Big News Coming Tomorrow!

I am trying to figure out why a female desert laying eggs has turned into a 30 page fight. Seems like people would be glad to finally see a good clutch from a desert. Would I chance one of my animals, probably not. The OP paid enough for the animal and knew the risk. I hope the eggs hatch and babies thrive. All the bickering is crazy. Just my 2 cents

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Originally Posted by pythnsnkmn

I am trying to figure out why a female desert laying eggs has turned into a 30 page fight. Seems like people would be glad to finally see a good clutch from a desert. Would I chance one of my animals, probably not. The OP paid enough for the animal and knew the risk. I hope the eggs hatch and babies thrive. All the bickering is crazy. Just my 2 cents

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My thoughts exactly..I have never understood why the project was so harshly trashed in the first place..Desert females producing eggs can only be a good thing, you would think the hobby would be pleased rather than bicker looking for reasons to disbelieve that the animals in question possess the desert gene.

Even if the females continued to have a problem males still make beautiful combo's...Its always went over my head, but maybe I dont look at my females as a commodity..its the only reason that I can see for the demise of the project :(

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

You were making some intelligent head way until you equated the problems laying and forming eggs to a morph.

Oh, yeah, I just picked up a super hypo, enchi, black pastel, cantlayeggs female.

Now, had you said "does stacking more genes on spiders remove the wobble?" I would agree entirely with you. However, you didn't.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

You're furthering my argument. For spiders, and desert females, it is a defect associated with the morph; it is not a morph itself.

Apples to oranges, is what you're doing.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

I'm just saying that equating the inability to form or lay eggs to a morph such as hypo or anything else is not something you can do. It is not a morph, but a defect associated with a morph.

It's just not sound logic.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

Doesn't that also imply that you could somehow create an animal that is not desert at all, or spider at all, and have the issues those two have?

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Originally Posted by paulbuckley

i always thought it strange that as a community, ball pythons folks decided desert females infertile. i understand that up till this point, 100% of breeding attempts failed - but hear me out...

where did stan's desert come from ? where did pete's come from ? some past or present wild and free snakes out there created them. are we to believe in the wilds of ghana only male desert ball pythons exist / existed ?

to create a desert ball python, you need the desert gene. no different than a pastel or a spider. you cannot use non-desert gene snakes to create a desert offspring. the same logic follows for pastels, spiders, etc.

i suppose an argument could be made that, sure desert clutches are made, but in the wilds of africa, the females go about their business and die of egg binding or old age having never created offspring and the males crawl around fertilizing non-desert local gals. but i find that a really diluted argument - somewhere in africa, female deserts that lay viable clutches either exist, or existed. these original animals came from somewhere.

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A couple things on the strictly genetic side of this. As was touched on by someone else, gene sequences in every animal have multiple functions. In the skin layers, ATCGblahblah(1) will code for let's say pattern. That same exact sequence gets read in glandular tissue to code for hormone production. If the gene that codes for Desert is also read in reproductive tissue during development in a specific way it can indeed be a reproductive issue exclusive to Desert, since the reverse is also true. There is no "Desert causes repro issues" in this case, it's "Desert IS a repro issue."

It's also possible that the original desert snake, first one to mutate and breed, carried a gene for reproductive issues which was located exactly next to or extremely close to the same mutation that causes the desert pattern/color, in which case it can be practically impossible to separate from the Desert gene because of the way that chromosomes divide during meiosis. They don't just split between every set of genes and randomly re-assort everything, there's a whole field of genetic study about predicting gene proximity.

A third possible scenario, which is what everyone getting hyped for these clutches is hoping for, is that the first however many deserts bred in captivity shared a defect that was reasonably close to but separable from the sequence that causes the desert morph, and we've finally reached a point where we've separated the two out.

As for the spider morph, what I suspect happens there is there's a coding error with the sequence that causes the spider mutation, a repeat or many repeats which causes a hiccup with a protein elsewhere. Variance in the number of repeats can easily explain the variance in wobble. This is also possible with Deserts, in that we could find a variability in reproductive problems, some being worse and others being almost normal, or normal enough to lay at least.

DNA sequencing is really the only way we're ever going to get a definitive answer, but years and years of evidence can come pretty close to certainty. I suspect the repro issues with desert are the same that cause the visual morph, or at least inseparable. That's just my opinion, and I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Last thing, there doesn't necessarily have to be a successfully breeding female desert in the wild to propagate the morph that we've discovered. One male can spread a dominant/codominant trait without having any daughters produce viable eggs. The original desert male breeds a wild type female, has a clutch of 6 eggs, let's say it hatches 1.2 desert and 2.1 normals. Next year, he and his desert son each breed a different normal female, and each one of them has just one other desert son. Now there are 4 male deserts propagating the morph in the wild, despite the fact that none of his desert daughters have produced any offspring. At some point, desert is likely to die out in the wild as they're out-competed by a more rapidly growing population of non-deserts, doubly so if the males have developmental issues like some have suggested, but it doesn't have to happen quickly.

I wish those with the eggs good luck. I do think this would be a good start, but I have to agree that I won't get excited until It's shown that these would be reproducible results on a much larger scale. If not, it still won't be worth it to breed Desert females, in my opinion. As for people saying they shouldn't be experimenting because of the risk to the female, I don't think people like Robyn or Amir would be condoning the experiments if there was really such a high mortality rate. It seems the most common problem is getting slugs. If you breed any animals, you get some mortality rate, if it concerns us so much we wouldn't take a chance on breeding anything. Just my .02! Hoping this all turns out well!

I'm temporarily locking the thread down to split out all the nonsense. I have no ETA. It could be a few hours, and it could be later this evening. I have to go to work now, and when I can squeeze it in, I will.

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I've attempted to clean up the thread while trying to maintain the civil discussions that have ranged from optimism to skepticism.

The thread is now re-opened, and these discussions may continue, as long as the participants remain respectful to each other. Any personal issues that have nothing to do with the topic of this thread, but rather posted to insult one another will be also split from this thread and tossed into the split off thread, which now resides in the Quarantine Room, where you are welcome to squabble at your hearts' content.

I will issue a warning now - that those who insist on continuing the personal insults in this thread, after not one, but three staff members have asked for it to end, may very well be faced with warnings and/or infraction points for blatantly disregarding that request.

Here is a link to the split thread: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ng-Eggs-Thread

If you do not have access to the QT Room, and wish to have access, please send a PM to one of the Administrators - their names are in RED.

I'm gunna ask a 3rd time now lol... Where did Family Reptiles purchase that desert from? Do they have a receipt like the OP does for theirs? I'm not trying to be pessimistic or perpetual devils advocate, but I'm really not seeing any desert in that snake either.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

I'm gunna ask a 3rd time now lol... Where did Family Reptiles purchase that desert from? Do they have a receipt like the OP does for theirs? I'm not trying to be pessimistic or perpetual devils advocate, but I'm really not seeing any desert in that snake either.

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This is what Family Reptiles posted about sharing this information.

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Originally Posted by Family Reptiles

To everyone,
Please be patient. Given the challenges with Deserts we want to ensure that the information we are giving is as accurate and beneficial as possible. The details wil be given in due time, but we feel it necessary to collaborate with the other breeders that have viable eggs from a desert female. The original purpose of my initial post was twofold. One was to make contact with the OP for collaboration and to let him know that someone else also has had a female lay. The other reason was to let everyone else know that there was more than one female that has laid good eggs as well.

The details of who the other breeders are not being shared yet mainly because we do not have their go ahead on giving that info out. Their eggs are a couple of weeks behind ours and I imagine they want to wait and see what happens first. As I mentioned, even with our eggs only having a couple of weeks before they are due, there are no guarantees. As witnessed in this thread there are a wide range of beliefs as to when the announcement of viable Desert eggs should be made. We are somewhere in the middle on this belief.

Efforts are being made to determine if the females have come from a common line, or if temperatures were a factor, or age, or weight, or whatever thing or combination of things may have contributed to the success.

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to witchbane and family reptiles, just wanted to thank you for sharing this information. don

You're very welcome Don. I'm sure Witchbane is odd, but it was an old gamer tag from my PC playing days. Cross Exotics is the company my family and I have started. Sorry for the confusion. ~ Joe. :D

i see desert in these two snakes... granted the citrus is harder, but both have a look thats very promising to me. i've produced maybe 30 deserts the past few years - i realize that does not make me an expert, but from what i've witnessed on my own, i like what i see. i may be proven wrong, but i hope not. good luck guys and thanks for posting. exciting stuff.

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Originally Posted by Marrissa

This is what Family Reptiles posted about sharing this information.

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Yea i get that they're withholding some of the details... I just wanna know where the got the snake from though. It doesn't look like a desert to me either.

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Originally Posted by asplundii

Identity of the snake notwithstanding I think people need to consider a few things before making the claim that this is an absolute game changer for the morph. But first, a small point of clarification -- I do not know why everyone is under the impression that these eggs will not hatch. The issues with Desert females looks to be associated with the development/progress of the eggs inside the female. Once the eggs are out there should be no issues with them.

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That is a very apt observation that a lot of people probably should take into consideration here.

As for me, having no experience with the Desert morph, I am personally inclined to trust the judgement of Amir and the OP but if things turn out to not be what they see, well, it'll be disappointing but I'm certain both parties would be willing to work towards a solution.

I'm cautiously excited about these females from both the OP and Family Reptiles for a number of reasons (copycat breedings, flukes, endangerment of animals, etc. etc.) and yeah, these probably should have totally been sat on before they were posted since I think a lot of the "negative nancies" are just concerned about this abruptly coming out of the woodwork. Personally, I think that this is something maybe even should have been kept on the DL until after the clutch was hatched out, Desert females raised, and proved to also be viable or not but that's just me. Breeding of Desert females, although not always fatal, is something that I think we can all agree on should be approached with the utmost caution. That being said, if this for whatever reason results in a line of fertile Desert females, I'd back it 100%. Here's hoping to you, OP! And you to Family Reptiles! Let's hope both these girls turn the tide.

Congrats if this proves to be true. Even if it is proven to be true, it's gona take some years before we can see if the females from the clutches have issues or not, and then their clutches afterwards.
So many Genetic experts and phenomenal attitudes on this site.

Haters gona hate, no matter what.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Yea i get that they're withholding some of the details... I just wanna know where the got the snake from though. It doesn't look like a desert to me either.

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I met the Family Reptiles folks at the Columbia Repticon this past weekend. They seem like very nice folks who are eager to share their learnings with the BP community, ONCE they have hatchlings thriving and have had a chance to collaborate with others in their situation to see what changes in methods seem most likely to have impacted their success so far. I also saw quite a few more pictures of their female on eggs, and don't doubt from those that she's a desert. Bear in mind that pics snapped while a female is laying are typically in horrible lighting with a shaky hand (I know I would be shaking if I just found that clutch!). I think we as a community can hold our collective breath for a few more weeks (or months, heaven forbid), and then all of our questions will be answered to the best of the OP's and other's abilities.

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Originally Posted by Annarose15

I met the Family Reptiles folks at the Columbia Repticon this past weekend. They seem like very nice folks who are eager to share their learnings with the BP community, ONCE they have hatchlings thriving and have had a chance to collaborate with others in their situation to see what changes in methods seem most likely to have impacted their success so far. I also saw quite a few more pictures of their female on eggs, and don't doubt from those that she's a desert. Bear in mind that pics snapped while a female is laying are typically in horrible lighting with a shaky hand (I know I would be shaking if I just found that clutch!). I think we as a community can hold our collective breath for a few more weeks (or months, heaven forbid), and then all of our questions will be answered to the best of the OP's and other's abilities.

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Another couple of clutches have been announced today in the UK..I wonder how many others arpund the globe have had successful pairings..the negativity by some will not help others come forward..its a shame

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Originally Posted by Bruceweb

Another couple of clutches have been announced today in the UK..I wonder how many others arpund the globe have had successful pairings..the negativity by some will not help others come forward..its a shame

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Hey, it's snowing in Cuba.

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Originally Posted by Annarose15

I met the Family Reptiles folks at the Columbia Repticon this past weekend. They seem like very nice folks who are eager to share their learnings with the BP community, ONCE they have hatchlings thriving and have had a chance to collaborate with others in their situation to see what changes in methods seem most likely to have impacted their success so far. I also saw quite a few more pictures of their female on eggs, and don't doubt from those that she's a desert. Bear in mind that pics snapped while a female is laying are typically in horrible lighting with a shaky hand (I know I would be shaking if I just found that clutch!). I think we as a community can hold our collective breath for a few more weeks (or months, heaven forbid), and then all of our questions will be answered to the best of the OP's and other's abilities.

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Another couple of clutches have been announced today in the UK..I wonder how many others around the globe have had successful pairings..the negativity by some will not help others come forward..its a shame..I am proud to be one of the stupid trolls that has point blankly refuse to be brow beaten into accepting the opinions of others on the net that have continually regurgitated others opinions despite the fact that no one knows what has been the issue..people should think for themselfs rather than follow the pack..just my opinion of course

All the best to every one that has had a result breeding their females..its been great news

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

Hey, it's snowing in Cuba.

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Apparently they arent far off hatching so I guess we will see eh!...I guess YOU would believe its snowing in Cuba if others were to tell you so..personaly I take every thing on the net with a pinch of salt lol!

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Originally Posted by Bruceweb

Apparently they arent far off hatching so I guess we will see eh!...I guess YOU would believe its snowing in Cuba if others were to tell you so..personaly I take every thing on the net with a pinch of salt lol!

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Quite the contrary, I'm highly skeptical of this.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

Quite the contrary, I'm highly skeptical of this.

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Thats entirely up to you..each to their own...Time will tell on this subject..Is their a need to ram your negative opinion down the throats of others simply as you are not prepared to keep an open mind...it isnt the first gene that has been considered infertile after all..but as I have allready said thats your opinion..I happen to disagree

Holidaying in Antigua..We had hail stones the size of golf balls..GO FIGURE

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Originally Posted by Annarose15

I met the Family Reptiles folks at the Columbia Repticon this past weekend. They seem like very nice folks who are eager to share their learnings with the BP community, ONCE they have hatchlings thriving and have had a chance to collaborate with others in their situation to see what changes in methods seem most likely to have impacted their success so far. I also saw quite a few more pictures of their female on eggs, and don't doubt from those that she's a desert. Bear in mind that pics snapped while a female is laying are typically in horrible lighting with a shaky hand (I know I would be shaking if I just found that clutch!). I think we as a community can hold our collective breath for a few more weeks (or months, heaven forbid), and then all of our questions will be answered to the best of the OP's and other's abilities.

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I second what Annarose15 said :gj:

My s.o. (Tim) and I were also at Columbia Repticon show this past weekend. We also had a rather long conversation with the Family Reptiles folks. They are great folks to talk to and to do business with. :D

The bickering posts made today which have nothing to do with the subject of this thread have joined their brethren in the split thread in QT. :mad:

Thanks Robin. People need to take the fighting elsewhere.

When are clutches due?

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Originally Posted by LotsaBalls

When are clutches due?

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Read the thread!

Subscribing to the thread. I hope that the desert problem is figured out, even though it will mean the value of desert females will rise and I won't be as likely to find a female desert for inexpensive price for me to keep. I wanted a female to keep mostly as a pet(because they are beautiful) since everyone said they couldn't breed.

I can understand some people saying that maybe a snake in the pictures(various) might not be a desert, or doesn't look desert. But to say that you hope someone's pet dies just so you can be right? Poor form. Poor form indeed. That's not being a anti-sheeple, that's being a jerk. Hoping no deserts are produced, or hoping the eggs don't hatch, etc, fine. That's petty. But hoping an animal dies? Sorry.

And jumping on the bandwagon of "All desert females are sterile/die and should never be bred" isn't being a anti-sheeple, it's just being a different kind of sheeple. You're falling in with the main bulk of the hobby that assumed that was true, even though there had not been very much breeding of adult large desert females as of yet. Could that still be true? Of course. There's been some females that die egg bound. There's been more than slug out or fail to become gravid. That's not absolute proof that all desert genes are going to be nonviable. Experimenting to see what will work or what does not work is needed.

Some female pythons will die when bred. No matter if they're deserts, morphs, normals or new oddballs. It will happen. Anyone who breeds any female is taking a risk of losing the animal, even if it's a cow or a fish. Desert females MAY have a higher incidence of egg binding, so anyone who is taking the risk should be prepared for a vet bill if things go wrong. But every person on here who owns even one animal should be prepared for a vet bill if things go wrong, whether it's a breeding animal or not.

I wish the OP all the best, I hope all the clutches produced hatch healthy babies and better yet that some are deserts.

I'd have posted the viable clutch too. Why sit on that news?? No one suggests that other people with clutches sit on their news until the eggs hatch. He didn't say Hey I'm producing a clutch full of deserts! He said "My desert female produced viable eggs" which is a accomplishment in itself. Considering all the people who are quite willing to state as fact "All desert females die when bred", it's a good sign that some lay their viable eggs without any issues.

I can't see this having a great effect on female prices unless the issue is determined to be solely a husbandry issue Wolfy.
If it can only cross with morphs that enlarge ovi-ducts that is very limiting and investment wise potentially costly until a list of "large ovi-duct morphs" is compiled.
Then there is the possibility that it is a different line of Deserts with either no shrinking of the ovi-ducts or that trait expressed to a lesser degree. That would drive up that lines female price over night but the rest would remain pet-quality animals only.
And if it is a line thing, even if I buy a snake from Amir I still wouldn't but a "breedable female Desert" from myself for more than pet quality. I just don't have the reputation to lose that he does. In 10 years time that might be different but, the big players will have a pretty steady monopoly on this morph until it is the only line available.

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Originally Posted by Raven01

Then there is the possibility that it is a different line of Deserts with either no shrinking of the ovi-ducts or that trait expressed to a lesser degree. That would drive up that lines female price over night but the rest would remain pet-quality animals only.

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Or worse, you'll find scammers claiming that the desert females they're selling are from that line, when they know damned well they're not. Look at how many were selling false hets over the years.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Or worse, you'll find scammers claiming that the desert females they're selling are from that line, when they know damned well they're not. Look at how many were selling false hets over the years.

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simple solution: request pictures of desert mom on eggs.

Uh....so there are
Women who shouldn't have babies because their bodies are unable to give birth naturally? Who are you to say who or what can and cannot be bred. *smh* all of you are getting bent out of shape. If this snake had been in the wild she would have mated and laid eggs, and she may or may not have become bound. Many many morphs wouldn't be in existence if people didn't take chances with their pets. Without experiments, life would still be caveman style, and none of you would
Be breeding anything except for females to make babies and hunting mastadons. This is supposed to be a friendly place but some of you're posts are so negative over something we should all be anxiously holding your breath over instead of sounding like a pissy mother in law who thinks her daughter in law is a stupid cow without a lick of common sense. Blah. Maybe you should be able to breed because you're too negative? Just my humble opinion. :rage:

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Originally Posted by crystlew123

Uh....so there are
Women who shouldn't have babies because their bodies are unable to give birth naturally? Who are you to say who or what can and cannot be bred.

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oh i don't know? someone who cares about a living, breathing animal's health and well-being?

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Originally Posted by crystlew123

If this snake had been in the wild she would have mated and laid eggs, and she may or may not have become bound.

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uh no..? if this morph was left in the wild it would've likely died out. the only reason this morph is around today is because breeders play God and selectively breed for it.

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Originally Posted by crystlew123

Uh....so there are
Women who shouldn't have babies because their bodies are unable to give birth naturally? Who are you to say who or what can and cannot be bred. *smh* all of you are getting bent out of shape. If this snake had been in the wild she would have mated and laid eggs, and she may or may not have become bound. Many many morphs wouldn't be in existence if people didn't take chances with their pets. Without experiments, life would still be caveman style, and none of you would
Be breeding anything except for females to make babies and hunting mastadons. This is supposed to be a friendly place but some of you're posts are so negative over something we should all be anxiously holding your breath over instead of sounding like a pissy mother in law who thinks her daughter in law is a stupid cow without a lick of common sense. Blah. Maybe you should be able to breed because you're too negative? Just my humble opinion. :rage:

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Hypocrite.

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even if this supposedly Desert female has living offspring it won't change the fact that dozens have tried before and had no luck with producing viable clutches .. maybe this is the miracle Desert girl but in my eyes Desert females are still not producing viable clutches, if there is one exception or not

Well it's not one, but more than one, but it's a valid point to say that a few desert females laying viable clutches do not a viable breeding morph population make.

It will take more than that to prove that desert females can breed successfully.

And I understand that ONE doesn't really affect the price on the females(pet quality), but my comment was specifically if it's been figured out how to breed desert females, or if it's proven that they are viable(not just this one), then I'd be happy despite the prices going up(IF they were now potential breeders rather than just a couple flukes). Otherwise I may still be getting myself a non-breeding desert female for a pet(it would go nicely with my non-breeding spider female, so to speak). I have a couple pets, and pretty snakes are pretty snakes.

And I generally don't compare humans with animals. Obviously human women have a lot more resources to deal with having a baby if they have complications. You can't really compare a hatchling snake with a human baby in terms of worth and risk assessment, at least in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Bruceweb

Another couple of clutches have been announced today in the UK..I wonder how many others arpund the globe have had successful pairings..the negativity by some will not help others come forward..its a shame

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Would you mind sharing the source for these two UK clutches?

OP - Gratz on the clutch. I hope what you are looking for pips out. These are exciting times for you and your project. Now plan for the long road before you if a female desert hatches. Best of luck to you and the scale kids. :)

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Originally Posted by TheSnakeGeek

simple solution: request pictures of desert mom on eggs.

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Not so simple solution with a scammer. They can wrap a desert around another clutch of eggs.

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Originally Posted by nykea

Would you mind sharing the source for these two UK clutches?

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Hi,

It was actually a genuine mistake - the clutches he was talking about were sired by a male desert but the person did not make that clear at the time.


dr del

Thank you for clearing this up. :gj:

i soooo don't want to wait til september to hear the results of the OP's clutch!

Just an update, the eggs are looking great :gj: and the days are looking so far away for the pips :tears: ..

Any news on the Family Reptiles clutch?

Subscribing to see how this progresses.

How many more days left until it hits the mark? Im actually excited to hear about this breakthrough even though it doesn't mean that every Desert female is breed-able. Regardless that doesn't mean that years down the line if the op hatches viable females that he can't raise them and prove them to be genetically linked to their mother. Keep us updated like you have been! :)

Subcribed

subscribed

Everytime I see a new post in this thread I look forward to find something worth reading. But then....what do I see? Subscribed....so a big part of this thread is only about people that subscribe to it. Maybe this hint helps for future threads:

http://www.boeh.ch/foren/subscribe.jpg

Please subscribe to threads with the possibilities you have (Thread tools -> Subscribe to this Thread). Within tapatalk you can stare it.

Thanks...

Lol, you made me get excited too thinking something was new. I was thinking Family Reptiles posted a development.

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