Lesser/Butter

[mricyfire]

I was searching around and was unable to find my answer so I thought I would ask.

Trying to find out what makes a butter. I was reading somewhere that a lesser can create a butter, but a butter can't create a lesser...how?

What do you breed with a Lesser to make a butter?

[lord jackel]

According to Ralph Davis's website http://www.ralphdavisreptiles.com/ma...its/butter.asp
The Butter is a morph onto itself and not related to the Lesser. Supposedly the butter looks similar but is more yellow.

Unless his site/info is wrong and outdated. I am sure someone can confirm/deny this info.

[mricyfire]

Here it says differently http://www.8ballpythons.com/lesser.htm

I'm so confused... A Platinum is a Butter right...and Lesser Platinum is the other..or are Platinums and Butter different?

[qiksilver]

Platty daddy i think was its name is where the lessers came from, Ralph Davis imported him and was surprised that the clutches he sired did not quite look like him, so they became lesser platinums. The butters are from a different imported snake, and while they may look similar no one is sure yet if they are the same morph.
hopefully this helps, and if i got something wrong please correct me

[lord jackel]

Here it says differently http://www.8ballpythons.com/lesser.htm

I'm so confused... A Platinum is a Butter right...and Lesser Platinum is the other..or are Platinums and Butter different?

I think you are getting confused as the link to Adam's site doesn't mention Butters at all. Butters are NOT related to Platinums. THE Platinum was the first (imported morph by Ralph Davis) that when bred to a normal produced Lesser Platinums. There is hope that some combination of Lesser to something will produce a Platinum again (but as of now this hasn't happened...someone correct me if wrong )

Butter Does Not Equal Lesser or Platinum
Platinum + normal produces Lessers
Lessers + something hopefully will product Platinums

[mricyfire]

I love this site...I have learned more about ball pythons than I ever imagined. It is funny but I think I understand biology better now then i did in school.

[MarkS]

There is hope that some combination of Lesser to something will produce a Platinum again (but as of now this hasn't happened...someone correct me if wrong )

OK, you're wrong.

From what I remember. Ralph imported the original platinum. He bred this male to some normal females and produced a fairly even split of normal looking babies and babies that were different looking. These different looking babies were similar to the original platinum but weren't as nice (I think the term he used was 'they weren't even in the same zipcode') These different babies he termed 'Lesser platinums'. Fortunatly he also kept all the 'normal' looking babies as well. When he bred the normal babies together, he produced nothing but more normal looking babies... HOWEVER, when he bred the original male platinum to some of his normal looking daughters he produced some more real platinums (ie: not lessers) So there is apparently a hidden gene in the platty daddy (the original male platinum) That doesn't show up in a first generation breeding. I believe that he has also produced platinums by breeding lessers to these normal looking siblings. I believe that Ralph now has a number of real platinums but I don't know if he's ever sold any.

The butters are very similar looking to the lessers and originate from another wild caught animal imported by another breeder. (whose name eludes me right now) Other people also have imported similar looking animals, I beleive that Sean at EBN imported a snake a few years back that he calls an 'African Lesser'. Interestingly Ralph bred a butter to one of his normal siblings and produced the butter version of a real platinum. So, it appears that the key to producing a real platinum is the normal looking offspring from the original platty daddy.

At least thats how I remember it.

Mark

[mricyfire]

This Platty Daddy seems like some kind of legend. Pretty cool stuff.

[tweets_4611]

Ok, now I'm really confused as well I was thinking that butters and platinums were different. From what I understand, Platty Daddy started it all, and not too long ago they were able to produce actual platinums again. I hadn't heard anything about Butters during all of it.

On Bob Clark's site, it's showing Butters and Platinums as the same thing??
http://www.bobclark.com/d_learn.asp?id=130&cat=learn

It seems this thread is headed towards them being different snakes, which is the impression I got....I'm confused....

[qiksilver]

I don't know why that pic is labelled like that, but the lessers and the butters were started by completely different snakes collected at different times according to everything else that I've heard. So that means theyre not the same thing. There has been some thought that it could be a related trait though which would mean similar, but not the same.