so i had heard...

[Failshed]

now don't throw me into the fire, but i had heard some things about two morphs that sort of disturbed me... Mainly because i was looking into acquiring them in the near future.

1. Female caramel albinos will not lay eggs... I was told that if i could produce a photo of a female caramel on eggs i would receive my next morph for free.

2. Black pastels when bred together, in an attempt to make the super black pastel, will most likely come out of the egg "dinked".

I was wondering if there is any truth to either of these. I do know that caramels have a higher chance coming out "dinked", and have seen the pics.

thanks all,
Jon

[Turbo Serpent]

They dont come out 'dinked'.... the word is kinked, like a hose.

Super Black pastels have a duckbill deformity on occasion but no kinking. The Caramel Albinos kink.

And AFAIK there is a member on here who had viable eggs laid by a female Caramel last year.

[Failshed]

pics would prove helpful. lol!

kinked that's the word i was looking for (note the "") LOL!

any others for yay or nay?

thanks
jon

[mason]

You can get eggs from a caramel female it's just that breeders find visual x hets provide better outcrossing and less kinked babies. Some caramel albino breederings can produce kinked (spine) babies. Outcrossing helps this (IE taking the time and care to strengthen your caramel albino line by outcrossing to unrealted normal females ir unrealted het females of other compatible lines.

Both super black pastels and super cinnamon hatchlings have a tendancy to appear slighty wrong in the face/eyes ,people refer to this as "duckbilling".I've no idea if it's all or some of them i've not seen enough of them personally to comment but I have seen it. Other black pastel and cinnie crosses don't suffer though so no worries producing pewters, black pastel fires/albinos/mojaves/clowns pieds (etc etc etc)!

I think some super lesser BlueELs maydo this too? Not sure about that though.

There are problems out there, like the spider head wobble. Responsible breeding helps.

I think with a bit of hunting around on various forums and message boards (don't forget to ask the persons permission) you'll find a picture of a caramel on eggs!

[Stewart_Reptiles]

1. Female caramel albinos will not lay eggs... I was told that if i could produce a photo of a female caramel on eggs i would receive my next morph for free.

Well female caramel do lay eggs http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...hlight=caramel

2. Black pastels when bred together, in an attempt to make the super black pastel, will most likely come out of the egg "dinked".

Duckbill can be an issue with super cinny or super black pastel, this is why you should outcross as much you can.

I was wondering if there is any truth to either of these. I do know that caramels have a higher chance coming out "dinked", and have seen the pics.

Yes caramel do kink but many have been produced kink free as well.

The bottom line is that regardless of you are plan on getting into to your homework and remember that when breeding animals not everything always goes as plan either and you can very well produced a deformed hatchling regardless of the morphs or have hatchlings that do not make it.

[WingedWolfPsion]

I think there are some misconceptions about the role good breeding practices play in the defects common to certain morphs.
Spiders are almost exclusively outcrossed. No one bothers to breed them together anymore, because no super-spiders have been produced. As a result, the wise assumption is that homozygous spider is lethal, and none ever hatch. Why lose 25% of a clutch by breeding spider X spider?
The spider head-wobble, head-tilt, and other ataxia signs continue. They crop up in the offspring of spiders that don't have the trait, too. At the moment, there is no good evidence that this trait is not directly linked to the spider gene itself--if it is, that means it cannot be bred out, period. You can breed spiders with less wobble to possibly minimize the trait, but never eliminate it.

The cinnamon duck-billing is ubiquitous to cinnamons--like the spider wobble, it's part of the cinnamon gene, and cannot be bred out. Like spiders, cinnamons are heavily outcrossed. The homozygous cinnamon naturally shows the trait to a more marked degree than the heterozygous form. Duckbilling seems to be harmless.

The kinking in caramels is not well understood, but it ALSO appears to be part of the caramel gene, as many attempts have been made to breed it out, and all have failed so far. However, I have recently heard that someone MIGHT have tentatively figured out how to minimize or eliminate this problem by incubating caramel eggs at much lower temperatures than most people use--86 to 87F. It's worth a try. If it doesn't work, I envision that caramels will probably slowly be replaced in favor by the very similar-looking Criders, which aren't prone to kinking.

There is no evidence to suggest that irresponsible breeding has anything at all to do with any of the above problems or quirks. Genetic mutations sometimes have more to them than appears on the surface alone.

[rabernet]

As a result, the wise assumption is that homozygous spider is lethal, and none ever hatch. Why lose 25% of a clutch by breeding spider X spider?

Why would the assumption be that 25% of a spider to spider breeding never hatch? Has anyone gathered those statistics when they were trying to see if there was a super? I've never heard that people were experiencing a 75% hatch rate of spider to spider breedings.

Why isn't the assumption just that there is no super spider, lethal or not?

[Turbo Serpent]

Why would the assumption be that 25% of a spider to spider breeding never hatch? Has anyone gathered those statistics when they were trying to see if there was a super? I've never heard that people were experiencing a 75% hatch rate of spider to spider breedings.

Why isn't the assumption just that there is no super spider, lethal or not?

I think he was simply putting that number out there because that is the estimated percentage that would be homozygous lethal in a spider x spider pairing.

25% Homozygous Spider
50% Heterozygous Spider
25% Normal

So if homozygous spiders were lethal, breeders would lose one quarter of a clutch to egg death, in a spider x spider pairing.

[Failshed]

Well female caramel do lay eggs http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...hlight=caramel

Yes caramel do kink but many have been produced kink free as well.

The bottom line is that regardless of you are plan on getting into to your homework and remember that when breeding animals not everything always goes as plan either and you can very well produced a deformed hatchling regardless of the morphs or have hatchlings that do not make it.

I see 6 slugs there . Looks like they got 2 eggs in to years of breeding. I was quoting my source directly. If they can lay eggs (which you showed there) that's not looking to good. I understand the chance game here, but if they start kinking, not producing viable eggs, and these deformities can't be bred out, i don't think i'm going to get involved with a project that would give my babies a less that normal life.

My spider has a slight head wobble, and that bothers me enough. I completely understand that when you're messing with genes things may go haywire. I'd just rather go the safe route with the morphs I choose. It will in the long run save me the heart break of dealing with kinking, and having to choose what type of life that animal will have, if any.

Thanks for the input guys!
Jon

[astaley]

Was going to post this on the older thread, and probably will since i promised, but just today we found this, (Caramel X Orange Ghost paring)



Granted there were a bunch of slugs, but we did get 2 viable eggs (7 slugs). We figured this girl would slug out, she refused to go to the warm spot to internally incubate.