Improving morphs, selecting females

Your WELCOME Robin!

Brock

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Originally Posted by JKBReptiles

What your asking about is called SELECTIVE breeding, it's been around since man first domesticated the chicken and cow. Selective breeding has been used to enhance the colors of snakes for years one of the biggest advocates that comes to mind is Jeff Ronne but there are several others that do it also. If you breed a Lesser or a Mojave to an outstanding normal then you will get better looking babies. Take those babies breed them through the outstanding mom and you get better babies keep doing this over generations and you will create some really awesome babies... With recessive genetics like albino or lavender albino the darker the babies the more high contrast the albinism is...

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Originally Posted by Crazydude

Alright, so the female does effect a genetic morph, I guess my train of thought was the fact that a morphs trait/gene whipes out the normal gene if present in areas of color ext. Like it was either a normal like the mom, or a pastel like the dad, and they didnt effect eachother because of the genetic trait. So they can be a combination of both parents and not just the genetic trait (ei. Pastel)?

I do understand selective breeding, but i always thought that was inbreeding..

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JKB is correct that this is called selective breeding. However, you are correct that the example given is an example of inbreeding. The truth is MOST selective breeding involves at least some inbreeding, simply because it is easy that way. Most people do not have the money or space to keep the number of animals that would be required to do selective breeding without at least some inbreeding. Also, depending on what traits you are looking for, it might be hard to impossible to find enough stock that shows that trait without inbreeding.

If you have any doubts about how effective selective breeding can be, look at different breeds of dogs. Those all originated through selective breeding. Of course, getting results like that takes LOTS of generations.

If you want an example that is a little closer to what you might be able to achieve with BPs in your lifetime, take a look at cornsnakes. Look at okeetees, which are a wild type, but the ones in this particular area tended to have brighter colors. Then look at Abbott's okeetees. Lee Abbott selectively bred for the richest colors and widest black lines that he could find.

Also, if you wonder whether anyone will notice or care about all the hard work you put in to your selective breeding program, well, Abbott's okeetees sell for about $75, while regular okeetees sell for about $25. So if you do a good job of it, yeah, people will notice and be impressed.

BTW, your original supposition that the pastel gene might wipe out all the effects of the normal parent is incorrect since a pastel is co-dom, which means what you see when you see a pastel is sort of 1/2 super pastel and 1/2 normal. Heavy on the sort of, but you get the idea. However, even in a super pastel, the normal grandparents will have left their mark. There are large numbers of genes that contribute to the appearance of a snake. Many of them are much more subtle than the morphs, but they still have an effect. And all those more subtle genes are what you get to play around with when you engage in a selective breeding program.

Casey,

Thanks Soooo much, I totally get it now. The pastel gene thing (1/2 super, 1/2 normal) makes so much sense. Exactly the answer i was looking for.

As for selective breeding, I do understand that, and really when ever i hear it, i think of inbreeding, careful breeding for traits like what i want to do, does not seem to fit my idea of it, but thanks everyone for widening my definition of selective breeding. I have been around beardies for awhile, and basically any selective breeding there is inbreeding but thats a whole nother problem.

I do remember seeing abbott okeetees, and liked when when i thought okatees were not as special, but did not even make that connection, Again thanks, it does show alot.

Shawn, Nice pastels, and a very nice looking normal. thanks for the example

The more i see of normal females like the ones shown, the more normals interest me. I love the variation, and really the wild type is beautiful.

Again, thanks everyone for clearing this up, its really got me excited to get this going, ive been patrolling my list of about 20 breeders, KS, and all that stuff daily and started to plan out what to buy, and already have blueprints to the baby rack ext. And i still wont breed for at least a year. :rolleye2::snake:

Alright, Im obsessed, :salute::banana:

Ben

We have been selective breeding sence we invented peanut butter and jelly to make the peanut butter and jeely sandwitch witch is a triple het if breed to cheetos it looks cheesy put the peanut butter and jelly is still there.

Thats how my dad explained it to me and it makes about as much sence as the genetic tables I see everywhere. Line breeding is just selective breeding within the blood line to figure out what else is there it will never tell you if anything will show up in the future. Most morphs wont be found until we breed for future generations in blood lines. Mixing this ugly "normal" to this ugly "normal" could get you this "Custom gold grill lesser stevens" for all anybody knows.