Bellies

The most recent trend in ball python "morphs" is all in the bellies. I'm really trying to figure it out myself, light bellies, yellow bellies, clear bellies. So I checked out my own bp's bellies to see what could be so fascinating. The babies had normal bellies, spots and all. I got to Monty and it was outragously white, not a blotch at all. Thats one hell of a clean belly. Cool, but morph? Nope.

Kara, can you explain this whole belly thing?

Some hets for various traits have been known to somewhat characteristically have a clear belly. But it's not a 100% thing...frankly I think the whole thing has gotten blown out of proportion. It certainly doesn't mean that every single ball python with a clear belly is going to produce triple-twin-striped-polka-dot-hubba-bubba-cappafrappalattechino-double-het-for-feet offspring.

Just my $.02

K

I also heard yellow bellies are part of making leucisitics.

And orange ring is an almost definite sign for pied I've heard, as well as a lined belly. But thats only for hets, not some import at a pet shop.

"triple-twin-striped-polka-dot-hubba-bubba-cappafrappalattechino-double-het-for-feet"
got any of those for sale? ;)

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Originally Posted by Wizill

"triple-twin-striped-polka-dot-hubba-bubba-cappafrappalattechino-double-het-for-feet"
got any of those for sale? ;)

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Next year. First we have to breed them together and make a SUPER...which will be named the "Subway Club with Bacon." Or something equally inane.

K

Thats about as cool a morph as the blushing ball!

Now you guy's got me curious so I went to check out Monty Joe's belly. Now unless I am just totally color blind, (which is a possibility)his belly has a pink tint to it. And, if it is a pink tint, then I think I had better change his name to Monty Joanne.

LOL! No, they get that right before they shed.

Then that would explain his interest in his watering hole and the cloudy eye covering. I thought he was getting ready, but knew nothing of the pink tint. I Learn something everyday.

As you get more familiar with your BP and his habits, you will know as soon as he enters a shed cycle. You will notice a slight dulling of his colors, and the belly will turn pink. Typically, my BP's start soaking at this time, also. A few days later, the eyes will cloud over. After the eyes clear up, it will be a couple more days before he actually sheds. I have noticed that the skin on their neck (do snakes have necks?) gets very loose after the eyes cloud, too. These are all very reliable indicators that your critter is in shed. I have had BP's take anywhere from 4 days to 2 weeks to complete a cycle, but normally it's about 5-8 days.

"triple-twin-striped-polka-dot-hubba-bubba-cappafrappalattechino-double-het-for-feet"



OK Kara, you just got to put up pics of this new morph your gonna breed for...got to see this, this should be a great laugh since I was laughing pretty good already over that whole "triple some thing something" line. :lol:

:idea: You think you could post that on KS and make millions out of some persons who does not know any better? :lol: :evil: :roll:

Kara,

Care to go on the record as to which morphs it is where some hets tend to have clear bellies?

Good to emphasize again if this is something that is NOT seen in all hets and IS seen in some complete normals. Even with such situations it could be useful information when looking at possible hets (i.e. which ones to feed twice as much), just not as convenient for us as if it had worked out that all hets showed it and no non hets showed it.

Thanks,

Randy Remington

I will say this: We all know that many het pieds supposedly have "genetic markers" to some extent or another...outside of that I've specifically chosen to stay out of the whole "which possible is, which possible isn't & how can you tell" game. All I'll say is that it's not 100% foolproof by a looooooong shot - this is one of those things where I typically defer to Kevin's judgement, because if I get to the point where I'm bug-eyed :shock: after inspecting the bellies of various ball pythons, I'll probably just say "screw it" and go mess with blood pythons instead.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to be difficult or anything like that...this is just something where in practice I turn to my resident ball python expert because I know he REALLY cares about this kind of thing, and quite frankly it's not my #1 priority.

K

Ok, I am feeling the need to share my view of this whole heterozygous showing markers issue. If, indeed, there are genetic markers that sometimes show up in a het animal, the big breeders would be understandably cagey about providing that information to the rest of us. This would be for two reasons:

1) If it proves to be a reliable indicator, and you can identify those who are gene carriers (hets), the profits gained by selling "possible hets" would vanish.

2) If it is only a sporadic indicator, showing up in some hets, but not all, people are going to want to pick through their stock, to get the ones with the markers. Once the ones with markers are out there, and line bred, so that they always show on hets, the profit margin for "possible hets" vanishes.

Either way, they stand to lose money. The folks who have enough snakes to be able to have a large enough sample to have learned of these markers are the same ones who make their livings off this stuff, so of course a potential impact on cashflow will affect their willingness to share information.

So, my opinion is this:
As Kara stated, there are markers that show up sometimes. Doesn't sound to me like they are 100% reliable, but eventually the information will reach us hobbiests/small time breeders. It will just take a while. Probably when the next great morph comes along that blows Piebalds away, and big bucks can be had for that, the price for hets will matter less, and the information will leak out.

This leaves me, a hobbiest and aspiring breeder, frustrated, but I understand why the situation is the way it is. If I was in Ralph Davis', or Kevin McCurley's (NERDs), or Dan Sutherland's (Snakekeeper's) shoes, I would want to protect my investment and source of income, too.

Oh, and it puts Kara in a crummy position too. Here she is, sharing her knowledge and love of BP's with us, and gets asked a question that she would probably like to answer, but cannot, for business reasons.
SUCKS TO BE YOU, KARA! :lol: J/K! I sympathize with the position you are in. I wouldn't want to be there! Thanks for hangin' out with us anyways, though! :D

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Originally Posted by BallKingdom

And orange ring is an almost definite sign for pied I've heard, as well as a lined belly. But thats only for hets, not some import at a pet shop.

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I haven't heard that one, but I hope it's right!!!!! If so, Zeus will be giving me some Pieds in a few years!
https://ball-pythons.net/albums/album13/zeusring.jpg
https://ball-pythons.net/albums/albu...tail.sized.jpg

I've heard of pied like rings, orange stains, all kinds of stuff for pieds from all sorts of places. I can't vouch for any of them. There are too many pied markers to be sure what is right, looking at yours I can see the ring, plus if you BS it really well it also has the stipes.

Here is a 25% chance het piebald with the ring and striped belly edge:

http://ratrun.home.comcast.net/image...3PREM9Ring.jpg

In the ones I produced this year it really varied a lot with some of them being pretty subtle but I think I can see the difference between the ones that have it and the ones that don't. It will of course take years for me to find out which if any are actual hets.

I realize the marketing implications for any possible markers for het and honestly I don't bring it up just to piss people off (actually I sometimes wonder if anyone even pays attention as I get so little feedback). I just want to know about these things and figure everyone else should know for a fair playing field. I'd been asking about rumors of a pied marker for years but that one only really came to light publicly this spring.

My latest suspicions are for clown and stripe. At this rate I might know something one way or the other by 2010 or so ;)

I agree with you 100% Randy. Sorry if it sounded like I was preaching or chastising you in my above post, that wasn't my intent. There are a lot of people here new to the BP game, and I was just trying to explain things for their benefit. It certainly would be nice for someone to let us "little guys" in on the secrets, but realistically, I certainly don't expect it....until about 2010, when you find out! :mrgreen:

Randy is the breeder who sold me my Zeus and Eddy. (Did you see the feeding pics Eddy let me take, Randy?)

No, I'll have to poke around and find that pic, is it in the picture forum on this site?

I didn't take any offence. I just never now how many toes I'm stepping on (I do actually care, at least a little ...) with my speculations on this subject.

The thing that has bothered me a little about this particular type of secret in the ball industry is the potential for screwing people over. I was one of the early proponents of buying possible hets (mainly for personal economic reasons). While others ridiculed the idea of playing the odds and trusting the seller to be honest I was ever the optimist and hopefully this year I'll get some more positive results to support my way of thinking. I've never really worried much about known breeders selling normals as possible hets. Sure I know that some of my possible hets will be normals anyway but for what I had to invest I'm willing to take that chance to get a shot at producing a morph.

However, when it first dawned on me that some hets might be visibly discernable, particularly in pattern mutations, I started thinking how this information might be used. I'm all for someone doing the work to produce a ton of possible hets and keeping the now more outbred girls to produce more morphs and selling the possible het males so small breeders can own a shot at the dream too. However, throw a sporadic marker in there and it brings up big questions about how you market the males and possibly even the non showing females. How do you decide who gets the possible het males with the marker and who gets the ones without the marker? If there is anything to the marker at all, even if it isn't seen in all hets, the odds are shifted down on the ones that don't have it. Can they still be sold as whatever % the clutch was supposed to be? I suspect that most breeders have worked hard to be fair and now I see that marketing strategies like selling whole clutches together may have been a way to be fair (of course the next question would be who gets the clutches with more markers and who with less). I don't suspect any big conspiracy, it just bothers me that information my have been withheld and the odds for the little guy may not have been as good as for those who happened to be in the know.

I remember my corn snake days and it seemed like there was a lot more open discussion of such things in those forums. Sure people lost there tempers and got there feelings hurt but when the most expensive morph was only a few hundred dollars it seems like information flowed more freely. Don't get me wrong, I think the high ball morph prices are just fine, it means the best breeders will be working very hard and staying awake nights thinking of new ways to produce more of these not particularly prolific snakes. I just wish it didn't have to be quite so businesslike all the time.

End rant …

Randy,

PS: I'm really NOT a genetics expert. I have very little hands on experience with ball python morph genes and only high school biology. It's just that genetics and statistics are subjects I'm interested in and think about but so far most all my experience with ball python genetics is speculative.

The pics of Eddy feeding are here... http://ball-pythons.net/index.php?na...opic&t=240
I totally agree with you about the secrecy stuff, but with the thousands of dollars at stake per snake, I guess human nature (greed) will express itself every time! Hhhhmmmm....that comment might draw a few replies. I didn't mean it to bash the biggies, just trying to state the way I see it.

I see it from both ways, if my income and way of life depended on morphs and their hets, I'd be damned if I let half my profits head down the toilet. I'm kind of upset that possibly information could be withheld and us made ignorant. I really noticed a thread during the spring about these genetic markers, and someone stated that Ralph knew how to pick het pieds to a precision, but nobody was sure how he did it. This is all a tangle, I'm only interested in producing albinos, so if anyone finds cheap 100% hets, lemme know. Maybe Kara has some.

Het albinos are really coming down in price. $800 is not hard to find for a pair. Last year they were still $1000.

150 is a good 100% het male, females are up there. I'll see what I can do, I'm really looking for a macklott's first

I was fortunate enough this year to purchase a het pied male. He has that supposed genetic marker, his belly is pure white with no black, although I have heard of many that are normally colored/patterned. I looked at the rest of my BPs (het albino and normals), and they all have normal bellies, with the exception of one of the female het albinos. She has a clear belly, exactly like the het pied. I know the jury is still out on this one, but at this point it looks like there is no real reliable way (unfortunately) to tell a het by appearance. I wonder, however, if it would ever be possible to determine hets by looking at genetic markers?

It should be possible, just expensive and time consuming to find the gene and market a probe for it before the morph comes down to the point that not enough people would spend enough to find out.

Could you post pics of the bellies of your het pied and your het albino?

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Originally Posted by RPlank

Oh, and it puts Kara in a crummy position too. Here she is, sharing her knowledge and love of BP's with us, and gets asked a question that she would probably like to answer, but cannot, for business reasons.

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Actually that's not true at all...it has nothing to do with "business reasons" - it has to do with the fact that I don't want to steer anyone in the wrong direction since I haven't taken the time to learn every little detail in determining het markers (nor do I have any desire to do so at the moment). I wasn't kidding when I said that learning to recognize "het bellies" wasn't my #1 priority - it really really isn't! At this point I am much more interested in importing some cocoa-phase Sumatran short-tail pythons :wink: with good locality data than even worrying about what is or isn't a het pied, since I know Kevin is going to do that anyway.

Like I said before, I'm not trying to be difficult or withhold information. I just think it's better for me not to discuss a topic that I don't have a ton of firsthand experience on for the sake of avoiding the dissemination of potentially incorrect info.

Just another $.02...

K

Randy,
Yes, I will try to snap some pics of the bellies of the two with the clear bellies and post them here. I agree the expense to track down and 'map' the gene in a het would surely be very prohibitive. Wouldn't it be geat to be able to determine a true het through a blood test, though. Actually, I guess it would be a double edged sword, as the price of morphs would probably tend to drop a little faster as there would be no 'guesswork' involved with possible hets, etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KLG

... It certainly doesn't mean that every single ball python with a clear belly is going to produce triple-twin-striped-polka-dot-hubba-bubba-cappafrappalattechino-double-het-for-feet offspring.
K

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roflmao...het for feet....ah your killin me. that was good.