Pairing up co-dom/doms to normals

I thought this might be an interesting topic and I could not find anything similar in my searches.

What are your thoughts (or thinking process) when pairing up co-dom/doms to normals?
Example: With a cinnamon some try to pair them up with a really dark normal to accent the colors etc. With a pastel I would believe you want to try to have as light of a normal as you can.
What about patterns? Does a reduced or busy pattern have any affect on a pairing with a spider or mojave? How about blushing?

Those were just a couple examples and I know there are hundreds of others. Just wondering if anyone has any general guidelines when thinking about this.

Take care and have a great weekend. I'm finally able to open up all the doors and windows . . . yeah!

Jim

All of my normals were chosen with selective breeding in mind. My lemon pastel is only paired with my brightest females. Doesn't matter to me how busy the babies are, since lemons tend to be a busier patterned pastel, and I'm going for high contrast.

With the exception of one of my normals, all of my normal females are reduced pattern normals.

One of my banded females threw very jungley babies this past season, and one banded baby (but that baby got her genetics from her dad - who is a Jolliff Tiger, and that baby looks like her daddy and nothing like her mom). Two seasons she's thrown busy babies, but she passes on her amazing head blushing and colors to them - so I keep that in mind now when deciding who to pair with her.

I have a blushed black back normal - very dark, that I will probably pair with my mojo this year to try to pass on some of her blushing, but make a deeper colored mojo.

I also selectively choose my morphs as well, with the hopes of improving my morphs with each generation that I breed them.

IMHO, and with my business plans, selective breeding is the future of the ball python market. While I currently have a waiting list for my lemon pastels and have about 10 females ready to go, only 4 or 5 are females that I feel will enhance the babies, and so those will be the only females that he will be paired with.

All of what you stated makes a lot of sense and I agree with selective breeding.

Do you (or anyone else) feel that a reduced pattern makes any difference with pairing to a mojave or cinnamon?

In reference to a spider, does the pattern have any affect at all? I imagine a very light normal can help lighten up a dark spider but does blushing or a large reduced pattern do anything?

Just wondering stuff . . .

Thx

Jim

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Originally Posted by JimNAZ

All of what you stated makes a lot of sense and I agree with selective breeding.

Do you (or anyone else) feel that a reduced pattern makes any difference with pairing to a mojave or cinnamon?

In reference to a spider, does the pattern have any affect at all? I imagine a very light normal can help lighten up a dark spider but does blushing or a large reduced pattern do anything?

Just wondering stuff . . .

Thx

Jim

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I've heard anecdotal results that a reduced pattern normal to a spider results in lower white spiders, but I don't know if that's true. I do know that my reduced patterned normal bred to a spider resulted in all reduced patterned babies. However, the spider was also reduced patterned.

Not sure if reduced pattern would affect the cinnamon or mojave, since those are both pattern morphs, and I would tend to believe that their pattern would be less likely to be affected by the normal. The reason I plan to pair my dark reduced pattern normal to my mojo this year is that I'd like to see if it will make the contrast between the yellows in the mojo and the darkness of the rest more extreme.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Not sure if reduced pattern would affect the cinnamon or mojave, since those are both pattern morphs, and I would tend to believe that their pattern would be less likely to be affected by the normal.

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What makes you lean towards that conclusion, may I ask?
I've always been led to believe the patterning of both snakes played into the babies appearance?

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

What makes you lean towards that conclusion, may I ask?
I've always been led to believe the patterning of both snakes played into the babies appearance?

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From what I said - they're both pattern morphs, and tend to be very consistent in their patterns. I have a completely reduced patterned, banded girl that has not thrown any reduced patterned bandeds, until she was paired with a genetic Jolliff Tiger. That baby got it's pattern from her dad, and not mom. All the normals she's ever thrown have been busy patterned.

Since cinnamon an Mojave are dominant pattern morphs, I would assume they would dominate the "normal" pattern.

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Originally Posted by Mike@OutbackReptiles

Since cinnamon an Mojave are dominant pattern morphs, I would assume they would dominate the "normal" pattern.

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cinny and mojave are co-dom

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Originally Posted by matt71915

cinny and mojave are co-dom

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Which I'm sure you are aware means co-dominant, which is a form of dominance. :gj:

sorry about that, the way you worded it confused me.

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Originally Posted by Mike@OutbackReptiles

Since cinnamon an Mojave are dominant pattern morphs, I would assume they would dominate the "normal" pattern.

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Dominant/co-dominant just means that you only need one copy of the mutant gene for it to express (versus "recessive," in which case both alleles need to be mutated for the animal to look different from wild-type).

Just because a gene is "dominant/co-dominant" doesn't mean that the pattern of the mutant babies won't be influenced by the wild-type parent's pattern.

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Originally Posted by Serpent_Nirvana

Dominant/co-dominant just means that you only need one copy of the mutant gene for it to express (versus "recessive," in which case both alleles need to be mutated for the animal to look different from wild-type).

Just because a gene is "dominant/co-dominant" doesn't mean that the pattern of the mutant babies won't be influenced by the wild-type parent's pattern.

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But in those two examples - cinnamons and mojaves - 90% of the the ones you see have the same consistent patterns, no matter what the normal is that you pair them up to. With mojo's it's the key hole patterns (where normals have alien heads). The codominant PATTERN of the mojo is what expresses itself. Pastels are less pattern dependent, which is why the pattern of the normal can influence the pattern of the pastel more than it can in a mojo or cinnamon.

I agree with you Rabernet -- I was disagreeing slightly with the use of the terms "dominant/co-dominant" as "dominating" the normal pattern, and therefore not being affected by the normal pattern.

Pastel is just as "co-dominant" as mojave (which is to say, it's probably "incomplete dominant" instead of "co-dominant" if we really wanna nit-pick), but it does seem that the pattern (and possibly the color as well ..?) of the normal parent will have an effect on the pastel offspring, from what folks have been saying.

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Originally Posted by Serpent_Nirvana

I agree with you Rabernet -- I was disagreeing slightly with the use of the terms "dominant/co-dominant" as "dominating" the normal pattern, and therefore not being affected by the normal pattern.

Pastel is just as "co-dominant" as mojave (which is to say, it's probably "incomplete dominant" instead of "co-dominant" if we really wanna nit-pick), but it does seem that the pattern (and possibly the color as well ..?) of the normal parent will have an effect on the pastel offspring, from what folks have been saying.

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Gotcha! Yes - I agree that the normal parent will influence the pastel offspring, and I also believe that the general color and blushing on mojos and cinnies, in this example, can be influenced by the normal parent, and less so on the pattern, since those two morphs seem to be more pattern dominant and the pastel is less pattern dominant.

It's one reason I selected my normal girls to grow up a few years ago, so carefully - so that I could work with selectively breeding my mutations.

Yes, you have some pretty "normals!" :)

I only have a couple -- I'm super-picky about wild-types as well -- and I'm now kind of debating whether to breed my bee to the largest girl, who is exceptionally dark. The plus side is that she's a big, tame tank ... I'd just hate to throw a humongous clutch of kind of ugly bees and pastels :P

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Originally Posted by Serpent_Nirvana

Yes, you have some pretty "normals!" :)

I only have a couple -- I'm super-picky about wild-types as well -- and I'm now kind of debating whether to breed my bee to the largest girl, who is exceptionally dark. The plus side is that she's a big, tame tank ... I'd just hate to throw a humongous clutch of kind of ugly bees and pastels :P

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See, I'd pair a mojo or a cinnamon with a darker female - do you have either of those?

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Originally Posted by rabernet

See, I'd pair a mojo or a cinnamon with a darker female - do you have either of those?

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Unfortunately I don't (well, I do have a mojo, but she's a girl :) ). Right now the only males I have are an albino, a bumblebee, a lesser and a "dinker." The dinker is kind of mojo-looking -- but the only one of those males that's breeding age/size is the bee ...

... And I just found a picture of the sable x pastel ("mudball") -- I know she's not a sable but oh man, that is one *ugly* snake! Maybe I should try and find something else to breed her to ...

Here's a picture of this girl with a light normal, so you can see how dark she is:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Variation2.jpg

Yeah, I don't think I'd choose her for the bee. Spiders might look ok, but the bees and pastels might end up being darker.

Hmm, well, I just discovered that my "female" Harlequin-type is, in fact, a male O.o So I think I've found her boyfriend!

... Now I just gotta hope he proves genetic :please:

Yeah I have a somewhat dark spider with a bit of a greenish hue to his dark coloration. I will find out this season (hopefully) if he passes much/all of that on. Is it a given to expect that this will happen? Is it still just a roll of the dice and we can try to better the odds with a lighter colored normal?

I have heard/seen dark pastels can still throw bright offspring even if the other parent is not light colored.

Jim

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Originally Posted by Mike@OutbackReptiles

Since cinnamon an Mojave are dominant pattern morphs, I would assume they would dominate the "normal" pattern.

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Actually aren't they mainly COLOR morphs and affect the pattern only to a lesser extent? I do notice a destinct difference between the offspring of different clutches when pairing the same co-dominant male with several different females. The hue and pattern of the wild type female definately makes a difference in the look of the offspring. There are so many different genes that affect color and pattern and saturation that a single gene mutation isn't going to affect everything about the look. I think the wild type parent is just as important in the final outcome of a project.

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Originally Posted by JimNAZ

Yeah I have a somewhat dark spider with a bit of a greenish hue to his dark coloration. I will find out this season (hopefully) if he passes much/all of that on. Is it a given to expect that this will happen? Is it still just a roll of the dice and we can try to better the odds with a lighter colored normal?

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If you're trying to breed for darker spiders, I think I'd try pairing him with the darkest wild-type(s) you can find ...

Of course when you say "greenish hue," my first thought for a partner is a mojave -- but then ya gotta have a female mojave that you want to breed him to :)