Temps and humidity affecting pattern

The rumor out there is that African breeders are purposely manipulating temps and humidity in order to hatch those wacky patterned CH imports we are seeing every year.

We all have a few dinkers hoping to prove out, if this is the case, we should be hatching out many nice normals.

Any thoughts?

Ive never bred my snakes yet so my opinion really doesnt count but it may be plausable?? People will do anything to make an extra buck and there are quite a few of the odd looking snakes out there... My Myth Busters answer is... Plausable

...exactly what it is....a rumor. There has been much debate on wether or not temp. fluctuation during incubation affects hatchling pattern and mutation, and if it does, to what extent.

...and if there is a guy over there doing this, and it IS affecting his results...what can ya do about it? :hmm::2cent:

my eggs incubated at 94 degrees for the first 30 days. they all look normal and dont have some of these wacked out patterns or melted patterns that you see in some CH ones...

Isn't it alligators that can change the sex of their babies by incubating the eggs a couple degrees cooler or warmer? Has anyone experimented at all with BPs??

JonV

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Originally Posted by nevohraalnavnoj

Isn't it alligators that can change the sex of their babies by incubating the eggs a couple degrees cooler or warmer? Has anyone experimented at all with BPs??

JonV

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yar....leopard geckos too...:skullbone

...doesn't work for BP

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Originally Posted by nevohraalnavnoj

Isn't it alligators that can change the sex of their babies by incubating the eggs a couple degrees cooler or warmer? Has anyone experimented at all with BPs??

JonV

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so far it hasnt affected bps, that is from this same quetion that has been asked for years

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Originally Posted by nevohraalnavnoj

Isn't it alligators that can change the sex of their babies by incubating the eggs a couple degrees cooler or warmer? Has anyone experimented at all with BPs??

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There are tons of reptiles that lay TSD (temperature sex dependant) eggs. Some lizards and turtles. Some the higher temps cause more males, some the higher temps cause more females. Most TSD reptiles are shallow nesters too.

However, I have not heard of a single snake with TSD.

People have experiemented with incubating other reptiles for tempeature sex dependancy too. Bearded dragons are not TSD; however, if incubated at high temperatures, all eggs will generally hatch genetic males which appear to be female. "Hot" females is a term commonly used when this occurs. They are almost always aggressive and nonreproductive.

No one experiements with ball pythons. People are too worried about how to mix and match mutations to focus on actual research....not to mention varying from the norm with incubation can be risky and really hurt the wallet of someone expecting to sell the offspring.

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Originally Posted by daniel1983

No one experiements with ball pythons. People are too worried about how to mix and match mutations to focus on actual research....not to mention varying from the norm with incubation can be risky and really hurt the wallet of someone expecting to sell the offspring.

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That's not really true - the Barkers have done a lot of research and they mention some of it in their book.....

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Originally Posted by JenH

That's not really true - the Barkers have done a lot of research and they mention some of it in their book.....

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....ha ha....two people?....out of how many people that keep ball pythons??

You would think with ball pythons being one of the most common captive reptiles that there would be all sorts of research being done with them by ALL sorts of people.

The Barkers do great stuff, but they are part of a very small minority.

Maybe it's because everyone says varying temps can lead to deformities and death? I let my female maternally incubate her first clutch and caught a lot of heat from people who didn't support incubating at fluctuating temperatures...

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Originally Posted by RegiusCo.com

The rumor out there is that African breeders are purposely manipulating temps and humidity in order to hatch those wacky patterned CH imports we are seeing every year.

We all have a few dinkers hoping to prove out, if this is the case, we should be hatching out many nice normals.

Any thoughts?

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if the temperature and humidity levels are manipulating the appearance of the hatchlings then i would think that their phenotype is not genetically inheritable and is unique to that animal alone due to those specific levels.

so if they look the way they do because of "not normal" temp and humidity levels during incubation, would breeding two "not normal" incubation level bps together get you "not normal" looking balls from their clutch at "normal" incubation levels.

or if you were to incubate their eggs at "not normal" incubation levels and got not normal hatchling then is it because of an inheritable gene or "not normal" incubation levels???

i think if the appearance of an animal is manipulated by some incubation technique then the phenotype is not inheritable and just a reaction to the incubation process.

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Originally Posted by bigballs

i think if the appearance of an animal is manipulated by some incubation technique then the phenotype is not inheritable and just a reaction to the incubation process.

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I think that is what he was saying here:

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Originally Posted by RegiusCo.com

We all have a few dinkers hoping to prove out, if this is the case, we should be hatching out many nice normals.

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Originally Posted by Jerhart

and if there is a guy over there doing this, and it IS affecting his results...what can ya do about it? :hmm::2cent:

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Stop buying from Africa and buy exclusively from Breeders here in the states that do not import :gj:

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Originally Posted by RegiusCo.com

The rumor out there is that African breeders are purposely manipulating temps and humidity in order to hatch those wacky patterned CH imports we are seeing every year.

We all have a few dinkers hoping to prove out, if this is the case, we should be hatching out many nice normals.

Any thoughts?

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I would think that it is possible to produce genetic defects by manipulating temps / humidity.. Simply because you are playing with the environment when the snakes are in a very fragile state. Some "bad" gene replication early in development and bam you have a new morph.. However not every odd pattern will be genetic.. just think about it, all these morph's are coming from somewhere. You never know how/when you could unlock something!

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Originally Posted by addsdad

I think that is what he was saying here:

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im sorry but i dont see how those two statements are related...

i was reflecting on my thoughts about the mentioned rumour as was asked by Marc.

maybe you didnt understand what i was trying to say?