The Prevalence of Duckbill and Popularity of Cinnamon

I would love if some of the larger breeders or any breeders who've worked extensively with Cinnamon could provide some insight on this.

I intended to go for Pewters a few years down the road, but my mind is quietly changing because of the research I've done, which digs up the deformity log on duckbill. Now just how frequently does this occur, statistically? (as a rough guess, obviously.) Is it allellic, like wobble? Or does it occur more frequently in certain lines?

Also, what tends to be more popular, Cinnamon Pastel or Black Pewter? Obviously preference is subjective, but does the possibility of duckbill turn you off from getting a Cinny combo, or is it just part of the charm?

I'm beginning to think that Cinny is no longer quite as appealing to me as it used to be, but I would like to put it to the peanut gallery before passing my own uneducated judgement.

I have talked to a few people who work with the gene and have produced multiple super animals. From what I have been told, duck bill and kinks can be as rare as 1 in 50 and can be as often as 1 in 2. It doesn't seem to matter whether it is cinny or Black pastel, both are prone to it. My guess is, some blood is just more prone to it or some certain pairs change the ratio, but that is purely guessing. Cinny and Black pastel are allelic with each other, the wobble has nothing to do with anything in this subject.

Black pastel seems to be the majority favorite, but black pastel seems to be just as prone to duckbills and kinks as cinny. I think it's just when you work with dark genes, you want the darkest of them all and black pastel tends to be darker than cinny.

Hopefully someone can chime in with first hand info for you, but I hope that helps

I've heard much of the same as OWAL, basically certain family lines are more prone to it than others so if yuo want to breed Supers of either morph, you should try to get to know the family history of the animals you work with which unfortunately, isn't always as easy as it sounds. :/

My two cents though, if you just want to breed Pewter things then go for it. You really don't have to worry about duckbilling or kinking because it's something that pretty much happens repeatedly in the Super Cinn and Black Pastels (of course you can get duckbilled and kinked snakes anyway but I mean in the single allele form it appears to be as common as in any other morph). So if you want to get Supers for your breeding projects, just don't buy ones that are duckbilled or kinked.

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I intended to go for Pewters

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The issues when they occurs in both Cinny and Black Pastel are with supers.

it only affects the super forms, so working with pewters is no problem at all. if you dont want to produce the super forms, then dont :) you can work around it by avoiding pairings where both parents have one of these genes, and stick to pairings like black pewter to firefly, or pewter to lesser bee, or lemonblast to black bee. so even if you want to avoid the risks completely, you can still work with the gene and go for the combos.


i think black pastel is more popular because its darker, and also because some high-quality lines do some awesome stuff with the pattern.

about the issue with the super forms, i also heared that it depends a lot on the specific lines. but i also heared that the duckbill is quite common, while kinks are quite rare. how true is that?

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

about the issue with the super forms, i also heared that it depends a lot on the specific lines. but i also heared that the duckbill is quite common, while kinks are quite rare. how true is that?

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Personally, I certainly notice ones with duckbills quite a bit more than kninking but I think that may partially because there are more breeders who are okay with breeding Super Cinns/Black Pastels with noticeable duckbilling than there are ones who would breed animals with kinking. Though that's just a personal theory/observation.

I had the chance to buy a Cinny from a local pet store that didn't know what they had. Unfortunately it fell through for several reasons: not sure of the sex, noticeable duckbill to someone with an eye out for defects, and very slight kinking just above the vent. I might have gone for it if one less of those physical issues existed, and I wouldn't ever ask any of the workers there to sex a snake.

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Originally Posted by Archimedes

I had the chance to buy a Cinny from a local pet store that didn't know what they had. Unfortunately it fell through for several reasons: not sure of the sex, noticeable duckbill to someone with an eye out for defects, and very slight kinking just above the vent. I might have gone for it if one less of those physical issues existed, and I wouldn't ever ask any of the workers there to sex a snake.

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wait, and this really is a cinnamon you are talking about? the normal heterozygous version, with pattern, just a lot darker than a normal? not a patternless dark brown homozygous super cinnamon? i just need to make sure we are not confusing cinnamon and super cinnamon here.

if a cinnamon has these issues, its time to run and never look back. cinnamon should have none of these issues, absolutely nothing, no kink no duckbill. for super cinnamon i would say kinks are unacceptable, but a slight duckbill is acceptable. but for a regular cinnamon any of these issues is highly unusual, and unacceptable, i mean, this is almost as unusual as a pastel with duckbill and a slight kink would be.

yes, single-gene cinny. it was mixed in with a bunch of normals, I probed the staff to see how much they knew about the breeder that supplies their BPs and turns out he keeps no records. I wanted to take the poor thing anyway and have it as a pet only (I refuse to have an undoc'd kink as a breeder), but I didnt have the money in hand and we all know that they would just bring another animal in.

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Some single gened cinnys and black pastels do get duck billing, but it's not as common as the supers/homozygous forms.

A friend of mine hatched a few black pastels with minor duck bills.

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

wait, and this really is a cinnamon you are talking about? the normal heterozygous version, with pattern, just a lot darker than a normal? not a patternless dark brown homozygous super cinnamon? i just need to make sure we are not confusing cinnamon and super cinnamon here.

if a cinnamon has these issues, its time to run and never look back. cinnamon should have none of these issues, absolutely nothing, no kink no duckbill. for super cinnamon i would say kinks are unacceptable, but a slight duckbill is acceptable. but for a regular cinnamon any of these issues is highly unusual, and unacceptable, i mean, this is almost as unusual as a pastel with duckbill and a slight kink would be.

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This is incorrect. Black pastels and cinnamons (not supers) can also have duck billing and kinking.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

This is incorrect. Black pastels and cinnamons (not supers) can also have duck billing and kinking.

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really?

but it got to be very rare compared to the supers. also the pewters / black pewters / cinnamons / black pastels ive seen so far didnt have it. and how are you supposed to get supers without kinking and without duckbills, when even the single gene versions show it?

if not even the single-gene versions can be selectively bred for perfect health, that really casts doubt on both genes. i could be wrong, and then i would be shocked because im quite sure about it, but i really believe most lines are clean enough so that you dont get these issues in combos that only contain one copy. and some lines seem to even be clean enough to produce supers that are free of issues.

surely if you start with, lets say, a super black pastel that shows no issues at all, from parents that also show no issues at all, you will get offspring that also shows no issues. or am i wrong and even in this case, in offspring that contains only one copy, the issues still randomly pop up?

should the single-gene morphs be added to the list of morphs with inherent genetic problems? should all people that do not want to deal with any genetic issues remove these genes from their collections, even if the examples they have so far are flawless? i have a hard time believing that its as bad as you make it sound.

This is the first time I have heard of this also, interesting. Besides super black pastels and super cinnys the only duck bills I have seen are on normals. About the only thing I would add to the single gene cinny/black pastels is they seem to show ringers more often than other morphs. Any other claims to this?

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

surely if you start with, lets say, a super black pastel that shows no issues at all, from parents that also show no issues at all, you will get offspring that also shows no issues. or am i wrong and even in this case, in offspring that contains only one copy, the issues still randomly pop up?

should the single-gene morphs be added to the list of morphs with inherent genetic problems? should all people that do not want to deal with any genetic issues remove these genes from their collections, even if the examples they have so far are flawless? i have a hard time believing that its as bad as you make it sound.

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But I can answer, Duck billing might be a polygenetic trait and black pastel/cinny is just one of the main parts to make it show, but the normal allele resists it pretty well or it might have something to do with epigenetics. Both would suggest that breeding animals without problems would tend to have babies without problems, but depending on how the trait works, one wrong event could make the unwanted trait show up. Chances are it is not random but complex in some way. I mean hundreds of people have zero issues, but satomi325's friend hatched a few from the same stock of animals (im assuming), so I think they just unknowingly had the conditions to make it happen in their stock, whatever that might be.

I have produced 100's of Black Pastels and Black Pastel combos since 2004 and none had any Duck Billing or Kinking.

I have made 1 Ian G. Line Super Black Pastel...It had horrible face deformities and was kinked in several places.

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Originally Posted by coldbloodaddict

I have produced 100's of Black Pastels and Black Pastel combos since 2004 and none had any Duck Billing or Kinking.

I have made 1 Ian G. Line Super Black Pastel...It had horrible face deformities and was kinked in several places.

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now that is interesting. i mean, two weeks ago it would not have been that interesting for me, because i assumed that only the supers show the issues. but now, when im a bit confused and people challenge the idea that single-genes or combos containing only one copy are fine, its suddenly very interesting.

its unfortunate that to settle such issues, we cannot just reference a scientific research paper published in a well-established peer reviewed journal. i mean, one actual scientific research paper that got published was discussed here, and suddenly everyone agrees that BPs cannot see red light. and that their eyes are most sensitive to green, blue, violet, and ultraviolet.

it would be better if some billionaire BP keeper would give a few millions to do actual research. but thats not the case. so we have to share and evaluate experiences and personal evaluations, and have to somehow make sense of these.

i change my opinion. it used to be: "BPs containing only one copy of black pastel or cinnamon DO NOT show kinking or duckbill".
i now believe: "BPs containing only one copy of black pastel or cinnamon GENERALLY DO NOT, AND SHOULD NOT show kinking or duckbill".

i will continue to question that belief. i will continue to actively search for answers, and revisit and if necessary revise my beliefs as new data comes in.

so the current very (and I mean very) general consensus is that these defects can occur occasionally in family lines, and that good lines of single gene animals can lead to other single gene animals of equal quality. however it may happen regardless of lines involved once it is applied to supers of the respective genes. I'm glad I began this discussion because Cinnamons and Black Pastels aren't actively discussed the way other morphs are, and clearly there is more to learn about the gene.

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While I think selective breeding and paying attention to lines is a great first practice I think there may be some cases where environment also plays a big part.

Spinning in spiders and kinking (and perhaps even female fertility) in caramels might be issues that are inherent tendencies of the mutation that can not be breed out. However, particularly with the caramel kinking I have reports from respected breeders I trust of long stretches of no kink babies that would be astronomically unlikely based on the kink rates reported by other breeders. If it was just selective breeding I would expect the customers of these breeders to report the same good results and we would have known non kinking caramel lines. Perhaps why I've not seen new reports of kinkless caramel lines is that something else, perhaps even accidental, in the feeding or environment is compensating for the caramels kinking tendency in some collections. One theory I had was some nutrient either not tolerated or needed in higher rates by the caramel mutation.

Anyway, back to cinnamon/black pastel. What if a tendency to duck bill and kink are just part of the mutation just like the color and pattern we like. Two copies of the gene make these weaker traits more likely to show but there is also the possibility for an environmental factor to help suppress the tendency. Maybe incubating at one end or the other of the normal temperature range can increase your chances of producing a perfect super and the other extreme a duckbilled kinked regular (heterozygous) cinnamon/black pastel? I'm not saying the breeder who produced the duck billed black pastels or anyone who produced kinked caramels is not keeping their animals perfectly fine as far as excepted practices for ball pythons in general, it just might be that these mutations might need something a little different.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

While I think selective breeding and paying attention to lines is a great first practice I think there may be some cases where environment also plays a big part.

Spinning in spiders and kinking (and perhaps even female fertility) in caramels might be issues that are inherent tendencies of the mutation that can not be breed out. However, particularly with the caramel kinking I have reports from respected breeders I trust of long stretches of no kink babies that would be astronomically unlikely based on the kink rates reported by other breeders. If it was just selective breeding I would expect the customers of these breeders to report the same good results and we would have known non kinking caramel lines. Perhaps why I've not seen new reports of kinkless caramel lines is that something else, perhaps even accidental, in the feeding or environment is compensating for the caramels kinking tendency in some collections. One theory I had was some nutrient either not tolerated or needed in higher rates by the caramel mutation.

Anyway, back to cinnamon/black pastel. What if a tendency to duck bill and kink are just part of the mutation just like the color and pattern we like. Two copies of the gene make these weaker traits more likely to show but there is also the possibility for an environmental factor to help suppress the tendency. Maybe incubating at one end or the other of the normal temperature range can increase your chances of producing a perfect super and the other extreme a duckbilled kinked regular (heterozygous) cinnamon/black pastel? I'm not saying the breeder who produced the duck billed black pastels or anyone who produced kinked caramels is not keeping their animals perfectly fine as far as excepted practices for ball pythons in general, it just might be that these mutations might need something a little different.

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this is a great point. I would love to see a study done on two clutches from a reliable cinny or black pastel line with temps as the only difference in incubation practice. I think it could yield interesting results and provide keepers with a reliable control for working with the genes.

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http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/10/uhe2e8e5.jpg

This is a Black Pastel Cinny I produced last season, I got lucky her face looks good but she does have a tiny kink at the tip of her tail.

I absolutely love her look and didn't mind the risk of deformities to produce her. In some cases you gotta take the good with the bad.


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How about multi gene supers? I have only one black pastel in my collection and its a super black with either spider or pastel or both mixed in with her and she has no kinking or duck billing at all.
Any chance of extra genes thrown in to the mix reducing the chance of kings and duck bills?

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Originally Posted by Crazygecko

How about multi gene supers? I have only one black pastel in my collection and its a super black with either spider or pastel or both mixed in with her and she has no kinking or duck billing at all.
Any chance of extra genes thrown in to the mix reducing the chance of kings and duck bills?

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How do you figure it has pastel, spider, or both?

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

How do you figure it has pastel, spider, or both?

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Well as you can see she is way way lighter then your typical Super Black pastel. Parents were black pastel x black pastel spider pastel. She also has a nice little paradoxish spot on her.

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6d03deb2.jpg

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Originally Posted by Crazygecko

Well as you can see she is way way lighter then your typical Super Black pastel. Parents were black pastel x black pastel spider pastel. She also has a nice little paradoxish spot on her.

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6d03deb2.jpg

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Well, then it would be safer to say "super black pastel from a BP x BP bee". If you haven't proved out the other things, it's not good form to throw out possibles like that.

I guess you could Schroeders cat it, but that's not a good idea.

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I am sure its ok to throw out the possibilities when I am the one keeping it and going to try and prove her out. I didn't say 100 percent sure I and a couple breeders that aren't small time agree there is more then just super black pastel in her. But hey if you want to say black pastel x black pastel bee that's cool. I prefer to just say all the genes that were in the mix.
But hey thanks for the heads up.

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Originally Posted by Crazygecko

I am sure its ok to throw out the possibilities when I am the one keeping it and going to try and prove her out. I didn't say 100 percent sure I and a couple breeders that aren't small time agree there is more then just super black pastel in her. But hey if you want to say black pastel x black pastel bee that's cool. I prefer to just say all the genes that were in the mix.
But hey thanks for the heads up.

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Does it wobble?


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Originally Posted by Crazygecko

Well as you can see she is way way lighter then your typical Super Black pastel. Parents were black pastel x black pastel spider pastel. She also has a nice little paradoxish spot on her.

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6d03deb2.jpg

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i would say its at least super black pastel + pastel. given the pairing, what else could it be, its not dark enough to be a super black pastel. super black pastels dont just randomly happen to have such a color. dont allow the others to confuse you, with that pairing and these optics, its at least a silver bullet. i dont know if it has spider as well, my guess would be: no.

i like how this one has a perfectly normal head shape, no duckbill at all.