One of those "What Should I Pair Her With" Threads

[WingedWolfPsion]

I've just discovered that my orange ghost female is going to be up to weight for breeding this season (she's at 1430 atm). I didn't think she would make it, but she has...so now I have to decide what to pair her with! I would like to maximize the profit from the clutch, and also give her the best chance of laying a good fertile clutch.

Here's what I have for the males:

Proven:
--------
Albino
Lesser Platinum
Orange Ghost
Spider
Woma

Unproven:
----------
Pied
Cinnamon
Yellowbelly
Pastel
Mojave

What would YOU do?

[Corvid]

All of the above except the pied and albino

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

Well. I said the orange ghost because pairing her with anything else will only give you that co dom if paired to a co dom and normals. You would also have no idea if any of the normals are possible het for the hypo. Since its a recessive trait id stay away from anything else recessive or you get nothing but normals unless its a het orange ghost. Theoretically of course. But people have hit the once in a lifetime chance of beating the odds with recessive traits before so you never know for sure. The only other thing id say is a proven visual pied. Then You'd have a project on your hands and probably have to hold back all of them for breed backs but you could make the first orange hypo pied in a few years if you worked with it.

[Alice]

What a wonderful problem to have!

Since all the babies will be 100% het ghost plus the male gene, I would pair her with the lesser and cinnamon. The lesser het ghost and the cinny het ghost, on many occasions, look different than just the plain co-dom because of the ghost gene IMHO.

Also, I'd never put a co-dom and recessive male onto one female because if they all come out looking normal you don't know if you just missed with the co-dom male and they are normal or if the recessive male was the daddy and they are DH. Been there, done that, had to sell the babies as normals because I didn't know for sure.

[WingedWolfPsion]

I actually hadn't thought of putting her with more than one male--I usually like to keep track of who the sire of my hatchlings is, even normals, and these would all be het orange ghosts. Sorry Draig. She's a visual, so that means the hatchlings will be 100% hets, regardless of who the father is. The pied is, of course, also a visual.

If I put her with the OG male, that would be the least dollar return--a clutch of all orange ghosts. For reasons that still mystify me, orange ghosts have dropped to insanely low prices, much lower than other double-recessives.

My two top picks were the Lesser, and the Pied--but with the pied being unproven, it's much riskier than using the lesser. I'm not even sure what a Lesser/OG looks like, I've never seen a photo. With the pied, the entire clutch are double hets, but with the lesser, only half the clutch will be double genes. The cinnie hadn't occurred to me, although I personally WANT OG/Cinnies. It's been very hard to find pricing on double-genes.

My pied male is my smallest breeding male this year--he's only just made 500 grams now. I have a Lesser holdback that I'm feeding up rapidly to try to get up to weight, just to provide backup for his proven lesser father.

[Oxylepy]

Double Recessive, man. Go for the Pied!

[snakesRkewl]

I chose lesser because the hypo lessers are smokin animals.
Not alot of lesser 100% het hypos out there, so profit potential seems good.

Hypo to albino or pied if your into a longer project, one in which is much more valuable.

In the end, it's person taste, but my choice would be lesser

[snakesRkewl]

I'm not even sure what a Lesser/OG looks like, I've never seen a photo.

beautiful they are...

[WingedWolfPsion]

Nice--I bet it's an interesting animal when grown, too. I have a soft spot for honeybees, but most of the bees seem to be diving in market price.

[LGL]

I would breed her to both the proven Lesser male and your Orange Ghost male. Since both your male OG and your female OG are homozygous, ALL hatchlings from this pairing will be OGs. Hatchlings from the Lesser would be either Lesser Het OG or Normal Het OG. That way if you plan on selling them, you can sell them in groups like 1.0 Lesser Het OG and 0.2 OGs.

The other pairing that I'd consider is going the double recessive route. Breed her to both your Orange Ghost male and your Pied male. Once again, all hatchlings from the OG male will be homozygous OG. All hatchlings from the Pied male will be Normal, Double Het for Orange Ghost Pied. Because of the homozygous x homozygous pairing, all normal appearing hatchlings are Double Het OG/Pied while all Orange Ghosts are just regular Orange Ghosts.