sheds to see if they are clear like the other Hypos (I kept the whole clutch together for their first shed, so I was not able to tell which shed belongs to the 2 unknown). Thanks so far for all the input.